Keeping it real: I once committed a crime. I’m here to confess. Here’s what happened…
Recently the literary world lost an icon with the passing of Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger. If you went to high school in this country you almost were forced to read his classic novel of teenage disillusionment, The Catcher in the Rye, featuring the anti-hero Holden Caulfield. After huge praise was heaped on Salinger for writing what many call the great American novel, he retreated into the shadows, shunning celebrity and all its trappings and rarely appearing in public. His reputation as a recluse and hermit gradually grew to epic proportions and he became almost legendary for his ability to avoid being photographed.
Ever the seeker of unusual things to do, I decided I would try to get a picture of the elusive author. I figured that it would be relatively simple to find him—Cornish, New Hampshire, where he lived, is a small New England town and how hard could it be to find one house? I drove across the bridge over the river that separates Cornish from Windsor, Vermont and made my way to the Cornish Town Hall, where I could just take a look at the tax records for the area and would get the address. A nice man in the assessor’s office asked me why I was there and when I told him he said the following, slowly and deliberately: “When someone pulls into Mr. Salinger’s driveway, there are two people in town who know about it…Mr. Salinger and myself. I’m also the police chief. I’m not going to help you. Do not bother Mr.Salinger.”
I had no intentions of bothering Mr. Salinger—I just wanted to get a discrete picture of his house, and the man himself if he should happen to be outside. I crossed back into Windsor and stopped at a Goodwill store there, where a bunch of older ladies were gabbing away, in that quaint way that older ladies gab. New England is often like the South in that regard, just with a different accent. Figuring that since they were roughly as old as Salinger, they might know where his house was. They politely directed me to the Vermont Craft Center down the street, and I was informed that Salinger’s wife, Colleen O’Neil, displayed and sold some “very cute” spool dolls that she made herself. At the Craft Center I was shown the spool doll collection, found a really cool red, white and blue one. Ten bucks later I was out the door with my treasure, which incredibly included an unexpected bonus---a tag with not only Colleen O’Neil’s name on it, but incredibly her address, and by default, her husband’s address. Back into Cornish I went, a quick stop at the post office to ask generally where the road was that I was looking for and within five minutes I was staring at J. D. Salinger’s house. Careful to park on the side of the road, not on his property, I snapped a couple pictures—one of his mailbox AND his trashcans (which I didn’t dare peek into) and one of his house.
As I walked up and down the road trying to get a better view of the house, I noticed that seemingly every tree had an orange “No Trespassing “ sign. So did one telephone pole. A furtive glance to the left and one to the right, and I sprung into action. I hereby confess: I stole J. D. Salinger’s “No Trespassing” sign from the telephone pole, where it no right to be.
Don’t you love irony?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
BillboardsagainstObama.com column
I’m going to call it like I see it. Or like I saw it yesterday, as I drove the interstate towards Atlanta, hiiiiigh up on a pole, a sign that said “God isn’t a Socialist.”
The sign was paid for by a group that calls itself, “BillboardsagainstObama.com.
What a load of malarkey. There is a better term for it, has to do with male bovine excrement, but since this is a family paper, I’ll stick with the Irish. Always a good bet, and they have public health care, by the way…
So there was the sign, proudly announcing to the world that Georgia proudly lives up to the reputation held by most of the rest of the nation—a reputation for being so far to the right as to be ridiculous, willing to blow off their noses with their silly guns just to spite their faces..
When in the course of American history has any group taken the steps to try to denounce a sitting president in such a cowardly way? Freedom of speech is a right, of course, but This socialist label that they try to pin on him does him, and socialists a real disservice. The sign should correctly read, “Obama is not a Socialist” and to be fair, should also say that God isn’t affiliated with any political party. I know—I checked. He is not on any lists that I can find…
But it would seem that the Republicans have decided to claim Him as their own. I would ask that they produce proof of their claim. It’s my understanding that socialist concepts have something to do with a sense of community taking care of community---in other words, caring for each other, instead of having a society that rates people by how much money they have. People caring for each other, treating others the way they would want to be treated. Sounds a lot more like the concept of God that I was taught at a young age than the kind of people who would torture, lie, humiliate, segregate and discriminate, grab up as much of whatever they can as fast as they can, liked a bunch of fat pigs on some of those game shows, speeding down the aisles of a supermarket with a shopping cart. And wasn’t there something in the Bible about Jesus trashing the moneylenders? You would think, “Like father like son,” wouldn’t you?
