Sunday, October 22, 2000
Local voters keeping their
heads above water
By Bill Whitaker
Now that area lake levels are up slightly,
what’s left to talk about aside from the apparent necessity
of flotation devices on city buses?
How about fluoridation of city water?
Principals on both sides of this once hotly
debated topic insist the Nov. 7 ballot proposition is attracting
almost as much attention as when voters last faced it in 1964.
But I sure don’t see it. Maybe it’s
just a poor topic for conversation around the water cooler.
Except for some thought-provoking letters
to the editor and a few remarks at City Council meetings, what
was once a Cold War topic of great paranoia is failing to raise
voters’ passions one way or the other.
Only the other day, grizzled members of
the so-called “Table of Knowledge” at the Hitchin’
Post told me fluoridating city water failed to rank among topics
regularly chewed up and spat out during their 90-minute lunch
hour.
But that could well be because some at the
“Table of Knowledge” lack their original teeth.
Many voters are indifferent. Others just
have long memories.
“I really think it’ll pass and
that’s why I haven’t said much this time around,”
said 72-year-old Neil Fry, who tried convincing Abilene voters
to fluoridate city water in 1964, ultimately at the cost of his
seat on the City Council.
“Frankly, if I said something now,
it might bring some of those same people out of the woodwork again,”
he said. “So I’ve kept my mouth shut — and that’s
pretty hard for me to do!”
The mail Fry received during the 1964 election
included a letter from a Clyde woman — who wouldn’t
have been affected anyway — angrily stating how her son was
constipated “and the next thing you and the council will
want to do is put Ex-Lax in our water.”
Because arguments became so inflammatory
and absurd 36 years ago, some Abilenians are today devoting their
attention to other matters, such as the presidential race and
who on earth Montie Shy is.
That includes Republican activist Claire
Johnson, who with her husband, dentist John Johnson, campaigned
for fluoridation in 1964, only to find many voters suspected fluoridating
city water was a communist plot.
“We were young, we were new and we
thought we were doing something wonderful,” she told me.
“And we got pretty well kicked for it. People said next thing
we’d be trying to put birth control in city water.”
Even Abilenians opposed to fluoridation
are keeping a low profile. When I mentioned the topic to a neighbor
who once taught chemistry at the university level, he said he
was “moderately opposed but mostly indifferent” regarding
fluoridation.
But when I wondered aloud why the issue
hadn’t ignited more vocal advocates for fluoridation this
time around, he smiled.
“That’s simple,” he joked.
“The Evil Empire is no longer around to lead them.”
Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker
at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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