Dear Editor:
For the last three years, I have been traveling with the escorted tours sponsored by the Museum of Postal History. Although I have enjoyed the numerous vacations I have taken with family and friends, it has occurred to me that having someone else plan the trip and be “in charge” has added something delightful to the experience of traveling.
Some people have asked me if I miss the independence of just going wherever I want, whenever I want.  But the truth of the matter is we are given choices throughout the trip.  Just last week, my husband and I went on the MPH tour of Nashville, Tennessee.  We relaxed on the bus watching movies and chatting with several old and new friends.  We stopped frequently to stretch and for meals- forgetting about the chore of driving.  The miles just seemed to fly by. 
In Nashville, we were taken to several places off the beaten path – as our tour guide, Gary Levitt would say, “We go where only the natives go”. The Monell Manor, the Pied Piper, and the Parthenon were places I would have never thought to visit.  Each of our meals provided great food and several choices. I had never heard the expression of a “meat-and-three”, but I know now what southern hospitality is all about.  Part of the fun was to be able to pick on our tour guide when the GPS took us to someone’s private home rather than the breakfast restaurant where we were supposed to be.  But the real fun was when we finally got there. This small restaurant buried in the middle of a residential section of Nashville was like stepping back in time.  The menus were on vinyl records tucked inside old jacket covers.  The atmosphere took on a new meaning for us as we all had our picture taken with a stand up of Liberace dressed in a red-white-and blue cheerleader’s outfit complete with baton and boots. Besides the great restaurants and cafes, we enjoyed the entertainment at the Grand Old Opry watching Randy Travis perform and the show on the General Jackson Riverboat. There was plenty of free time both at our hotel – the magnificent Gaylord Opryland Hotel and in the heart of downtown Nashville with all the honky tonks and clubs. 
The old saying leave the driving to us – has taken on a bigger meaning now that I have enjoyed the escorted tours. We are really looking forward to our next trips with MPH Tours to New York City in October and Chicago in December.
Marg Ashby

Dear Editor,
I would like to be very realistic about the canal situation. Please, at your leisure go to Cleveland or Clime Street bridge and just study the entire picture. The canal and landscape have become grown over and ignored. Now the talk is possible sink holes, smell, trash depositing in the canal, maintenance and lets not forget the green slime of past years. Allow all land owners along the canal to purchase land to extend their lots into what is now the canal. You take that money and tile the canal (like the parking lot behind main) from city limits south to the rail road tracks. I do realize it would be a costly venture and the land sale would not fund the entirety, details to be worked on. The two bridges could be removed and all of the above problems are gone! To those wanting to preserve history, take a page from the city of Saint Marys and focus on just part of the canal. It would be a lot easier to fix up from the tracks to Second Street rather than all of the canal. You can’t move forward by looking back!
John Rode
Delphos

Sooooo. Seems time goes even faster when you’re on vacation. It’s hard to believe since it already felt like it was in warp speed.
How does it happen? I’m minding my own business, on “vacation” (or rather a staycation) and the next thing I know, it’s three days later and I haven’t really done much of anything even though my days felt like they were pretty full.

It’s that time of year again. As my faithful read this I should be back home, snuggled in bed with the furry one and recovering from a fly-by-night trip to the Columbus airport to drop my better half off for his flight to the Baltimore/Washington Airport. He will then be whisked away by his sister and family to Virginia Beach. Yes, it’s time for the fabulous Lotus to dance her heart out, bring home trophies and just generally amaze her uncle. Not that it’s that hard. We think she’s pretty amazing just by being here.

DEAR EDITOR:
Recently the ODNR gave the people who love or hate the canal a window of opportunity. Some say why didn’t they save the fish or call some employee an idiot. But lets look at the opportunity it presents. Why not rally around the canal commission and do something to make the canal a fishing hole, like it was for me in the 50’s.
Could we move quickly and get a plan in place to  dredge the canal. Oh yes the negative thinkers say it will just silt back in. I say mother nature will do what she will do. ODNR says we are small fish and there is no money in the budget. Well, we keep asking for a smaller government so maybe we should do what my dad, Don Patthoff, did in 40s. He went around Delphos collecting ashes from home coal furnaces and built a sinter track at the Delphos Stadium. What a dumb idea; it’s work.
I haven’t lived in Delphos since I went away to college but I still call it my home town. Joan, my wife owns a local business, so I do get to help maintain the building on the beautiful Miami-Erie Canal. I had the pleasure to pick up, by hand, 36 dead fish to control the odor and the maggots that eat the flesh off of the fishes bones. Right now I am, by rake and shovel, building the bank back up to repair the erosion that has already taken place. While sweating in the 100-degree weather, I wondered what can we do now while others just say it is a pity and it smells (not as bad as cleaning the hog barn at my uncles farm).
There are a lot of good people in the area that will pitch in if there is a plan. I’m not a community leader and I don’t feel it is my place to tell the city fathers what to do. I am a dreamer of sorts and wonder what might be.
Some people could operate an excavator to dredge the canal. Some could lend the canal commission their dump trucks. Some can help place riprap to control future erosion. Some can raise money to pay for fuel and equipment rental. Some can work with our government people and see what can be done in funding and materials (not what can’t be done). Some can cook or bring water to the working folk. The athletes that need to build strong bodies could shovel muck.
The dirt could be used to build a sledding hill, or a soap box derby run or a place for the student athletes to run up hill.
The musings of one man. What could be? Gee it sounds like a Shirley Temple movie.
Dennis J. Patthoff, Lima