********** http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05192/536001.stm
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 11, 2005
Letters to the editor
For a working-poor family, Hardy's mansion is revolting
Regarding "Hardy Mansion Going on Auction Block" (July 8), about the planned sale of Joe Hardy's former house in Rostraver, valued at $7 million. I was sickened to read the extravagant waste of one man. And just last week world leaders held a summit on global poverty.
I was widowed in 1984 with six kids to raise, between the ages of 1 and 17 I could barely feed them, pay bills and take care of them. I managed somehow. I couldn't send them to college, President Reagan made sure of that. At 18 they had to leave and were on their own. I had to send them out into the world to fend for themselves. They have survived the best they could.
I live in the basement of a family's home and watch their two boys for a living. My son lives in the North Hills and has been without electric for over three weeks. He can't afford to pay rent and his utilities on the meager wage he makes cooking at Bob Evans. The others are all struggling to survive. One daughter lives with her two children in a past-flooded apartment above a garage in Etna. She takes two buses to get to work as a waitress on McKnight Road. Another son lives above the restaurant he cooks for in a shabby little apartment on Suismon Street in the North Side. My 38-year-old daughter finally bought her first house in New Brighton -- a bank repo, no hot water, no washer or dryer and years of work to make it a home. She has three kids. She wrecked her car the day after Christmas going to work at St. Margaret's Hospital. I had to loan her my van to drive to work -- a van, I might add, that nobody can afford to get inspected. So when she gets stopped by the police, who knows how much that will cost. It gets four miles to a gallon of gas at $2.29 cents a gallon.
I am appalled that people like this have the nerve to flaunt their wealth when there are people right here in our own back yard who are hungry and living in the dark. May God forgive you, "King Joe," for being so wasteful!
LOIS JANKE Mt. Lebanon
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories