High-school alumna says she'll miss the Indians
In response to The Sun's March 13 article, "Fremont HS votes to adopt firebird as its new mascot":
"Oh, you Indians! Fight, Fight, Fight!" It was one of the calls we used to support our team, the Fremont Indians. We were as proud of our Indians as any loyal high school student could be. When I attended Fremont in the early 1940s, we did not win many of our games. It didn't stop us from rooting for our Fremont Indians.
Now, in June of 1996, the Indian emblem will be replaced by a new mascot, the firebird. The reason for the change is that "some individuals complained that it was insulting and demeaning to their culture."
Were we being prejudiced all those years since the school graduated its first class in 1927? I believe not. The word prejudice is defined as "an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, group or race." Our only attitude of hostility was directed against the opposing team.
Our student center was called "the wigwam." It was our gathering place during the lunch hour and after school. We danced the jitterbug to the music of the jukebox. We socialized with our friends. It was a warm and friendly place. A place to console ourselves while our nation was at war defending our democracy. Many of our students were missing from our halls, away in the service of their country.
It is a sad state of affairs when we begin to look for insults against our ethnic backgrounds. Is it not that very diversity that has brought us together?
They may retire the Indian emblem, but in our heart of hearts there will always be the pride of having been a Fremont Indian.
Adele Chambers Colesberry
Class of 1945
Bring back police blotter
I've been watching for a while, looking for the police blotter [Public Safety] to reappear in The Sun.
Apparently, that information has been discontinued. In the past, it was not in each weekly issue, but it was there often.
This is to let you know that our household misses the blotter and would like to see it reinstated. Such information is news concerning Sunnyvale and is useful when analyzed for trends and patterns in certain areas of the city.
D.F. McClure
Cloverdale Court
Moffett Field as Fort Ord? We should be so lucky
A. Petri's letter of March 27 bemoans Moffett's ultimate fate as "another Hamilton Field or Fort Ord in our midst."
We should be so lucky, if we work very hard at it. Fort Ord is now a new CSU campus and Hamilton Field is supplying much-needed affordable housing to its region. The alternative for Moffett that we read about in the newspapers is conversion of Moffett to a full civilian airport, dropped into the middle of this dense urban area.
The Sunnyvale City Council should give up its illusion that NASA will be able to maintain "Moffett Federal Airfield" as a permanent solution.
Allowing dreaded night cargo flights to delay the inevitable is folly because it will establish precedent for commercial use of Moffett as an airport. Everything possible must be done to prevent Moffett becoming a commercial airport because it will mean the absolute destruction of Sunnyvale as a quiet, nice place to raise kids and live a peaceful life. Screaming jetliners and, worse, cargo aircraft have very different noise and discomfort levels from the Navy's turboprop P3s, I assure you, and would render life unlivable beneath them.
On the contrary, everything possible must be done to obtain just such long-term solutions as new housing, open space, industrial development and maybe a college campus. These things would benefit the city of Sunnyvale and maintain its quality of life for those who would like to remain here for the long term.
Jeffrey M. Weiss
Steuben Drive
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 3, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.