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Mothers sought to walk in March of Dimes fundraiser Throughout the McHenry area, March of Dimes Mothers Ma#ch volunteers are now actively seek­ ing neighborhood marchers for the January fund raiser. Because of the large number of marchers needed to effectively cover the ci­ ty , recrui tment s tarts in November and runs through the first part of January. Mothers March leaders , recruited by local chairwomen Linda Hadick and Pam Wickenkamp, are now phoning for volunteers to go door-to-door in their own neighborhood to collect funds for the March of Dimes. Working from their homes, these leaders are filling all their spare times with an effort to recruit the necessary number 0f marchers before the January deadline. Mothers March has been a traditional January fund raiser for more than 30 years, one of the oldest of its kind. Symbolizing the grass roots support upon which the March of Dimes is built, the neighborhood marchers collect moneys which fund the multi- faceted fight to prevent birth defects. Mothers March v>should not be confused with any similar campaigns conducted at the same/ time of year by other health ser­ vice agencies. Persons wishing to volunteer shouraicall 675-6288. The Mothers March will take place Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 26 and 27. YMCA starts registration TheNLake Region YMCA is now registering for it's January programs. The YMCA has developed a comprehensive physical fitness program which includes programs that concentrate on all aspects of wellness. New specialized programs offered include: Freedom From Death Kreszenz Weber Kreszenz Weber, nee Bndl, 72, a recent resident of McHenry, formerly of Chicago, died Monday, Jan. 7, 1985, in McHenry. She was born Nov. 28, 1912, in Western Germany; came to the U& in 1955 and made her home iriChicago. Surviving are three daughters, Mrs. Manfred (Elizabeth) Dehe of Phoenix, Ariz . , Mrs . Lloyd (Irma E. ) Wevang of Chicago and Mrs. Jim (Mary) Beierle of McHenry; three grandsons; four granddaughters ; two great- grandsons and four sisters, Mrs. Joseph (Mary) Lang of Park Ridge, Elizabeth of Arlington Heights, Betty Aschenbrenner of Germany and Anna Kriegetr of California. ̂ She was preceded in death by her husbandd Michael Weber in 1953; a brother Joseph; and a sister Francisca. Friends of the family called betrween 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the K. K. Hamsher Funeral Home in Fox Lake. A Funeral Mass was celebrated at noon Thursday in St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Johnsburg, with interment in the church cemetery. Seminar set on alfalfa for , dairy farmers The opportunity to learn more about profitable and productive alfalfa management will draw dairy farmers to Crystal Lake, on Thursday, Jan. 24. One of the nation's largest, suppliers of agricultural seeds is sponsoring a number of agronomic-* >mented silage and alfalfa seminars across nor­ thern Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The seminar scheduled in Crystal Lake,' held at Sep­ tember's Restaurant (6305 N.W. Highway on Rt. 14), will start at 10:30 a.m. and continue through 2:30 p.m., with time set aside for a lunch. Individuals interested in at­ tending the seminar should contact Rick Anderson, telephone (»t$) 498-3324. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BRAVED THE COLD WEATHER TO SUPPORT ME AND CONTINUED GOOD TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT AT THE McHENRY TWP. REPUBLICAN CAUCUS AT THE VFW LAST TUESDAY NIGHT. YOU HAVE MY PROMISE TO CONTINUE WORKING HARD FOR YOU. JOHN C. REGNER HIGHWAY COMMISSIONER McHENRY TOWNSHIP Smoking, The Y's Way to Healthy Back, Stress Management , Weight Management, Fit 4n Firm, and the individual fitness evaluation program. Aerobic exercise classes include Fitastic, Tuned up Fitness, and Fitness Fan­ tasia. Aquanatics, excercise in the water, develops flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular endurance. k All fitness classes nave prices for YMCA members and non- members. Times are Monday through Saturday from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Babysitting is offered for all morning classes 9 a.m. to noon for crawling-age children. Exercise classes are also available for pre and post natal women. The post natiu includes exercise for the baby. Yoga is also offered. For more information, call or visit the YMCA, 7315 So. Rt. 31, or phone 459-4455. Page 3 • PLA1!NPEALER-HERALP, FRIDAY,JANUARY 11,1985 1 Post office code turns language into gibberish Dick Peterson I'm not sure where it started, but it's had me on a slow boil for a long time. I'm tatydng about the post office. In recent years the U.S. Postal Service has made small inroads in changing the English Language As We Know and Love into some sort of binary Tower of Babel