Readers Write: (April 17): Childhood safety, Barway Collins case, stabbing on the St. Croixaid to cities, Lindstrom's double dots, Giants Ridge

Not all baby boomers made it to adulthood ("Yes, despite it all, we survived!" Readers Write, April 16). The article to which the letter was responding ("The years of living dangerously" in Variety, April 14) brought back sad, not funny, memories for me. In 1959, my 10-year-old friend Janyne was at the Kenny School playground in southwest Minneapolis on a warm summer day. As her swing came to a stop, her head fell back and hit the concrete underneath her. Janyne walked home, climbed into bed and died within hours of a brain concussion. The rock-hard surface was to blame for her death.

Regarding toys of that era, I myself was lucky to keep my right eye, which was impaled by my brother's jackknife. He was 5 years old. I was 4. We were playing in the garage with no supervision. Mom was inside smoking and chatting on the phone, as housewives did back then.

I could provide an example of harm or even death that resulted from all of the products or practices in the article from personal experience. I have been grateful over the years to see the progress that has been made in protecting children.

In every homicide, there are victims in addition to the individual murdered. Yamah Collin's hauntingly sad face pictured on the April 15 front page reminds us of this fact. The horrific killing of her stepson, Barway, and her husband accused — how much can one endure?

Flawed thought bears reflection in the face of the senseless killing of Peter Kelly on the St. Croix on Tuesday. One of Kelly's friends was quoted as saying in the April 16 article about the stabbing that "I can say with 150 percent certainty that it wasn't because of something that Pete did." But Kelly's death was related to something he did: He chose to get in his car and drive to continue, in person, an argument that had begun across the water. The unrecognized choice? Walking away from trash-talking, chemically impaired strangers.

State Republicans' efforts to cut aid to Minnesota's largest cities will not "cut taxes" as they claim ("GOP seeks less aid to big cities," April 16). It will simply redirect the tax burden onto middle-class homeowners while the savings will go to, you guessed it, tax breaks for big business.

I hope that voters (and the Legislature) see through this thinly veiled attempt to enrich the wealthy at the expense of the working class, and I long for the day that the Republican Party stops using dirty tricks to take more money from a working class that has no more to give. This from a party that claims to be a "friend" of the average worker.

It is pointed out in the article that Rogers, the hometown of House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin, receives no local government aid and that therefore LGA reductions to Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth are appropriate. How many of Peppin's constituents work in one these cities, drive on their streets or otherwise use the infrastructure they provide? In addition to providing fairness in property taxation, LGA also assists central cities in providing services to people who live outside the city but pay no property taxes to that city.

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I have a real hard time with an article that refers to $9 million (which Duluth would see cut under the Republican proposal) as "just" $9 million. This shows the total disregard for the people who actually had to pay in that money and also shows the disconnect between the government and taxpayer view of the value of a tax dollar.

Congrats to Lindström and tack (thanks) to the governor for recognizing the importance of the umlaut in some of our culturally significant signs (Lindström gets double dot victory," April 16). Now if we could only get the Star Tribune, which stated in an April 12 article that the coffeepot water tower in Lindström has rosemaled ornamentation (a Norwegian folk-painting technique), to realize that it actually has flowers painted in the Swedish Dala folk-painting tradition, we can end these Nordic wars!

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Most Swedes are familiar with the "Ki-Chi-Saga" area through Vilhelm Moberg's books and films, and many have relatives who emigrated to America. For them, the area is a major tourist attraction. Tourism in Minnesota accounts for 17 percent of state sales tax revenues and 11 percent of total private-sector employment. It would appear that Gov. Mark Dayton realized what the naysayers didn't — putting those two umlauts back on the Lindström sign supports the idea that there is a special sense of place in the Chisago Lakes area that attracts international visitors to our state to "Explore Minnesota." Clever, low-cost tourism ideas like this should be embraced — not scorned.

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An anti-umlaut letter writer (April 16) averred that "the English got here first," therefore the English Alphabet should be the standard. But regardless of what he means by "here," the English did not get here first:

• If he means North America, then either the Vikings or the Spanish arrived first. (Columbus actually landed on a Caribbean island.)

• If he means Minnesota, I believe French trappers got here first — which is why we have avenues named Hennepin and Nicollet.

In regard to the "Biwabik boondoggle" (Readers Write, April 12), the importance of the Giants Ridge ski and golf resort to student athletes and the Minnesota State High School League cannot be forgotten. As captain of a Nordic team that competed in the state meet there this February and good friend of many Alpine athletes who also have skied at Giants Ridge, I have heard and experienced nothing short of perfection surrounding the trails and facilities dedicated to skiing in Minnesota.

Skiing, both Nordic and Alpine, have fantastic cultures surrounding them, and the best part is that at any trail, all ages and genders are represented and, at that, fairly equally. Skiing is worth our support as a state, and thus so is Giants Ridge.