Minimum wage reasoning sound

To the editor:

Twenty years ago, my beautiful wife and I decided to go to Groton, Connecticut, to see our grandson, Chris, who was stationed at the submarine base there.

Never having been northeast before, a tour of New England was in order, abbreviated as it was to be.

Upstate New York was absolutely beautiful. And Big. Really big.

Serendipity guided us to Rutland, Vermont, where I found an old friend and her family at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Maine lobster was cheap, maple syrup wasn’t. Baltimore blue crab was yummy.

Sticker shock was my first reaction at the toll bridge. Eight bucks. The Verrazano Bridge was $12.

According to the first-base coach for the Brooklyn team the Portland Rockets beat at Battle Creek, Michigan, a few years back, the toll is now 16 bucks. Nobody present could imagine why anyone would pay to go to Jersey.

At any rate, Bill De Blasio, the mayor of New York City, made an issue of obtaining a $15 minimum wage for New Yorkers. Good. They need it.

Here in Portland, we have a bridge, a unique bridge to say the least, but I can cross it free. Everyone can.

In an editorial recently, The Commercial Review editor and publisher Ray Cooney stated he was against a $15 minimum wage. At this point in time, I whole-heartedly agree. Our cost of living here is far cheaper than the Big Apple’s.

One issue I did have was citing restaurant workers and waiters as especially needy. For a lot of waiters, $15 would be a cut in pay. The power of the tip, ya know.

In the final analysis, Ray’s reasoning was spot on. A $15 minimum wage is a doable thing, but not overnight. Natural inflation rates will make it doable.

Heck, I used to get a bottle of that good fire-brewed Stroh’s for a quarter.

Larry Chittum

Portland