I propose that the billboard, and it’s sponsoring website are wrong. I would suggest that everyone step back and take a long deep breath, if you still can, with all of the nasty pollution in the air, and look at how ridiculous this whole charade has become. Snarky and deceptive billboards are not the answer to any of our problems. Thoughtful action after thoughtful debate will do it, and cooperation from the citizens of what used to be a great country will go a long way toward solving the huge set of problems that began thirty years ago when we stupidly elected a mediocre, mob-backed actor for president.
If the tact of the right has had any real impact, it has successfully made the word ‘socialism” sound evil. Maybe it is, when run in the Lenist-Marxist way, (see Russia) but when all anyone really is talking about is health care for everyone, how can that be a bad thing? Ask yourself this question: If providing services like health care and police and schools and firemen and libraries and highway maintenance, etc. is so bad, why aren’t people from France, England, Canada, Denmark, and a good portion if Europe clamoring to come here? Why are they so darned happy?
Wanna see the end of this country as a democracy? Keep up the hate talk. Learn to say, “Ich bin ein Republican!”
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Raymond Parks, Rest in Peace (and Thanks for NASCAR)
A few years ago I was browsing the shelves at my local library and I stumbled upon a book called Driving With the Devil, written by a man named Neal Thompson. I checked it out of the library and took it home and that evening read the entire thing from cover to cover. A fascinating tale of the sometimes nefarious origins of NASCAR, the book also explained a few things to me about life in Georgia and the old south---I didn’t know that the red clay soil that lies under us all is really only good for growing cotton and corn, for instance, and I never knew that that same corn happened to be the perfect strain for making moonshine whiskey. Someone had to transport that moonshine from the remote stills located in the north Georgia mountains, and it took some skillful driving to evade the federal agents who were constantly trying to bust up the stills and seize the whiskey. Some of those skilled moonshiners and drivers would become an integral part of one of the most beloved sports on the planet.
One of them was a man named Raymond Parks, who is the focal point of Thompson’s book. A moonshiner at a young age, he was smart enough to evade the authorities for a number of years, was finally caught and sent to prison for 9 months in the mid 1930’s. Following his release he returned to moonshine for a while, and after racking up a small fortune got out of the game. He invested in a fleet of cars that raced in many of the small tracks around the south, and in December, 1947, , as reported in the NY Times, “Parks was among some three dozen racing figures who gathered at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach to create the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing under the direction of the driver and race promoter Bill France Sr.”
In 1948, a Parks-owned car, modified by mechanic Red Vogt in a garage that still stands at Linden and Spring Streets in Atlanta, and driven by war hero Red Byron, won the first series of races under the NASCAR banner. In that and subsequent years many of the drivers were men who had gotten their start running ‘shine all around the state of Georgia, a fact that the France family tried to keep buried when NASCAR took a more family-friendly turn in later years.
Reading the book, it came to me as a surprise to find that Parks was still alive.
A little research revealed that he was still, in his 90’s , in the liquor business, albeit legally this time, in a shop at Northside and 17th Street in Atlanta. I also discovered that he still came to work every day, fully dressed in a suit and tie. I was doing a lot of courier work at the time and passed by there every day, never knowing what, and who, was inside. I purchased a copy of the book and headed to Northside Drive to see if I could get an autograph. I knocked at the office door on the side of the building and was greeted by a very tall, impeccably dressed southern gentleman, who invited me in with a wave of his hand. I had heard that Mr. Parks was suffering from the early stages of dementia but it was nowhere in evidence on that day. He graciously signed my copy of the book with his name and the numbers of his winning cars in those early races. Afterwards he gave me a little tour of his two rooms full of historical and impressive NASCAR memorabilia, which included the winning trophy from that very first race in 1948. Some of that collection has since been donated to a museum.
Raymond Parks died on Sunday, June 20, at the age of 96. He was the last surviving member of the group that convened in Daytona to basically create NASCAR. It was an honor and a privilege to meet him. On behalf of racing fans, thank you , Mr. Parks.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Father's Day...
