Pittston Dispatch // PD Columnists // Jack Smiles - Smiles and Frowns

Sunday August 23, 2009 | 01:00 AM

On Thursday my wife and I dropped our daughter Sadie off at Penn State. With a lot of help from her friend Mitchell McCabe we got her moved into a tiny dorm room at Mifflin Hall.

I’ve heard parents talk about the “empty nest syndrome” but I never really got it before Thursday. Now I get it. The word “syndrome” is perfect here. Used in medicine “syndrome” is used to describe a condition that’s not quite a disease, but it’s something, but we’re not sure what.

I know that doesn’t make much sense, but neither does this weird feeling I’ve had since I hugged my little girl good-bye in front of the dorm and watched her swipe her card and disappear inside.

Yeah, I was sad. But I was happy, too. And a little envious. And scared. And proud. And incredulous. I was stupefied, man. Still am.

My wife and I didn’t say much on the way home. I thought, but didn’t say, hey, this is crazy, let’s go back and get her.

I miss her terribly now, even through for most of the summer since she graduated from Wyoming Area, I didn’t see much of her. She was rarely home except to sleep and when she was home and awake she was in front of the computer making the plans and buying the things she needed to be a Penn Stater.

Sometimes I pretend she’s still living with us and that she’s in the other room in front of the computer.

On Tuesday, two days before D-Day, as in Dorm, I did spend a little time with Sadie. We went to the Exeter Borough council meeting at the high school where Wal-Mart representatives made their pitch to the borough for rezoning a parcel of land where Wal-Mart wants to build a supercenter.

Sadie and I clash over Wal-Mart. She hates it and I, well, I guess I’m ambivalent about Wal-Mart, both in general and specific to Exeter.

I guess this is where I pull a John Kehoe and segue from something nice, like a story about a kid going off the college, to something not so nice, like opposition to Wal-Mart.

John Kehoe was the money man behind this newspaper when it was founded in 1947 and he wrote a column in the early days wherein he couldn’t stop himself from blasting his enemies, political and otherwise. Like once he wrote about his faithful dog who died and it was nice and touching until in the end he segued into attacking someone by writing something like the dog was loyal, not like that so and so.

Pros and cons of Wal-Mart in Exeter aside, there are two other things about the opponents that bug me. One is the stupid question they always ask: “Why does Wal-Mart want to build in Exeter?”

Could it be for the same reason they want to build anywhere else – to sell stuff and make money?

The second is when opponents, like the Exeter First group, denigrate honest work. Like where does Exeter First get off telling private businesses how much they have to pay their employees and what benefits they have to provide. And where do they get off telling people who willingly and freely take jobs at Wal-Mart that they are too stupid to know they are being exploited.

I never knew a Wal-Mart employee who applied to work there with a gun to his or her head.

Isn’t a low-paying job better than no job at all? Isn’t a job with limited benefits better than no benefits at all?

By the way, the saddest part of Sadie going to Penn State was when she said good-bye to our beagle Lacey when we left the house.

About the Author

Jack Smiles covers for the Times Leader. Reach him at or jsmiles@psdispatch.com.

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