Picture this: the country is in the midst of a recession and many people have lost their jobs. You as a retiree have lost up to half of your retirement savings. The cost of most everything has risen, including heating oil, health care, food and transportation and now the town is forecasting a 10 percent hike in property taxes.

What are you going to do?

Selectmen blame the schools; the schools say they have cut budgets to the bone with layoffs and frozen salaries. Each points a finger at the other and also blame the state and its archaic manner of funding schools.

Asking the Legislature to try and fix this is like sticking your finger in a leaky dam. So what do you do?

You write the School Board, the selectmen and drop copies to you legislators and mostly you get either no replies or condescending replies saying they have done all they could. You suggest other ways of raising money, like a pupil fee, but are ignored or told that is not a feasible solution.

As a senior your options are limited: either find the money or get out of North Yarmouth. Both will require much pain and humiliation. Growing old should not be this way. What has gone wrong? Do the younger people even care? Those that don’t care will, when both age and high taxes catch up with them.

Mr. & Mrs. George A. Fogg
North Yarmouth