The letter, dated January 10, 1928, sent from Chateaugay, NY, reads, To: Mr. Thomas Abbott, Detroit Mich.
Dear Sir, I am just writing this letter to inform you I am alone in the garage business now. Ross Mellon has been put out of the firm and Jordan also has left me. Do you think you would ever feel like coming to Chateaugay? If so I wonder if we couldn't make some arrangements. Will you please let me know just what you think?
Very truly yours, Jerome Casier
Eighty one words of almost no significance to anyone, except me. And my entire family.
With Father’s Day upon us, I recently was feeling a little nostalgic. I decided to dig through a box of old photos and papers that was left in my possession after my dad died about ten years ago. I had occasionally looked at the pictures, a lot of which were of his father---my grandfather, a man my sister and I called Papa, but whom I barely knew. I had never really looked at the old newspaper clippings and letters. This week I stumbled upon the above missive and it blew my mind when I realized what it was.
I was born and grew up in upstate New York, near a small town called Chateaugay, a village the size of Mayberry, RFD, 7 miles from the Canadian border. Things could have been a lot different…
My grandfather, Thomas Charles Davies Abbott, was born in Liverpool , England. When he was a young man he came to the United States, carrying a cheap suitcase full of clothes and a head full of dreams. While it would be romantic to claim he came in through Ellis Island, in truth he first went to Canada, where he actually served in the Canadian Army during World War I. At some point he met and befriended a mechanic from Chateaugay, NY, but after the war ended he settled in Detroit, where he worked as a mechanic on automobiles. Then one day in early 1928 he received a letter from his buddy in Chateaugay, inviting him to come to NY to work together in a gas and service station. That letter, and his decision to cast his lot in NY, would change the lives of more people than he could have ever imagined. Because when Thomas Abbott made that move, he set off a chain of events that went something like this: he eventually met my grandmother, Elsie Ives, and married her. Together they had my dad, Clement and his brother Charles. My dad and mom had me and my sister Carmen, and my uncle Charlie and his wife Dorothy had five kids of their own . I have a daughter, my sister and her husband have two children, my five cousins have many children between them and now grandchildren are popping up, and it goes on and on. A seed delivered in an envelope 82 years ago took root and has become a tall and strong family tree that is showing no signs of getting weaker.
I knew my grandfather only as a strange little man who fixed televisions in his old age. Though we lived only 5 miles away, I was only inside his house one time, in 1969, when he invited us in to watch the first moonwalk. He was distant and smelled like pipe tobacco. I don’t remember ever saying much to him because he was so uninviting to the attentions of children. If he was here now, though, I would say this to him: Thank you, Papa. Thank you for picking up your mail that day in 1928, and thank you for coming here and for deciding that this was a good place to settle down and raise a family.
As a Guy Clark song called Emigrant Eyes goes, “My grandfather’s days are numbered but I won’t let his memory die. He gave me the gift of this country and the hope in his emigrant eyes.”
Dear Sir, I am just writing this letter to inform you I am alone in the garage business now. Ross Mellon has been put out of the firm and Jordan also has left me. Do you think you would ever feel like coming to Chateaugay? If so I wonder if we couldn't make some arrangements. Will you please let me know just what you think?
Very truly yours, Jerome Casier
Eighty one words of almost no significance to anyone, except me. And my entire family.
With Father’s Day upon us, I recently was feeling a little nostalgic. I decided to dig through a box of old photos and papers that was left in my possession after my dad died about ten years ago. I had occasionally looked at the pictures, a lot of which were of his father---my grandfather, a man my sister and I called Papa, but whom I barely knew. I had never really looked at the old newspaper clippings and letters. This week I stumbled upon the above missive and it blew my mind when I realized what it was.
