"If You Don't Like It, You Can Move"

The title above is in quotes because someone said it to my mother at a Methacton school board meeting. It was during the time Methacton was trying to pull a Doctor Frakenstein and fuse Arcola with a then-unnamed Skyview 5/6 School. The lady saying the quote didn't live in Lower Providence, she didn't live anywhere near Arcola, and sure wouldn't be affected by a couple hundred geothermal wells drilling down past her water supply. She didn't care, she was part of that school board's Yes People who was Rah Rah about anything that school board was trying to do.

And now we have football field lights (that, since history likes to repeat itself, Methacton is trying to Doctor Frakenstein with an artifical turf field) that residents have been wanting for about twenty to thirty years now. And I've only been alive for eighteen of them.

However, at a school board meeting, I think it was October's work session, Dr. Quinn presented a set of guidelines for Worcester and MSD to agree on about field lights. Long story short, games would have to end at 9:00 PM because 15 minutes later the lights would shut off. Oh, and the marching band can stay home since no music could be played after a certain time. It was, suffice to say, a Chinese finger trap on every finger of the school district. That's grand.

Well, you know what? If they don't like it, why don't they move?

My family was told the same thing, nevermind that I am the third generation of Allebach living in my house. Forget that my grandfather built it after WWII, and that my father grew up in that house. Ignore the fact that the Allebach family gave up part of their farmland to facilitate the construction of Arcola (which, FUN FACT, was going to be shut down only five years later because of lack of enrollment...gee, history does repeat itself)! When residents talk at a LP Township meeting about how they lived in Lower Providence for three years, eight years, ten years even, my family tries no to laugh out loud. Ten years? Try sixty years. How about when Eagleville Road wasn't paved and Arcola Road was called Audubon Road?

Go to Methacton High School and ask a random amount of students if they think the football field should have lights. Just lights, mind you, and you'll probably get an overwhelming amount of Yes. It's stupid that the Homecoming Game should be on Saturday morning, because we can't play on Friday night. Because no one could see. Because we have no lights for the field. So we have a Pep Rally and then go home until Saturday morning.

A majority of the residents complaining about field lights have a rather new house. Unless that house was built in the 1960's, Methacton High School was standing there. They knew there was a school there when they moved in (that was probably a selling point for the realitor). The school shouldn't put lights in because newer residents might complain? What room do they have? My family is obviously tenured in Lower Providence, and other residents told us to sit down and shut up?

Life is fair, isn't it?