I’ve given my two daughters both nice weddings. One had her wedding at a nice country club setting that was very private. That was a great experience and has fond memories. The other was one that took place near downtown Cincinnati in a nice establishment specializing in wedding receptions, and often hosts multiple weddings in the same building. When my daughter had her wedding at this facility, there were four other weddings going on in the same building and that I didn’t care for. The place we were holding the wedding was very posh and elegant, but the lack of exclusivity made me perpetually uneasy. I didn’t like it.
Our wedding reception went on for quite a while and was the last of the multiple weddings to yield to the night. With that said as the music was thumping and our dance floor was crowded a group of guys from another wedding which had just ended came into our wedding looking for some fun, alcohol, and action. Well, that was a big mistake, because this is my family, my nieces, and friends of my daughters, not some random pieces of meat for young men to fondle, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. So I told the boys to get lost, that I wasn’t going to tolerate any wedding crashers. They insisted that they just wanted to have a good time, and that I should reconsider. I told them flatly, “NO.” It was my money, my family, and my decision, end of story.
The boys left with their heads hung with rejection. They couldn’t help but notice the attractive women in my family and cussed at themselves for the lost opportunities. However, little did they know or understand that part of the reason there were so many attractive women in my family is because there are men like me who fight to give them some sanctuary to reside within, who keep them from being just cheap pieces of meat for the use of young boys looking for conquest. Some members of my family thought I was too hard on the boys, and thought the wedding would be a lot more fun if a massive party erupted and I was the “cool” type who allowed wedding crashers to liven things up with their spontaneity. But I’m not that kind of guy and if I’m spending thousands of dollars on a reception center for my daughter’s wedding, it will be the way she wants it—and wedding crashers didn’t fit the profile.
I spent about the same amount of money on that reception hall as I do in taxes for the Lakota school system each year which is the public school in my area. Yet just last night embolden by events at the Lakota football games where the school had a booth set up passing out campaign signs for their upcoming levy attempt, several emails and comments came my way from levy addict supporters who were charged up with “school pride” established at the football game. The message to me was that if I didn’t like the tax increase then I should move out of the community. Click the link below to see one of those comments and my response.
To me, those types of people are like those kids who wanted to crash my daughter’s wedding. I graduated from Lakota many years ago and have lived in the area most of my life. When I was a kid I grew up in a house along 747 when it was farmland for as far as the eye could see. My home was on the kind of land that the Carriage Hill homeowners are paying 150K per plot to own today. But I lived on such anchorage when very few homes could be seen from my front yard. Traffic down 747 had the character of a distant country road. My boyhood home is gone now replaced by a strip mall that one of the guys in my group No Lakota Levy built. I didn’t always get along with those guys, but we did join together to fight the Lakota schools massive taxation plans for a community we had all been in from the beginning. I have watched many new homes move into the area who are willing to pay extraordinary amounts of money to have essentially what I had as a kid—and that’s fine. I understand wanting to have the best for families.
But when snot nosed despots move into the area with about a 5 second investment of their time and resources into my community then tell me I need to move, I think back to the kind of mentality that was exhibited by those wedding crashers at my daughter’s wedding that I had to run off. These new pretentious homeowners who have moved into the Lakota community and overpaid for their properties due to their own stupidity, and arrogance are wedding crashers in the Lakota community relative to my position. I am the one who paid for everything with my years of tax revenue contributed, and I helped shape the school into what it is with my participation in it, because I attended there. So it’s my business if I want to tell the Lakota administration they are full of shit and need to manage their money better. And if I want to call the levy supporters a bunch of pretentious latté sipping prostitutes with asses the size of car tires, and diamond rings to match—I will do it, and I have a right to do it—because it’s my community and I’ve invested a lot more in it than they have.
The levy supporters think that just because they show up in Lakota and purchase a half million dollar home on a quarter acre plot of land that they have some right to tell people like me to move if I don’t like their intentions to vote for higher taxes. They are just as stupid and immature as those wedding crashing young men who thought they could come to my daughter’s wedding and play out some fantasy of what they saw in a movie. In that fantasy they thought I’d sit idly by while they grabbed the asses of the women attending and had a jolly time drinking from the bar while I paid for everything and quietly sat in a corner and acted like the out-of-touch middle-ager they thought I was. To their mindset I was old, and I had my day in the sun, and I should sacrifice myself to the youth so they could have their fun, and memories which they wanted to make at my expense. The same mentality is present with the wedding crashers of Lakota. A bunch of pretentious snobs have moved into the area and think that their little 7 to 8-year-old children should have infinite resources and that the community should spare no expense for their pleasure. They are of course wrong.