mish-mash. Specifically, I refer to address abbreviations, which likely are referred to by postal authorities as AD AB. And put a Zip Code on it, pronto! or lose it! I don't care that the cosrS! a first-class stamp is increasing 2 cents to 22 cents. Big deal. Who writes letters, anyway? Ask my mother. She'll tell you. Afe far as I'm concerned, 22 cents is a bargain for all the mileage it can get you. And, don't you think the pretty commemorative stamps are worth 22 cents each for their art value alone7 Ido. As a matter of fact, I wish stamps cost 25 cents, a quarter, two bits. If I want 16 stamps, I'd gladly pay an even $4 rather than having to go through the arithmetic horror of carrying numbers and counting out change. People should write more letters; I should write more let­ ters, or at least a letter. No form of long-distance com­ munication is better than the letter. You can touch it, you can read it, then re-read it. Who doesn't read a personal letter at least two times? / We want instant gratification. So we use the telephone and abandon the written word. It's a shame. But, back to AD AB by the PO. 4. From what I gather by reading my Zip Code handbook, the Postal Service needed a whole new list of abbreviations for addresses when it switched to a computerized mail-sorting system. This system, however, was limited to 22 "positions" per line; tough luck if you have a long, ethnic name. The post office allows 13 positions for the city, two positions for the state and five positions for the ZIP Code. Allowances are made for the single positions between city and state, and state and ZIP Code. Don't ask me how ZIP-plus Four fits in with its five extra positions. As far as limiting cities to 13 letters, I think the Postal Service knew the public would ignore that without an ex­ ception. If I lived in Lower Peach Tree, Ala., I would sooner sick the dog on the mailman than call my hometown Lwr Pch Tree, as the ZIP.Code handbook suggests. Abbreviated city names may have been ignored, but the two- letter state abbreviation system has come Into wideuse. Don't say OK in the post office lobby; you'll be shipped straight off to Oklahoma, third-class, return-to-sender and all. Being the editor of a newspaper, I see a lot of news releases with addresses. Without an exception, every IL gets changed toanlli. It's my way of defying this silly abbreviation system. IL? The post office doesn't even qllow for periods. How in­ considerate. \ I know people who are afraid to put anything more than two capital letters in the postal postions allotted for states. Seriously. They think the post office will trash their letters otherwise. It's pop-quiz time, readers. Quick, what's the difference hetvmen AL and AK? Between AR and AZ? If you got those, yojrieither have a mind loaded with all sorts of other meaningless garbage or you know a lot of people in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas and Arizona. Another test: Without hesitation, identify: ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO and MT. Gottcha. Our country is blessed with an abundance of M states. Twenty-five percent of our state names begin with the letter M. Given that, you can see what sort of obfuscation the Postal Service has created with the two-letter abbreviation. I lived in Minnesota for 14 years, and I would have guessed Minnesota is abbreviated MI. And I would have been wrong. The Michiganians got the MI. Minnesota and Mississippi, both which have justified claims to MI, get stuck with MN and MS, which is a disease when it isn't a state. I am only left to wondering what sort of lobbying effort Michigan employed to get the coveted MI. Tell me, what's wrong with Minn., Mich., and Miss.? They're perfectly good abbreviations. And you know what they mean without thinking. Let Maine be Maine. It's short enough to be spelled out at all times. Strangely, Md. is the accepted abbreviation for Maryland. That suits me fine because Maryland is a dumb name for anything. And, Mo. is the accepted form for Missouri because you can't have two Misses, and Mo. has a nice ring to it. We oblige the Postal Service with dutiful use of the ZIP Code, albeit under threat of never having our mail delivered. In exchange, would it be asking too much if it were to rescind its current abbreviations ftyr something recognizeable and widely understood? OK? PAY •\ - *1,00 for EACH POUND vV c •* Fitness consultations by Rick Komar, M.S. Exercise physiologist Call for details. McHenry Nautilus HEALTH & FITNESS CLUB Jackie Sorenson Aerobics... V Still at McHenry Nautilus MpiSWed 9 am THMSTIuirs Sam MonAThurs 7:15 pm TueaSThurt 4:15 pm CLASSES BEGIN January 7th & 8th 6 Weeks/*33°° BEHIND TAYLOR MADE COMPANY HEADQUARTERS 104 MILL tT.-McNINBT CALL FOB Arm TRIAL WORKOUT...344 2202 'Requires purchase of a one year membership Offer Ends Jan. 31,1985