I was born and grew up in upstate New York, near a small town called Chateaugay, a village the size of Mayberry, RFD, 7 miles from the Canadian border. Things could have been a lot different…
My grandfather, Thomas Charles Davies Abbott, was born in Liverpool , England. When he was a young man he came to the United States, carrying a cheap suitcase full of clothes and a head full of dreams. While it would be romantic to claim he came in through Ellis Island, in truth he first went to Canada, where he actually served in the Canadian Army during World War I. At some point he met and befriended a mechanic from Chateaugay, NY, but after the war ended he settled in Detroit, where he worked as a mechanic on automobiles. Then one day in early 1928 he received a letter from his buddy in Chateaugay, inviting him to come to NY to work together in a gas and service station. That letter, and his decision to cast his lot in NY, would change the lives of more people than he could have ever imagined. Because when Thomas Abbott made that move, he set off a chain of events that went something like this: he eventually met my grandmother, Elsie Ives, and married her. Together they had my dad, Clement and his brother Charles. My dad and mom had me and my sister Carmen, and my uncle Charlie and his wife Dorothy had five kids of their own . I have a daughter, my sister and her husband have two children, my five cousins have many children between them and now grandchildren are popping up, and it goes on and on. A seed delivered in an envelope 82 years ago took root and has become a tall and strong family tree that is showing no signs of getting weaker.
I knew my grandfather only as a strange little man who fixed televisions in his old age. Though we lived only 5 miles away, I was only inside his house one time, in 1969, when he invited us in to watch the first moonwalk. He was distant and smelled like pipe tobacco. I don’t remember ever saying much to him because he was so uninviting to the attentions of children. If he was here now, though, I would say this to him: Thank you, Papa. Thank you for picking up your mail that day in 1928, and thank you for coming here and for deciding that this was a good place to settle down and raise a family.
As a Guy Clark song called Emigrant Eyes goes, “My grandfather’s days are numbered but I won’t let his memory die. He gave me the gift of this country and the hope in his emigrant eyes.”
Saturday, June 5, 2010
ONE THEY WOULDNT PUBLISH
Interesting place, Butts County. Small town living that looks like a step back into the fifties. Unfortunately, it seems that we really are fifty years behind. Remember “Romper Room?” I gaze into the looking glass….
…and I see a quick-draw sheriff who fancies himself a gunslinger and who by golly is gonna save this town, no matter what. Remember a situation a few months back when a jerk up near Atlanta decided to steal a truck that was left idling in a parking lot, and drove off, just as the owner had jumped onto the back in an attempt to stop him? As state police followed the stolen truck down the interstate, with the situation under control, and the owner hanging on and communicating via cell phone, the little caravan passed through Butts County, where Sheriff Gunslinger and his gunslinging deputies were lying in wait. Several shots were fired at the truck, blowing out the windshield but somehow missing the driver completely. What wasn’t missed, though, was a state trooper, who fortunately was wearing his vest, which stopped a bullet. Sheriff Gunslinger was later quoted in this very newspaper, expressing dismay at not blowing the thief’s head off. What did he think was going to happen to a truck going 60 miles an hour once the driver has his head blown off? Does that truck then roll over and kill the man hanging on the back? Or does it just swerve out of control and kill innocent people, maybe even Sheriff Gunslinger? Unbelievable. In most other parts of the country, this guy would have been out of a job and possibly in jail in about three seconds. Here, he gets to be on TV and even gets a chance to take a shot at another vehicle a few months later. Please stop him before he kills someone.
I also see another sad similarity to the fifties. According to the last census, there are almost 20,000 citizens in Butts, roughly 70 percent white and 30 percent black. Yet, when I recently visited the courthouse in town to take care of a business matter, I was one of only three white faces among the approximately 50 or so people crowding the room and the steps leading out to the sidewalk. I returned a couple weeks later to see if that was a fluke or business as usual. Sadly, it looked the same. Why is this?
I also see an apparent unwillingness by your elected officials to have a Wal-Mart, or any other big box store, anywhere in the county. As a small business owner a Wal-Mart might hurt me some, or it might not have an impact at all. No way to tell. That said, though, the bigger picture shows me a lot of people, young and old, who need jobs, and who don’t have cars to go to Spalding or Henry Counties. Say what you will about Wal-Mart’s employment practices, they do hire a lot of folks who would be considered unemployable anywhere else---people with criminal histories, those who never got past high school, or even people whose general physical appearance isn’t likely to get them on a magazine cover. These County Commissioners who keep getting elected are not looking out for everyone’s best interests. Even the Amish gradually accept progress. We ain’t Amish, folks. It’s almost 2010, but not here in Butts County.
