The Daily News Leader from Staunton, Virginia • Page B5

OPINIONS NEWS 5B downtown gift cards. stauntondowntown.org 540.332.3867 Shop Staunton First and spend the Gift Card that works like cash in over 130 Downtown locations. See stauntondowntown.org/gift-cards. NV-0000183262 SALON PRICE SCHOOL PRICE SALE PRICE Hours: Sat.8:45–1:30 there three days a week running, peddling, pushing, pulling, grunting and groaning and socializing. Ifeel like the first of the day, etting there before the sun rises.

A nd getting it out of the way. he best time of day, before everyone gets busy messing it up. The first few weeks into any new year can get crowded, but things thin ut quickly as resolutions are broken, eaving the hard core to carry on. A large part of my routine is seeing and talking and sharing tacit moral support. Iknow I get it.

What those people who congregate egularly at and or breakfast and conviviality call themselves: Over-the-Hill Of course, I think that none of us at the Fitness Center would ever admit to that sobriquet. Age seems never to be spoken about unless in jest. there and exercise regularly so we must be doing something right. We greet each other and maybe pass on a joke heard or something to licit a smile. A nd safety in numbers.

A the time of day there, there are few of the younger Bros powerlift- ing at the squat rack, making us feel old. ust us the Rooster Squad. I think any of us follow the ottest fitness trends, like exercise, the new adjective buzzword for everything from salads to toilet paper. And most of us carry those verpriced plastic bottles of water and ake dramatic slugs of them every minute or two. We hardly work up a sweat, and if we want water we visit the water cooler.

free. Sometimes I feel our exercise routine is a replacement for going to work. or 30 or 40 years we held down jobs and got into a certain routine. And when we retired, we had to find new routines to replace the old. ut time occasionally takes it toll.

ou start to notice that one of the egulars there anymore. Days and weeks stretch into months. You want to ask. They could have changed exercise ours, or moved away or just have iven it up and let gravity and inertia in. Or maybe Iread the obituaries every morning in the paper, but sometimes I even know their names.

ere today, gone tomorrow. ut to get back to the question. So why do I exercise? No mystery to it. simple. Iwant to live.

Write Fred Pfisterer, a retired editor for The News Leader, at cast.net. Why do I exercise? A simple answer I want to live Fred Pfisterer FOLLOW THE LEADER Iwas trying to explain why I exercise. Something so simple but so hard to o. orders. I feel better when I do.

Habit. It helps ease my rheumatoid arthritis pain. Exercise is a lot like jazz, and to uote Louis Armstrong: you have to a sk what jazz is, never a member of what I think of as the Lifetime Fitness unofficial Rooster Squad. There are other people who may be there to workout earlier in the morning, but the same core group of us is usually Tuesday was a sad day for Staunton, with the death of one of its biggest oosters and an engine in its rebirth. someone I met very early in my Staunton career, but I get to know him until much later.

Like many moving to Staunton for a job, my presence was required here more than a month before my family had housing arranged and furniture oved. So I lived at the Belle Grae Inn Frederick Street. Not the actual bed a nd breakfast in the big mansion house, ut in one of the tastefully appointed a partments on the same block, part of Newtown real estate empire. ach was just right for a month or three, efficient and convenient. It was 1998.

The revival of Newtown was still very much in its early stages, and Michael was the architect, orches- trator and cheerleader. Especially cheerleader. But while the Belle Grae was home, it was really just a launching pad for all of his interests and passions. They were varied and hey were legion. As people reacted this week to his death, clear just how many things he was interested in and had a hand in shaping.

Various groups posted on social media, mentioning his support or involvement. Anyone who met him had the sense he dabbled in many things, but not sure anyone knew the full breadth of his interests and contacts, except, of course, Michael. But there were hints. On Nov. 11, he wanted to talk.

He offered to come downtown, but I had seen him at a social event a few days efore and knew he was having trouble etting around. I met him at his shop in ewtown, an antique store that he stocked largely with those things left over from all the buildings he once owned in the neighborhood he once allied from decay. chatted. We talked about those hings where our interests intersected. Staunton.

Haiti. Church. His standing invitation for me to join his weekly rayer group meeting, which always remind him was better scheduled for a freelancer or retiree than someone who worked a regular job. Then we got down to it. The reason for the meeting.

His most recent passion: west end. He saw it as the next Newtown, ignored, work-a-day, in places blighted, unremarkable and unadorned. West Beverley Street with its mishmash of churches, social services, mom and pop retail, rentals and peeling paint. He was passionate. It could be better.

It needed to be better. Someone had to do something, and hat someone was going to be him. eeded to be him. He saw it as a suf- ering place, and maybe it was that suffering with which he identified. He had been through a lot.

