It’s astounding how people freely dispense their opinions on social media when they have no idea what they are talking about.

There was loads of disinformation in the comment section under the Courier’s Facebook post about the new median on Morgan Road. I’m talking about major league erroneous and wildly speculative BS.

What I have to say is not going to make any friends in southwest Ceres, at least the ones “squealing like stuck pigs” – an old farmer’s adage – how they can no longer make a left turn into the Quik Stop and shopping center at the northeast corner of Morgan and Service. Apparently they feel unjustly burdened with having to spend the few seconds waiting for a green light to make a U-turn.

Where do I start with their disinformation?

Let’s start with the person claiming the city engineer was paid off by the new AM/PM to install a median as a way of forcing folks to shop there instead of at the Quik Stop to the east. This half-cocked comment came from Omar Barrita who opined: “They did it to direct traffic to the new business only. Someone must be getting a nice bonus this year.”

I have gotten to know Kevin Waugh and have the highest opinion of the man. He is professional to the core. The suggestion that he was paid off is ludicrous and appalling.

The AM/PM project isn’t the sole factor in causing the city to build the median but the project was paid for by the new project. The other factor a lot of folks are forgetting about is that Service/Morgan is no longer a four-way stop; it’s governed by a traffic signal. That means north and south drivers can run through there at much faster speeds because before they HAD TO STOP AT THE STOP SIGN AND ACCELERATE FROM THERE.

If you’ve seen as many red light runners as I have, you’d know that left turns that close to an intersection are dangerous.

The other total load of crap came from someone who suggested that the city engineer was so dense that he was the one who signed off on that misaligned driveway access on Service Road between the Walmart and the Ceres Gateway Center.

Wrong. Waugh was hired in 2022, long after the city allowed the Walmart Supercenter to place its entrance where it is. A little bird told me that it was then City Manager/Planning Director Tom Westbrook who approved that.

For all the squawking, Siboney Mendez was the voice of reason, asking “Can’t you just make a U-turn?” Then came the “yeah, buts…”

Of course, some suggested the city didn’t notify the citizenry about plans for a median.  Andy Constantinou, who once served on the council and should know better, stated: “A letter informing the property owners and businesses should have been sent. Not everyone gets the Courier. Seems like staff failed to follow proper protocol.”

If anyone in Ceres cares about what city government is doing, they’d better subscribe to the Courier or just stay out of the loop. You won’t find our level of coverage in the Bee, that’s for sure.

I suppose Constantinou would have the city sending letters to everyone living on that side of town. But when his comment was challenged by an Evelyn Vasquez he answered, saying: “they did the bare minimum in informing them. That’s how you bury what you don’t want people to fight.”

Seems to me if somebody wasn’t doing their job it was the citizens who live in that part of town. During the Ceres Planning Commission’s advertised May 1 public hearing on the proposed AM/PM project, the matter of the median did come up. But only a few were in the audience and nobody protested. What I remember was folks wondering if there would be charging stations at the new AM/PM.

Griping about things after the cement hardens is due to dereliction of citizen duty, not the city’s part.

Particularly irksome was a comment left by Drea Arellano who believes if a crowd believes one thing it trumps the wisdom of licensed engineers who adhere to safety standards based on decades of correcting fatal flaws. She posted: “It seems like the ceres courier or whoever is running this page does not care about the majority of our opinions. 1,500+ signatures to remove it and the entire thread is the CC defending whoever made the decision to keep the median. Obviously they don’t care what we think.”

Okay, yeah right. And I suppose I’m supposed to like how Biden has destroyed life in America because 81 million fell for him too.

Maybe we’re defending the decision because it’s a safety measure.

I once complained about center medians until I learned why cities install them. I won’t forget the fatal crash that happened about 20-25 years ago when a woman made a left turn onto Hatch Road from the KFC and her car was T-boned by a speeding westbound car. This woman merely wanted to get some food for her and her other occupant and ended up dying doing it. I was there after the bodies were removed but food and drink had been exploded everywhere in the interior.