…and I see a quick-draw sheriff who fancies himself a gunslinger and who by golly is gonna save this town, no matter what. Remember a situation a few months back when a jerk up near Atlanta decided to steal a truck that was left idling in a parking lot, and drove off, just as the owner had jumped onto the back in an attempt to stop him? As state police followed the stolen truck down the interstate, with the situation under control, and the owner hanging on and communicating via cell phone, the little caravan passed through Butts County, where Sheriff Gunslinger and his gunslinging deputies were lying in wait. Several shots were fired at the truck, blowing out the windshield but somehow missing the driver completely. What wasn’t missed, though, was a state trooper, who fortunately was wearing his vest, which stopped a bullet. Sheriff Gunslinger was later quoted in this very newspaper, expressing dismay at not blowing the thief’s head off. What did he think was going to happen to a truck going 60 miles an hour once the driver has his head blown off? Does that truck then roll over and kill the man hanging on the back? Or does it just swerve out of control and kill innocent people, maybe even Sheriff Gunslinger? Unbelievable. In most other parts of the country, this guy would have been out of a job and possibly in jail in about three seconds. Here, he gets to be on TV and even gets a chance to take a shot at another vehicle a few months later. Please stop him before he kills someone.
I also see another sad similarity to the fifties. According to the last census, there are almost 20,000 citizens in Butts, roughly 70 percent white and 30 percent black. Yet, when I recently visited the courthouse in town to take care of a business matter, I was one of only three white faces among the approximately 50 or so people crowding the room and the steps leading out to the sidewalk. I returned a couple weeks later to see if that was a fluke or business as usual. Sadly, it looked the same. Why is this?
I also see an apparent unwillingness by your elected officials to have a Wal-Mart, or any other big box store, anywhere in the county. As a small business owner a Wal-Mart might hurt me some, or it might not have an impact at all. No way to tell. That said, though, the bigger picture shows me a lot of people, young and old, who need jobs, and who don’t have cars to go to Spalding or Henry Counties. Say what you will about Wal-Mart’s employment practices, they do hire a lot of folks who would be considered unemployable anywhere else---people with criminal histories, those who never got past high school, or even people whose general physical appearance isn’t likely to get them on a magazine cover. These County Commissioners who keep getting elected are not looking out for everyone’s best interests. Even the Amish gradually accept progress. We ain’t Amish, folks. It’s almost 2010, but not here in Butts County.
eARLY COLUMN ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE CRAP
You Want Death Panels? You Got 'Em!
by Jim Abbott
Recently former (love the sound of that!) Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made the statement that President Obama’s health care reform would lead to the creation of “death panels,” with the government making life and death decisions for us. Well, here is some news for Mrs. Palin. Those death panels are already here, lurking in plain sight. We just call them by a less menacing name: health insurance companies.
A friend of mine has a son, who unfortunately got leukemia, an insidious disease that is often successfully treated by giving the patient a bone marrow transplant. If successful, the healthy bone marrow begins producing healthy blood cells and the patient will live a normal life, providing they don’t get hit by a truck.
The family had what they thought was a good family insurance plan with Blue Cross. Twelve hundred dollars a month, but they felt it was worth it for coverage for their entire family. You can probably figure out where this story is going: Blue Cross would pay for the procedure itself, but not for the doctors or anesthesiologists. It’s like getting your car fixed but not paying for the mechanic’s labor. In the end the family had to cough up over five thousand bucks in deductibles and co-pays.
This is just one of a million horror stories about our current health care system, where private insurance companies are the real death panels. They use the generic term “pre-existing condition” as an excuse for not paying your claim. With a simple stamp, “CLAIM DENIED,” they often sentence curable people to death, or worse. Realize this: the primary job of insurance companies is to take in as much money as possible and to pay out as little as possible. This they do to perfection.