I spend as much money in taxes on Lakota every year as I did on just that dance hall for my daughter’s wedding. So it should come as no surprise what my response to the wedding crashers of Lakota is. To me they are mindless zombies who don’t consider what the cost of a tax increase will do to the community, but only indulge in their own short-term desire to fill their bellies, and they have no right to make any demands, let alone move into my community then tell me to move out if I don’t like their decisions. That is not how the world works.
If that is the levy strategy concocted at the Friday night football games by the pro levy crowd, good luck. I’m not the only one who feels that way. To most who live in the Lakota community, they see the levy zombies the same way I do, as wedding crashers. Those types of people—the wedding crashers do not care for all the events that led up to the wedding, they only want to attend the party once everyone else has done the work. In Lakota, few have done more work than I have, and few have the concerns of Liberty Twp., in their blood more than I. So it naturally disgusts me to see pretentious, short-sighted snobs enter the arena of debate with demands for higher taxes to cover a neurosis that resides deep within their psychological imperfections. I do not tolerate “community crashers,” especially when I’m paying the bill.
Rich Hoffman
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The Overmanwarrior 
You are right. People like us have paid for years to try and maintain a quality community and a quality school system. People move here because it is a nice,, clean, coutrylike setting to raise children. But it is never good enough for the newcomers. Their little darlings have to have NEW schools and every extra that no one could have imagined even twenty years ago. These newcomers are never happy and they never will be happy. The strife of “moving Up” is just too much for them. If they want luxury schools, then move your children to a private school and pay for it yourself. That is what the really rich do in NYC and other utopian? centers. It was wonderful here when it was still country and the schools were run by old fashioned teachers that believed in teaching and not picketing and union loyalty.
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They are spoiled brats. They are worse than children in a candy store begging for everything.
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Crab cakes and Football… That’s what Maryland does! (What a great movie)
So, I really have been meaning to apologize for that whole wedding crashing thing… My bad 🙂 Just kidding, but I really do like the analogy. And, I did see the other person’s post (on the other blog entry) and it seems like a typical response where someone does not want to put any thought into why they disagree or feel the way they do. I disagree with you on things, and agree on others, but they should be willing to put some thought behind their statements of why they disagree, rather than just saying ‘move.’
While I can’t disagree that you have put a lot of work into this community (taxes, notoriety, etc), I do not think we can completely discount people whom move here and build homes in the neighborhoods that are popping up. I am sure many have kids, own small business or are self made, and would have much in common with you. What you have always found attractive by living here, they do to (this includes myself). I think if individuals were more willing to articulate their position, some of your other readers may not be so willing to use such vile (not profane, but not productive or intellectual) language when responding to those with dissenting views. I am not sure how you could refer to someone whom has worked hard, made a career, has done everything right, paid their taxes and looked to improve the value of the community, as a ‘parasite.’
I think this forum can do better (and deserves better), as you put so much thought and work into your posts, that the responses should reflect that as well. Like I said in my first post the other day, I really enjoy reading a well articulated dissenting view. I think this is why I have chosen the media that I have (Drudge Report, WSJ, The Economist and NPR), and I keep it pretty limited to those as they allow me to formulate my own opinion. A point of view is at times presented, and they can be differing views based on the publication, but they are always well articulated and informative.
As I may not have lived in the community very long yet (only about 5 years, as I was still in college before that), I do hope to make our home here for quite a long time. We work to continue to pay down our mortgage, and continue to make major home improvements, as well up-keep our property. We do this because folks like you have made a very nice and livable community, and we want to ensure it remains that way. And, hopefully it seems like we are doing just that and not just crashing the party.
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I like your comments. And I like people moving into the area who enjoy it for the reasons I do. But comments like the one from the other day put me to a boil fast. There is an arrogance there that I think is destructive and it deserves to be confronted. As to this forum, I am a combative person. I always have been and it has served me well professionally, politically, and personally. It may not be something that many people see very often, but its part of my brand, and is rooted in honesty. : )
If you came to my daughter’s wedding, I think I would have invited you to hang around for a bit.
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I am quite honored, good sir.
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