It’s tough being a cynic. Sometimes it takes me two or three days to calm down about something before I can write about it objectively and without malice. Sometimes I never calm down. Writing helps a lot.

However, the flagrant so-called news coverage of 26-year-old Paris Hilton and her escapades is in a class of its own. To spend this much time covering the arrest of someone who has violated probation is ridiculous in the extreme!

We don’t devote as much airtime to news of the war, the environment, or world politics. Breaking away from an announcement from the nation’s capitol, to helicopter coverage of a sheriff’s vehicle driving to jail is offensive. She screamed and cried for her mother. Who in this world doesn’t cry for their mother when all else fails?

Bring back Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and Bill Moyers. Short shrift they would have given Paris or Nicole Smith or O.J. or any of their ilk.

I may as well get over it, because next week while some general is being “retired,” that announcement will be cut short for coverage of some other self-inspired celebrity. Isn’t it time to find out what Michael Jackson, he of the sequin gloves, is doing these days?

On to the world of reality.

Madeleine Roberts at the Food Pantry and Clothes Closet tells me she could use little girls’ clothing – in good and clean condition, of course. So if your tykes have outgrown their clothes, please consider putting them in waterproof bags and leaving them at the Human Services building, right across from Friends Church and adjacent to the Public Safety building. Many Windham families make use of the Clothes Closet in times of need.

For those who are moving into (or out of) an old Windham house, and finding old newspapers or old things no longer used, consider donating to the Windham Historical Society. We’re always looking for Windham High School yearbooks, old photos which can be borrowed and copied, family Bibles and photo albums, old kitchen utensils, picture frames in good condition, newspapers before 1950, and especially cotton sheets or pillowcases which we use to wrap antique clothing for preservation. Volunteers are at the society Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. throughout the summer, and if you have a question you may e-mail me at kso48@aol.com or call 892-5381 between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. any day.

I am still collecting barn pictures and plan to have a display mounted by the end of July. One really good picture I found in the archives of the historical society is that of a barn which was made from parts of the original church in Windham. The old picture was given to the society in 1967, the first year we were organized. Elsewhere in this paper under Windham Remembered, you can see this unique structure.

Thanks to all of you who continue to tell me how much you like this newspaper and the features.

See you next week.