All of this blather about socialized medicine and other services being close to communism is a scare tactic. It is the right’s way of trying to create yet more fear in the land, and that is just WRONG, people. True socialism (look it up) is something that this country will never embrace but certain aspects of it are already here, and most people have never given it a second thought. When you visit your local library, when you pack your kids off to public school, when the police arrest the guy who stole your lawnmower, when the fire department puts out your burning house…these are all forms of socialism. Why should your health not be as important as your house, your belongings, or your kids’ education? These are services you pay for with tax dollars. Raise taxes a little more, cover everyone. No more “haves” versus “have-nots”.
If, as my colleague Ralph Watson stated last week, “the primary role of government is to protect the citizens under their care,” then I can think of no more basic protection than providing us all with a health care option that is available to every American, regardless of status. How to pay for it? It will pay for itself. Approximately thirty percent of the money that goes into insurance companies for health care coverage goes straight into the pockets of its executives and employees. Confusing and unending paperwork (due to there being so many different insurers, all with different forms) costs doctors and healthcare providers an estimated three hundred billion dollars annually in time and expenses. Having a single payer (the government, who would definitely be a more compassionate source than for-profit insurance companies) would dramatically reduce the waste and cost. A healthy population makes for a healthy workforce, which makes for a healthy economy. Who wins? We all do.
by Jim Abbott
Recently former (love the sound of that!) Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made the statement that President Obama’s health care reform would lead to the creation of “death panels,” with the government making life and death decisions for us. Well, here is some news for Mrs. Palin. Those death panels are already here, lurking in plain sight. We just call them by a less menacing name: health insurance companies.
A friend of mine has a son, who unfortunately got leukemia, an insidious disease that is often successfully treated by giving the patient a bone marrow transplant. If successful, the healthy bone marrow begins producing healthy blood cells and the patient will live a normal life, providing they don’t get hit by a truck.
The family had what they thought was a good family insurance plan with Blue Cross. Twelve hundred dollars a month, but they felt it was worth it for coverage for their entire family. You can probably figure out where this story is going: Blue Cross would pay for the procedure itself, but not for the doctors or anesthesiologists. It’s like getting your car fixed but not paying for the mechanic’s labor. In the end the family had to cough up over five thousand bucks in deductibles and co-pays.
This is just one of a million horror stories about our current health care system, where private insurance companies are the real death panels. They use the generic term “pre-existing condition” as an excuse for not paying your claim. With a simple stamp, “CLAIM DENIED,” they often sentence curable people to death, or worse. Realize this: the primary job of insurance companies is to take in as much money as possible and to pay out as little as possible. This they do to perfection.
All of this blather about socialized medicine and other services being close to communism is a scare tactic. It is the right’s way of trying to create yet more fear in the land, and that is just WRONG, people. True socialism (look it up) is something that this country will never embrace but certain aspects of it are already here, and most people have never given it a second thought. When you visit your local library, when you pack your kids off to public school, when the police arrest the guy who stole your lawnmower, when the fire department puts out your burning house…these are all forms of socialism. Why should your health not be as important as your house, your belongings, or your kids’ education? These are services you pay for with tax dollars. Raise taxes a little more, cover everyone. No more “haves” versus “have-nots”.
If, as my colleague Ralph Watson stated last week, “the primary role of government is to protect the citizens under their care,” then I can think of no more basic protection than providing us all with a health care option that is available to every American, regardless of status. How to pay for it? It will pay for itself. Approximately thirty percent of the money that goes into insurance companies for health care coverage goes straight into the pockets of its executives and employees. Confusing and unending paperwork (due to there being so many different insurers, all with different forms) costs doctors and healthcare providers an estimated three hundred billion dollars annually in time and expenses. Having a single payer (the government, who would definitely be a more compassionate source than for-profit insurance companies) would dramatically reduce the waste and cost. A healthy population makes for a healthy workforce, which makes for a healthy economy. Who wins? We all do.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
column for June 9, 2010
A few random thoughts:
Why is it that when I allow myself to get in a political discussion with someone from the right, and I ask them a specific question, the response inevitably sounds like one of those scripts that gets read to you by the “expert” appliance repairman over the bad phone connection from New Delhi, India? Example: Question--“Why is it that our tax money pays for schools, police, fire departments, libraries, highways, parks, and other services, but you don’t want to have it pay for health care for everyone?” Answer: “ That bleeping Obama is trying to turn our country Socialist, and we won’t stand for it!” Second question: “What is the temperature outside?” Answer: “ That bleeping Obama is trying to turn our country Socialist, and we won’t stand for it!” C’mon, folks. You’re not that dumb! Think for yourselves!
