The Best Intentions

I have had great highs this week, and today, a great low. In an attempt to acknowledge the generous contribution of Chan on behalf of Scenic Bay Marina, I felt it necessary to acknowledge the even greater contribution from Jim and Gary MacDonald. I will print an excerpt from the e-mail I received, then try to explain what my motives were. I am, regardless of my blog and/or my print column, an amateur writer. As such, sometimes, nuances get away from me. I received the following from a well meaning person, and friend of Jim and Gary MacDonald.

"What I don't understand is why you also take the opportunity to take cheep shot at MacDonalds.
Do you have any idea just how many years MacDonalds have put into the fireworks and how much time, money and effort that takes. They just don't take the time to brag about it, they just do it.
Obviously, you don't have a clue of what it takes to put on the fireworks.
Wouldn't it be great if all you had to do was through some money at it and, bamo, you have a fireworks show.
Gary and Jim have seen your blog, guess how happy they are with you right now.
You just through the baby out with the bath water.
In my opinion Herb, you are way out of line."

I'm not printing the name of the author, just because he interpreted my words differently than I intended.

When I received the donation from Chan Karupiah, I felt I couldn't praise him without acknowledging the great contributions of the MacDonald family. I wrote that Gary MacDonald raised over $5000.00 from their customers. Apparently, I was misinterpreted to the point where someone thought that I was comparing the out-of-pocket expenditure of Scenic Bay Marina, to MacDonald's only collecting from customers, not withstanding the fact that the Macdonald contribution more than doubled that of The former.

No slight was intended. I just felt that I couldn't name one large contributor and not another.

Small nuances, apparently, taken in a negative way, can be misinterpreted. I have, in the past week, tried to give more of myself to community activities than in the past. It turns out that getting active can be a mine field of conflicting ideas, motives and good/bad will.

I can only say that given more time and space, I would have pointed out that for many years, Jim MacDonald and his son, Gary have given over that period, more to this community than anyone I know. They started the fireworks, and for many years paid for them out of pocket. Gary and later, Kevin Elmore, had to attend pyrotechnics school to become licensed to buy and use sophisticated fireworks.

No one or even five families have given more to this community. I don't know how many others misinterpreted my limited remarks as being cheap shots, but if you did, you are so wrong. I have the highest regard for Jim and Gary MacDonald. I was going to cover this in depth later in my print column. It may not be necessary because I have apparently done so, here.