These comments were made to the McHenry County Board on Tuesday night by Pat Kennedy on behalf of Diane Evertsen, who is running for the McHenry County College Board with David Schenk  and who was attending a candidates’ night:

Pat Kennedy

It seems to me that sometimes we can get our point across more readily by incorporating it into a story … similar to Aesop’s fables.

Or, possibly, our own version of a Prairie Home Companion and Lake Woebegone.

Conversely, we can look at this the same way we looked at the grade school math problems that started out,

“If a train leaves Boston westbound at 7:00 am, traveling 80 miles per hour, and another train leaves San Francisco eastbound at 9:30 am, traveling 65 miles per hour, at what point and at what time will they pass?”

Didn’t all of us just love those kinds of questions?

Diane Evertsen

Well, so get ready to do the math.

As some of you know, we have chickens.

Our hens are relatively quiet, well-behaved and mild-mannered chickens, and certainly not well traveled or cosmopolitan.

There’s no doubt, of course, that all of them think they’re pretty smart – – – but some of us know better.

So, the other morning it was unusual to hear quite a commotion coming from the chicken coop and we had to go out to investigate.

Well, quite a surprise to find 3 dead chickens, several maimed, and one small weasel wreaking havoc.

Didn’t take us long to take care of the weasel problem, but it was notable that one weasel terrorized 80 chickens.

So, here’s the math problem:

If we could resolve our problem with one weasel within 24-hours, how long should it take 23 chickens to resolve their problem with two weasels?

When you get the answer, give me a call!