Call waterway a river, not a ditch
Wednesday May 14, 2008
Champaign County's serene fields of corn, soybeans and wheat may not be very attractive to newcomers in the area but I, a native of Champaign County, always appreciated the prairie landscape as it changed through the seasons. However, I did not discover the real beauty that lies along our rivers and streams until 1958 when our family moved into a house near the Salt Fork. For over 30 years we've explored it and other streams that feed into the Wabash River. To our family the streams are a kind of "wilderness," a place to experience the beauty of the flora and fauna that does not venture into the cropland on either side of the stream banks.
The use of the word "ditch" that's been added to road signs sends the wrong message to the community. Words have tremendous power to create pictures in the mind's eye, and ditch creates an unpleasant picture. To ditch someone or something is to throw it away or dump it.
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