The 2008 death of his partner in life and business, Ken icks. The foreclosure auction of most his properties. Lung surgery and a rain aneurysm. Months of rehab. Yet he focused on the suffering of a neigh- borhood, not his own.

had to show me. Right then. We climbed into his pickup and pulled onto Beverley Street. As we started west, he narrated, talking quickly and driving slowly. Very slowly.

So and so owns this. I am going to open acoffee shop there. This person will do this if we get him some help and someone else has volunteered. Look at the great job they did with their paint. That building is going to be full again.

He saw only possibilities, not problems, not blight, and not the long line of cars forming behind our 10 mph parade through the heart of the West End. pulled into a parking lot to turn a round near the outskirts. At imes he had to stop talking to catch his breath, but the narration continued seamlessly. Over there, Fisher auto parts used to ave a store. asked them to at east reopen a counter so the building i empty.

Might happen. He wanted to set up an office over there, but afford the rent. going to do something there. Then we were back at his shop, right next door to where he lived with Craig and Shirley Peterson, saintly people who helped him once he could no longer live alone. offered to give me a ride back owntown, but as the sun set it was a reat time to walk.

He agreed, and said he needed a walk, too. He started with down the hill on Beverley toward downtown. Slowly. Carefully. At the first corner, he said turn and complete a loop for his daily exercise.

When he turned, I turned with him rather than going back to work. I wanted to make sure he got home. He once had had his office in that uilding. He once had apartments all ver Newtown. He saw the potential.

done. He giving up. ut he knew his time was limited. He as going to see this through before he died. wished he knew someone who could go in on buying that house over there.

for sale and would make a great rental. Know anyone? No? Oh well. He said he was going to put a garden where that parking lot is. It will be beautiful. He planned to live in that house and rent out part of it.

Finally, we circled the block. It was nearly dark. We stopped and talked for a moment efore he went into his door. We talked about getting together for lunch, just as surely as he talked about all the things buy, repair, resurrect. As I walked back down the street again, this time alone, I thought about my asking him why he was so interested in west end.

It like Newtown, where he and Ken as younger men had staked their claim, not just with time but with treasure. He said it was because west end needed it. It deserved attention from the rest of Staunton and had been ignored. He said it was because he ared. He said it with earnest urgency, ike he could feel it in his bones.

A nd probably the best epitaph Ican think of for Michael Organ. When it came to our community, our people, our neighborhoods, he cared. est in peace, Michael. mail David Fritz, executive editor The News Leader, at leader.com. Michael Organ made a difference David Fritz EXECUTIVE EDITOR THE NEWS LEADER Michael Organ shows off the Bell dining facilities while chef Ken Hicks talks on the phone in the doorway in 2008.

We have a sad situation in America Ican no longer sit and read your paper ithout voicing my disgust at the way the politicians have tried to divert our at- ention from the present and past. The war on was the first that failed. ext came the on which as also failed. not talking about marijuana. ow we have a lack of medical care for all, rich or poor.

We have climate change. Who knows where that will go? Many little polluters are trying to non-pollute, but the big polluters are fighting tooth and nail to keep polluting our atmosphere. Now the so-called of child is trying to tug at our heart- trings because some think children are more important than old folks, who also have poverty. Old folks are finished and oing to die anyway is the way a lot of people think. Children are our future and should be nourished and educated.

No ne young or old should experience poverty. ut remember the war on poverty ailed. It seems to me the only programs that succeed are wars against other ountries, but not before collateral dam- a ge reaches unimaginable numbers. America is no longer the world leader a nd respected country it once was be- ause of the way the government treats its own people. hen we have the crown prince of clowns trying for nomination for president.

And people are taking him serious- ly. No wonder they respect us anymore. a sad situation when the a country that used to be on top drops all he way to the bottom of the list. NANCY BURBELLA Staunton Iwish Salatin was right. He Joel Salatin is a genius farmer, but his i nterpretation of the views on economics does not hold up.

esus lived in the Roman Empire us was about voluntary, not state, Jan. 12 letter). Rome spent oney on infrastructure and military. he people at the top took all they could from the population and gave them as lit- le as possible. There was no spending to make the lives of ordinary people better.

What Jesus would have thought of gov- ernment spending on medical care or social security is impossible to determine. Salatin is a libertarian, and I would be, oo, if it did not reliably produce massive poverty. There about 196 countries. Not one has low-tax, laissez-faire capitalism ithout also producing a substantial portion of the population living in utter pov- rty. Not one.

if you want small government and unregulated capitalism, you have to be illing to tolerate concentrations of ealth at the top, huge inequalities of income and wealth, a weak middle class, a nd a large poverty class. I wish Salatin was right. He But I love his hams. ATRICIA HUNT Staunton LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.