I've never worked anywhere that had an oldfashioned suggestion box. Now that I think about it, I can't recall seeing an actual suggestion box in many years. I'm imagining here a sort of green or brown wooden rectangular affair with a mail slot cut in the top, the whole thing mounted to the wall with white lettering that says simply: "suggestions."

"May I make a suggestion?" How often do you suppose that phrase gets uttered in a day? And are suggestions on the rise, or on the decline? I don't suppose anyone tracks such things.

Personally, I've made plenty of suggestions in my time. Ok, I've made more than my share. I don't recall penning these ideas on a paper and slipping any of them in a suggestion box. But I've written plenty of letters with suggestions and popped them in the mailbox. And I've made dozens of "to whom do I speak" phone inquiries with a suggestion in mind. I guess those "suggestions" would be considered the "unsolicited" kind. Suffice it to say, I rarely get a reply.

Perhaps the absence of suggestion boxes says a lot. To those of us considered the thinskinned types, suggestions can feel and sound a lot like criticism.

I recently attended a business talk where the speaker analyzed companies that have lost market share. He said that back in 1968 General Motors had a market share in the U.S. in excess of 50%. After that year, foreign imports became more and more popular and the rest is history.

So I wonder what kind of suggestions GM was getting back then in its hay-day. And I wonder if those suggestions were laughed at or given any merit or consideration.

I wonder even more about the now collapsed energy giant Enron. When the party was at full throttle and they were pumping the stock price and cooking the books, did anyone throw out a suggestion or two about how to actually run the business? From what I've read about that business culture, the wrong kind of suggestion would have earned you a pink slip.

Are there are any suggestion boxes in Carroll County? I'd love to know where they exist and if anyone actually uses them. How often does the person in charge check on the suggestion box? If the county itself got one, where would it go, who would hold the key?

I was looking at the Carroll County web site the other day. I was trying to find the phone number for the Highway Department. In my phone book the Highway Department is not listed with the other government agencies. On the web, it's not listed with the courthouse departments either. I'm guessing that because the department's garage is located in Flora, that the phone number...whatever.

Anyway, I noticed on the web site that the local area code does not appear anywhere on the page listing the phone numbers at the courthouse.

Here's my dilemma. I was pleased the county has information posted on the web. There were many years when this was not the case. So that initiative should be acknowledged, even praised. And most local folks know the area code for Delphi, so the absence of the area code doesn't pose a problem for most people. Therefore, would the suggestion that the area code be listed, would that be a criticism? Or would the suggestion that the phone number for the Highway Department appear somewhere on the web site, would that be constructive, or critical?

Honestly, I don't know the answer.

It does all get a person to wonder, however.

And that very first suggestion, the suggestion to have a suggestion box, who actually made that one and where do you suppose he or she deposited it?

I like to think it was one of my ancestors.