Following the crash the city installed either delineators or a median. They’d be alive today had a median been installed to prevent left turns. FYI, that entrance/exit to KFC was close to the Hatch/Mitchell signalized intersection just as the Quik Stop intersection is to Service/Morgan.

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When you’ve had a personal interaction with a celebrity, news of their death is felt more deeply than if you had never met them.

My encounter with Rosalynn Carter more than 43 years ago came back in full focus when I heard the former first lady passed away Nov. 19 at age 96. She was celebrated at her funeral last week.

I was among the early-risers who were in line to snag the best seats for Carter’s Town Hall meeting in the Merced Junior College auditorium on the Fourth of July 1980. That I was even there was a stroke of luck as all had to obtain a ticket by lottery through the Congressman Tony Coelho’s office. I and my wanna-be girlfriend Susan Hackamack of Modesto were lucky and both were in line by 4:30 a.m.

After hours of waiting outside, we snagged seats two rows behind where Mrs. Carter would be sitting with former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown. I wanted to be on the end so that I could possibly shake President Jimmy Carter’s hand if he strolled by. In fact, I made a large sign that read, “Mr. President, Please Shake Our Hands.”

The emcee told us the presidential chopper was setting down outside but we could hear it through the walls. The choppers were in place to whisk the Carters to Modesto after the Merced event. Outside were my grandparents who were along the rope. Later I learned that my grandfather was able to shake Carter’s hand before me and would remark for years that he never felt a hand as soft as his.

With “Hail to the Chief” playing, an energetic President Carter bounded into the auditorium which just exploded with cheering and thunderous applause. He stood on the platform and waved. I watched the president’s eyes scanned the crowd and stop on my sign that I was holding high above my head. I could read his lips, “I will.” I just had communicated with the president of the United States and he answered!

The speech went on and there was a Q&A with citizens but I was ready for it to be over with for I had a hand to shake.

About an hour later the event was over. President Carter made his way onto the floor and started working the crowd as a surge of bodies pushed around him. After seconds of maneuvering, I made my way to President Carter, who was pumping both hands into the crowd for those eager to touch a president. I remember grasping the top of his left hand, my fingers pressing into that soft palm. I don’t remember passing through any metal detectors – we likely may have been wanded – but as the president stood before me I hoped nobody would try to shoot him as he was about my height. I was a student of history and knew that William McKinley, James Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt, George Wallace and Robert Kennedy all had been shot in crowds.

Mrs. Carter was sweeping along right behind her husband. I held my Town Hall ticket and a pen in my left hand and reached out with my right hand to shake hers. I asked her to sign my ticket. As our hands were locked in a shake she looked over her shoulder at the Secret Service and said, “Honey, they won’t let me but I’ll tell you what. If you send that to the White House I will sign it for you.”

She seemed just as warm and caring as she came across on TV. She called me “honey” an endearing term you’d expect any syrupy southern woman would use.

My handshake with Rosalynn Carter seemed longer than 10 seconds and this 18-year-old felt like the most important person in the room.

As it would turn out later, I mailed that ticket to the White House, explaining that Mrs. Carter herself told me to send it for her autograph so the request had better be honored. Weeks of waiting turned into months and let’s just say I never saw my prized ticket again.

I continued to watch President Carter move around the gym as he seemed to magnetize a cluster of folks reaching out to touch. I stood upon one of the chairs which now were scattered everywhere in helter-skelter fashion. I reached out to tap Gov. Brown – he was virtually forgotten in the presence of the president – on the shoulder and he spun around and we shook hands. He seemed surprised that a young man in 1980 would recognize him and desired a handshake and I believe he actually thanked me. Brown, by the way, was the governor who accompanied John F. Kennedy to Yosemite in August 1962 from Merced.

I stepped up on another chair to track Carter’s movement, my back turned to the network cameras in the back of the room. All of a sudden I felt my shirt being tugged downward and I nearly lost my balance. I spun around and saw the rude culprit who yanked me off the chai was Leslie Stahl of CBS News. Apparently I was in the way of their camera. I would love to see that video footage today.

