Letter to the editor: Who cares what they think?

 To the Editor:

I can’t imagine why anyone here is even marginally interested in the generally uninformed opinion of some West Coast journalist. (Career assistance company labels Red Oak laziest city in Iowa, April 19, 2016, edition of The Express) 

San Francisco is infamous for originating or at least being a big part of the hippie culture of the 1960s. Its Haight-Ashbury neighborhood – the area near the intersection of those two streets – was famous for availability and use of controlled substances and was know as Hashbury. I doubt that there is much of that there now, because that city – and most of the San Francisco peninsula – is one of the most expensive areas to live on the planet.

I was born and raised in Oakland, Calif., near the anchor end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. I left the Bay area when I joined the Air Force in 1963 and have visited the area less than a dozen times since then, most recently in 1987. While I still have family in the Bay Area, a lot of my generation of the family has moved away. Fifty years ago, I decided that the United States government doesn’t print enough money to get me to live in the state of California. In the intervening years I’ve found no reason to change that opinion. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a great place to be from. 

I’m here because the Air Force sent me to Offutt in 1972, and I stayed. After living in Nebraska for 30 years, I finally got smart and moved over here in 2003. 

All of that said, I still don’t understand why anyone here cares what anyone there thinks about anything.

Bob Ackley

Emerson