Letters: Diablo’s beacon | Water cuts | Gun safety | Pulling together

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Shine beacon more
often to honor heroes

For only the second time since it was rebuilt, we stood in the middle of our court Dec. 7 to see and appreciate the honor to our Greatest Generation and their sacrifice during the attack on Pearl Harbor. I refer to the beacon at the top of Mount Diablo.

After all the money spent on this project, it seems that broadcasting our appreciation for those warriors once per year with the beacon isn’t enough. I recommend the light shine over the Bay Area on Memorial Day and Veterans Day (for certain) and possibly Independence Day and Presidents’ Day.

Kudos also to those people who refurbished the beacon. Their exceptional work should be displayed a few more times.

Robin Hall
Walnut Creek

Drastic water cuts
raise fire danger

Re. “State to stop water deliveries,” Page A1, Dec. 2:

Although water rationing is needed, care needs to be taken to not make other things worse. If no outside watering is allowed (as mentioned by one district) I think there needs to be some provision for watering a few key trees and shrubs in people’s gardens.

Why? Because if a large number of the trees and shrubs in an area die, the fire danger is increased exponentially.

Idell Weydemeyer
El Sobrante

Early safety training
will raise gun safety

Burt Bogardus writes in last Sunday’s paper (“Toy guns as gifts teach poor lessons,” Letters to the Editor, Page A16, Dec. 5): “Guns are not playthings.” I totally agree.

Therefore, to teach proper, effective lessons, guns should not be toys. They should be real, as were mine when I received my first gun for Christmas at age 6: an air rifle — but only after receiving proper firearms instruction. Subsequently, I was given a .22-caliber rifle at age 8 and more guns thereafter for Christmas, as was the norm in my family and others where I grew up. As a result of these Christmas gifts, I became a safe, responsible gun owner. Unfortunately, the practice of gun gifts is now considered “politically incorrect.”

With proper gun training, starting at an early age, we’d see far fewer of today’s sad newspaper headlines.

Mike Varner
Walnut Creek

In wake of Dec. 7, 1941
nation came together

Reading George Skelton this morning (“‘America has been attacked,’ Mom said to us. ‘… We’re at war,’” Page A7, Dec. 7) brought vivid memories of Dec. 7, 1941, and the succeeding years.

I was 5 years old, and we heard the announcement on the car radio. The ration books, the letters to servicemen dittoed on an inked gelatin pad, my Dad being a neighborhood “warden” and Mom a crossing guard for my elementary school. In later years I was fortunate to meet a distant relation, John Vaessen, who survived the Utah and lived to 100.

Thanks to all who saved our country. We pulled together.

Laura Mattos
Hayward