"Let the buyer beware," is what I discovered Thursday, Nov. 30. I love the Rio Grande Valley Star Ruby Red Grapefruit and a South Texas fruit salesman came to the door with the most delicious tasting fruit imaginable.
We discussed the price of both grapefruit and delicious Naval oranges and both were about $60 a bushel.
I asked how that computed in price per pound and he told me it came to $1.09 per pound. That sounded good enough to me and I had him get me a bushel of a mixture of half Star Ruby Grapefruit and the other half Navel Oranges.
I checked through the box to make sure the fruit was all good, which it was, and was about to give him the $60 when I took a second look at the box. That was not a bushel box!
So I got the bathroom scale, stepped on it to get my weight and then weighed myself and the box and came up with a fruit weight of only 35 pounds. Thirty-five pounds at $60 comes to $1.71 per pound, not $1.09 like he said.
I offered him an even $40 for the box, which was quite benevolent of me because that was $1.14 per pound, five cents above his quoted price. He declined and took his box of fruit and left.
I called city hall; he had purchased a license to sell. I called the police and he had been selling in Hillsboro every year for three years without a complaint.
Now for all of you who unknowingly paid $1.71 cents a pound, I know it's too late to renegotiate the price, but you can take comfort in the fact that you have some delicious fruit.
For communities that are included in the area of the readers of the Free Press, let the buyer beware when he comes calling at your door. I don't believe a salesman should try to charge me a bushel price for a 2/3-bushel box of fruit.
He'll probably avoid my house next time he comes to Hillsboro but if he tries that stunt again I'll try to see how a citizen's arrest works.
Tim Kliewer
Hillsboro
Voice opposition to new coal plants
A public meeting, "Global Warming: The Kansas Connection" took place in October and was the subject of an article and editorial in the Oct. 25 Free Press.
Part of the meeting was devoted to informing the public of the hearings by Kansas Department of Health and Environment on the issuing of air-quality permits for the construction of three 700-megawatt coal-fired electrical generation plants by Sunflower Electrical Power Corp. in Holcomb.
The hearings have now taken place, but the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has extended the period of public comment by letter and e-mail to Dec. 15 from the original deadline of Oct. 31.
This is an opportunity to tell the regulators that it is not a good idea to build these coal-fired plants in Kansas that will add 14 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, an 80 percent increase in mercury emissions and further deplete the Oglala Aquifer groundwater reserves.
The power generated by the proposed plants is to be sold to electrical users on the front-range of Colorado with only 8 percent for Kansas rate payers.
Strict Clean Air regulations and lack of water reserves make the siting of coal-fired plants in Colorado difficult, the power transmission lines will need to be constructed in order to move the power from western Kansas to the front range users.
A better idea would be to build the transmission lines but generate the electricity from large windfarms in western Kansas and capture all of the sales revenue instead of sending billions of dollars to Wyoming for coal.
Comments may be submitted in writing to the following address: Rick Bolfing, Bureau of Air and Radiation, KDHE,1000 SW Jackson, Su. 310, Topeka, KS 66612-1366; or
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Coal plants have an average life of 60 years, so our grandchildren will be living with this decision and the climate change caused by it if the KDHE issues the permits.
Let the regulators know that Kansans value clean air and conserving water more than short-term financial gains.
If more information is desired, please call me at 620-382-8480.
