To the editor: Respect the Tennes family

Lansing, Mich., resident Kennan DeWitt holds up a sign near the Country Mill booth in protest on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017, at the East Lansing Farmer's Market.

The Blade’s June 4 ar­ti­cle “Or­chard owner’s stance riles city” was very dis­turb­ing. Be­ing fa­mil­iar with Brid­get and Steve Tennes and their ac­tiv­i­ties in their com­mu­nity, it’s easy to see why they’re rec­og­nized as lov­ing and ex­tra­or­di­nar­ily gen­er­ous peo­ple. The yearly “Pick a Peck for People,” which pro­vided 10,000 pounds of ap­ples for the lo­cal food bank last year, is just a sam­ple of their typ­i­cal gen­er­os­ity. Be­sides be­ing kind­hearted and char­i­ta­ble folks, they are also very ac­tive in their neigh­bor­hood, their chil­dren’s sports, and their church.

Where are all these cus­tom­ers, friends and re­cip­i­ents of their kind­ness? They should be sup­port­ing the Tennes. Their de­trac­tors are com­ing out of the wood­work, prob­a­bly most have never even met these peo­ple. They have the au­dac­ity to call the Tennes fam­ily hat­ers and big­ots. Haters are the ones who want to de­stroy oth­ers — and why? Just be­cause they don’t agree with them and won’t go against their long-held be­liefs?

What’s the world com­ing to when some think that their way is the only way? These peo­ple are known for their kind­ness and com­pas­sion for oth­ers. Who really hates whom?

Brid­get and Steve Tennes don’t de­serve all of this grief. They de­serve the same kind­ness and re­spect they’ve given to oth­ers all these years.

MARY JO THIEMAN BOSCH
Mill­bury

Click here to submit a letter to the editor

Poor business takes a toll

Take a look at the dis­pute be­tween Mid­west Ter­mi­nals of Toledo In­ter­na­tional and the In­ter­na­tional Long­shore­men’s As­so­ci­a­tion Lo­cal 1982. You’ll find Toledo-Lu­cas County Port Au­thor­ity’s for­mula for de­vel­op­ing port busi­ness. Ignore lapsed la­bor con­tracts. Look the other way over race is­sues. Wait un­til the whole thing blows up be­fore tak­ing any mean­ing­ful ac­tion.

How do we ex­pect to grow busi­ness in our re­gion when we can’t man­age what we’ve got? if this is how the port au­thor­ity man­ages our wa­ter­front, what’s go­ing on be­hind the scenes at our air­port?

MATTHEW FITZGIBBONS
Hol­land

Roads first, then Hyper­loop

We are lob­by­ing for Toledo to be a stop on the Hyper­loop and we can’t af­ford to pave the roads we have (June 29, “’Don’t pass up Hyper­loop”)? What am I miss­ing?

JEFFREY DAVIS
South Toledo

Follow @BladeOpinion