Mike Hodges

July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.

By -

Editor, Times-Union:
Well, it’s Warsaw election time again. Hurrah, hurrah! I notice my classmate from the class of 1956, Jerry Frush, is running for city council. Good Luck.

In the article promoting his campaign, I saw that he had run against Mike Hodge back in the ’60s. That takes me back. My father and I worked for Mike Hodge in the city parks department when he was mayor in the early ’50s.

I liked Mike. As I recall people either loved him or hated him. There didn’t seem to be much in between. I still run into people who worked for Mike Hodges. Most of them admired and respected Mike. He was a working-class guy who would roll up his sleeves and get right down in the ditch with the boys to work out a problem.

It would be really nice to see the streets of Warsaw in the shape that they were in when Mike was in charge. After leaving for California in ’61 I lost track of Warsaw politics.

Somehow I don’t remember Mike being in bed with the soft-handed bureaucrat types like we see everywhere today. I can’t imagine any of the people I’ve seen lately in city, county or state government that care much about getting their hands dirty. I’m not saying that none of them would but most wouldn’t.

So if you would like to have a real mayor that will kick arse and get things done, try to get one like Mike. But let me suggest to all the candidates that it’s going to take a big, big man or woman to fill Mike’s shoes.

Tom Metzger
Warsaw, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]

Editor, Times-Union:
Well, it’s Warsaw election time again. Hurrah, hurrah! I notice my classmate from the class of 1956, Jerry Frush, is running for city council. Good Luck.

In the article promoting his campaign, I saw that he had run against Mike Hodge back in the ’60s. That takes me back. My father and I worked for Mike Hodge in the city parks department when he was mayor in the early ’50s.

I liked Mike. As I recall people either loved him or hated him. There didn’t seem to be much in between. I still run into people who worked for Mike Hodges. Most of them admired and respected Mike. He was a working-class guy who would roll up his sleeves and get right down in the ditch with the boys to work out a problem.

It would be really nice to see the streets of Warsaw in the shape that they were in when Mike was in charge. After leaving for California in ’61 I lost track of Warsaw politics.

Somehow I don’t remember Mike being in bed with the soft-handed bureaucrat types like we see everywhere today. I can’t imagine any of the people I’ve seen lately in city, county or state government that care much about getting their hands dirty. I’m not saying that none of them would but most wouldn’t.

So if you would like to have a real mayor that will kick arse and get things done, try to get one like Mike. But let me suggest to all the candidates that it’s going to take a big, big man or woman to fill Mike’s shoes.

Tom Metzger
Warsaw, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
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