Summers's Best Two Weeks

My family and I went to the Quemahoning Dam to celebrate my niece’s birthday. My sister-in-law lost her home and everything in it to a fire yesterday. We went to the dam to take her mind off of all the stress and devastation that they have just experienced. As we pulled up to the Quemahoning Dam gate, I was greeted by two women. One lady was sitting on a motorcycle in a very unfriendly manner. The other women flagged me down and proceeded to interrogate me on what I was doing at the park. She then placed her head, arms and shoulder in my car and demanded that I need to pay five dollars before I entered. We paid a total of 10 dollars (two cars) to enter the park. Which I was under the impression that the park was constructed from donations and my tax dollars? We paid our money and parked the cars. We started unloading my niece’s gifts. Gifts that were given to her by various family and friends (the gifts her parents purchased the previous week went up in flames along with everything else in the home.) We were then attacked by a man in a white truck. He started yelling and screaming about breaking the rules. I am very confused about what rules were broken? We paid our 10 dollars to enter a park that was built with donations and my tax dollars. My sister-in-law spoke to the man and asked if we could please just celebrate her daughter’s birthday. The man felt my sister-in-law (whose eyes were red and swollen from crying for the past 24 hours) was too confrontational. I am also confused by that statement, the only voice that was heard shouting was the man in the white truck. So we quietly gathered our things and proceeded to the gate. The man in the white truck was sitting on a chair beside the gate. He had on bright yellow shorts and a dye die t-shirt. Shouldn’t he wear a uniform or ID to show that he is a representative of the Quemohoning Dam? I tried to rationalize with the man. I asked him to have compassion for a family that has just lost everything in a fire. He said "yea, who cares! I have been through that too. I was the first person to lose everything back in '94." While he was saying this, he was counting all of the money that people have paid to get in. I am appalled by the lack of kindness and lack of compassion for another human being.