First, let me state clearly, I love the Toledo Zoo.
Over the past 60 years while raising my children in the Old South End, we have purchased memberships, given gifts of memberships, voted to select ours as the best lights, best Christmas Tree.
Levy for the Zoo? Absolutely. Each and every time. We watched it change and expand in those years, due in part, to some of our taxes.
That is why I cannot understand why a minor courtesy to the Zoo patrons cannot be extended? Why can they not reopen the Broadway entrance?!
Oh, I’ve attended meetings where I heard the reasons, reasons that made sense at the time of the coronavirus — not enough personnel to open a second entrance.
Well seems as if there’s personnel for the shops, food stands, and other needs, but not enough for one admission clerk and a couple of security guards?
Ease of access from the Trail is not a given to those of us who rode the bus down, with the kids, because we only had one car.
Mobility issues in parking on the Trail side, even with a ramp, are not only limiting, but discouraging to those who could take an ADA bus.
I urge the decision makers at the zoo to reconsider, especially in light of the next levy that may be presented.
Some may feel that the zoo is not as important to their tax dollars.
There are still residents who live in the Old South End ... and vote!
M.J. PILCHER
South Toledo
Solar is the best buy
In response to the editorial on solar energy (“Subsidize or restrict?” Jan. 17), yes, solar energy is here and about to expand big time.
Not only is First Solar expanding in Perrysburg, they are building another plant in Southern Ohio and one in Louisiana.
The opponents of solar are desperate to maintain control of the energy market and often are funded by the maneuvering of elected officials.
One only has to take a glimpse at House Bill 6 for clarification here. Nuclear energy represents the most expensive electricity money can buy.
Solar is the cheapest, cleanest, and safest. Once the panels are paid for, sunshine pays the rent.
Agriculture does not stand to lose any acreage to solar fields.
Some farming is already done under raised panels and at some point, corn based ethanol will be phased out.
MARK FARRIS
Monroe
A supreme lesson in a restaurant drive-thru
Robert Z. Kaplan, 1928-2023
My father — even after celebrating his 90th birthday — could hardly imagine a world in which he did not exist.
With that ultimate thing having now happened, I am left to comprehend the world he would not.
And, I will insist on retaining a child’s prerogative to be selfish when I say his death could not have come at a less opportune time; for about whom, other than Bobby Kaplan, could it be said by so many that, even after 94 years on Earth, he died too soon?
I will leave it to others to describe and acclaim his innumerable accomplishments (“ROBERT Z. KAPLAN, 1928-2023 Attorney recalled as ‘best of the Toledo legal world,’” Jan. 18), but allow me to just say this about that: in anticipation of his receiving a lifetime achievement award in recent years, I helped write up his professional biography and it’s spectacular, impressive nearly beyond words, and most worthy of recognition in its own right.
But, as one who was raised and grew up in his home, my viewpoint is, can I say ... fuller? What I mean to convey is that we were not the “traditional” father/son.
No fishing trips, no camping trips, no hunting trips.
But, we did make a pilgrimage to Taco Bell on the corner of Secor and Laskey roads once that I’ve never forgotten.
It was probably 1983.
I was a 15-year-old male and I was hungry.
It was a weekday and also close to eleven o’clock at night.
He immediately offered to drive me, saying he “understood the nutritional needs of the teenage male.”
So, on this particular evening as he turned the car into the restaurant lot, he entered into the drive-thru aiming the car BACKWARDS.
It meant that I, as the front seat passenger, placed the order, paid, and was given the food.
He never said in advance that he was going to do it, and he didn’t mention it afterward.
He just did it.
And, I knew in that moment I had experienced something profound.
As he eased the car back onto Secor Road, this time in a forward direction, I thought to myself, “That was amazing!”
I appreciated there and then that not all people are essentially alike, that some actually fall pretty far outside the norm, and that I was — and would always be — happiest when around those rare few who did.
It was two Burrito Supremes and one supreme insight: a precious gift from parent to child.
Returning to contemporary days, on the very rare occasions he would reference mortality, he would always use the phrase “checking out,” as if he would be leaving a motel after a night’s stay.
No, we never probed too deeply into the subject, and I suppose since that was his decision, it’s okay.
He is gone now, no longer to be seen but forevermore felt.
Like an astronomical black hole, though invisible to the eye, still here, his presence made known by his permanent effects on those still swirling around.
That, I suspect, is just how it will have to be.
A final recollection, just a fragment really: Over the past many years since a heart attack and the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles conspired to strip my father of driving privileges, I have been his daily ride home from work.
Over the course of hundreds of drives, I would occasionally probe: “Dad, is there anything you want to tell me?” Or, “Dad, are there any bank accounts mom doesn’t know about?”
His answers always came fast.
He’d say, “You know what I think of you,” and sadly, “No secret accounts.”
And, several times each week, I would take him for food, myself intuiting the nutritional needs of a more than 90 year old.
We’d go through various drive-thrus but, with me at the wheel, only aimed forward.
Having no lesson to teach him, but as a meager gift in return, I told him on a recent birthday that, during those car rides together, he would frequently make me laugh so hard I cried tears.
And, at other times, he’d say something so meaningful I’d cry, cry until I laughed tears all the way back to home.
Samuel Z. Kaplan
The author is a Toledo attorney that lives in Lambertville.
First Published January 20, 2023, 5:00 a.m.
