Why be so rude to Putnam County Fair volunteers?

To the Editor:

We have one of the best county 4-H fairs in the state of Indiana and it is made up of many, many, many volunteers. We have the Fair Board officers, the Fair Board, the superintendents from each department, the 4-H Council and then these volunteers ask even more volunteers to work various jobs. One of these is parking cars.

For many years the Roachdale VFW Post has sold tickets and parked cars. Not only are they veterans, they are veterans of foreign wars, mostly World War II and Vietnam. They have helped to make freedom free for all of us, and they deserve our respect. Unfortunately, this is not happening.

The VFW Post receives compensation, which the post uses in ways to benefit the community and its residents, but the veterans themselves do not receive one cent for days of working long hours, usually in the hot sun.

I feel we are lucky to be purchasing some of the Windy Hill land, and this will make it possible for our fair to expand, namely we will have plenty of parking for future years. However, on big nights at the fair many people have to park and walk further than they would like. This seems to be upsetting to some people, and they curse, scream, carry on and are out of control at the workers who park cars.

Many of these veterans have had to walk miles through dangerous territories, and it seems that our visitors should not be demeaning to the volunteers because they have to walk a short distance. It has gotten to the point that it is most difficult to find anyone to park cars because of the way some people speak to them. One even called a 12-year-old boy that was helping his veteran grandfather an SOB. Now that is really disgusting. This is happening right here in our community.

If you don’t want to have to walk so far, then get to the fair earlier.

Please treat all the volunteers with respect. The workers are parking you as close as they can. Instead of yelling at them, please thank them for volunteering their service at the Putnam County Fair.

Raymond McCloud

Roachdale