The president boarded the awaiting helicopter to whisk him off to Modesto, loosely following Santa Fe Avenue and over Empire on their way to the landing zone at Christine Sipherd Elementary School. From there the presidential limo motored west down Orangeburg Avenue and south on Lillian Way to the Wycliffe Drive home of attorney Frank Damrell. Attending the Democratic fundraiser luncheon was a young county supervisor named Gary Condit. You may have heard of him.

I got to the school in time to see the motorcade enter Sipherd School’s playground and Jimmy and Rosalynn walk to the helicopter. I felt intensely patriotic to see Marine One – there were actually two duplicate helicopters on hand – lift off, taking the Carters overhead in a circle over area, Jimmy plainly visible waving out the window. Then it was back to Castle Air Force Base and a flight to Miami, Florida and back home in Plains, Georgia that night.

I was so glad that Modesto had not become a Dallas that day.

It was actually the second time that I saw Mrs. Carter. As a 15-year-old, I was in decent range from the podium on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol where Jimmy Carter was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1977.  I remember her teal coat and Joan Mondale’s red dress. I could see Hubert Humphrey, who was ill with cancer and would die almost a full year later, in his tall ushanka hat looking like some Russian oligarch. Little Amy Carter was standing on a chair, Tip O’Neill, Robert Byrd and Cyrus Vance all standing in the front row.

I remember seeing the white-haired robed Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger and President Ford. It was surreal. 

After the event, Congressman John J. McFall invited me and my parents to a luncheon in the House office building where the young son of John Garamendi (who would later become lieutenant governor) goofing off under the table. He is now a Calaveras County supervisor and his dad a congressman.

I regret never having gotten back to Plains, Georgia to attend church with the Carters as I heard they would greet visitors all the time.

My heart went out to 99-year-old Jimmy Carter when I saw him on TV at his wife’s funeral, looking like he won’t last another month.

Someday I hope to visit their graves with fond memories and how they were linked to the shared experience with my grandparents who are also departed.

But it’s going to nag me, just where did my special ticket that she said she would sign end up?

* * * * *

No mother in the maternity ward in the hospital looks down at her baby and thinks. “My baby is gonna grow up to be a fentanyl victim or a doped out homeless person.” Mothers wish the best for their babies, but yet do they always deliver the best childhood for those babies? Each parent needs to ask themselves what will they do to make sure their children don’t end up as total wreck in life. Will that mother love her child every day and spend time with them in a kind and loving way? Will that mother sit down every night and read to her child? Will that father provide loving guidance and affection as well? Will those parents take the child to church and teach them about God and explain that we are creations of a loving God? Will those parents teach their children about being kind? Will that parent keep a watchful eye on those who hang around that child as they grow up?

There is so much that a parent can do to instill, values and wisdom and rules to live by that will prevent them from leading miserable lives. That’s no guarantee of a successful life of course, because children grow up to adults who have a free will but once a solid foundation has been laid for children, the better their chances in life.

Parents do more than your best.

* * * * *

Our smug governor last week debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and tried to make the case for his style of leadership, which has been failing California in a big way.

Here are some facts:

• Employment rose in Florida by more than one million jobs since January 2019 while California’s dropped by 85,000.

• California’s unemployment rate is the second highest in the nation at 4.8 percent while Florida’s is at 2.8 percent.

• An estimated 172,521 were homeless in California in 2022 while Florida houses 25,959.

• Over one million Californians left the state from July 2019 to July 2022 while Florida grew by more than 700,000. 

• Just 30 percent of California fourth-graders were rated as proficient in math despite spending about 45 percent more in K-8 education while that number in Florida is at 41 percent.

* * * * *

Things are so great and wonderful in California that a number of cities are placing yellow reflective backplates on their traffic signals because the power outages have been great and when the power goes out at night you’ll be able to see where to stop. Just check out what Modesto has done.

Caltrans is doing this to every signal they maintain.  It’s part of the response to the public safety power shutdowns that have been happening during high fire danger events, which many say is because the state isn’t keeping up with forest maintenance.

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com