Can we all now agree that a Wal-Mart will never pop up in Butts County? Now that a new “Wally World” is being built just ten miles up the road in Locust Grove, there wouldn’t be much financial logic for the company to put one here in our little community. (Not that there ever were enough people for a Wal-Mart here anyway.) Sure, we lose all of that tax revenue but the county keeps its small town charm. If folks want to toss curses in the direction of the county commission for screwing up, they should have done it when Tanger Outlets was allowed to slip away years ago. For those of you who still want to shop at Wal-Mart, it’s literally up the road. Ten miles is about a 15 minute trip on Rt. 42 (except if, and this seems to happen to me everytime I take that trip, the world’s oldest, blindest, most intoxicated phone texting grandmother is on the road at the same time) so if you are too lazy to drive for fifteen minutes, then you didn’t really want to go anyway. Also, once the new road widening project is completed, the trip will be much smoother.
It’s nice to see some nameless individuals who are often seen walking the sides of the road where Routes 23 and 42 fork off to the south. These people are carrying garbage bags and are cleaning up other slobs’ messes. It’s a real heroic task you are performing, so thank you. It’s a shame you even have to take your own precious time to do what you do. The worst offender/item is old scratched-off lottery tickets. Possible solution: The state should come up with a plan to give a free ticket for every 20 losing tickets. Sure, stores would need to keep them stored somewhere but I can guarantee that you wouldn’t see any more of those darned things blowing around the streets. Also, the state should adopt the deposit and redemption laws for beer and soda cans and bottles. It works wonderfully in the northern states like New York, where there are people who often redeem hundreds of dollars a day in bottles and cans. And you won’t see any of those cans and bottles all over the roads either. A nickel per can or bottle is much more than the aluminum would pay at a recycling place and the glass, which pays nothing now, would be a nickel profit.
Just clearing out the clutter! Next week, back to saving the world from ourselves!
Why is it that when I allow myself to get in a political discussion with someone from the right, and I ask them a specific question, the response inevitably sounds like one of those scripts that gets read to you by the “expert” appliance repairman over the bad phone connection from New Delhi, India? Example: Question--“Why is it that our tax money pays for schools, police, fire departments, libraries, highways, parks, and other services, but you don’t want to have it pay for health care for everyone?” Answer: “ That bleeping Obama is trying to turn our country Socialist, and we won’t stand for it!” Second question: “What is the temperature outside?” Answer: “ That bleeping Obama is trying to turn our country Socialist, and we won’t stand for it!” C’mon, folks. You’re not that dumb! Think for yourselves!
Can we all now agree that a Wal-Mart will never pop up in Butts County? Now that a new “Wally World” is being built just ten miles up the road in Locust Grove, there wouldn’t be much financial logic for the company to put one here in our little community. (Not that there ever were enough people for a Wal-Mart here anyway.) Sure, we lose all of that tax revenue but the county keeps its small town charm. If folks want to toss curses in the direction of the county commission for screwing up, they should have done it when Tanger Outlets was allowed to slip away years ago. For those of you who still want to shop at Wal-Mart, it’s literally up the road. Ten miles is about a 15 minute trip on Rt. 42 (except if, and this seems to happen to me everytime I take that trip, the world’s oldest, blindest, most intoxicated phone texting grandmother is on the road at the same time) so if you are too lazy to drive for fifteen minutes, then you didn’t really want to go anyway. Also, once the new road widening project is completed, the trip will be much smoother.
It’s nice to see some nameless individuals who are often seen walking the sides of the road where Routes 23 and 42 fork off to the south. These people are carrying garbage bags and are cleaning up other slobs’ messes. It’s a real heroic task you are performing, so thank you. It’s a shame you even have to take your own precious time to do what you do. The worst offender/item is old scratched-off lottery tickets. Possible solution: The state should come up with a plan to give a free ticket for every 20 losing tickets. Sure, stores would need to keep them stored somewhere but I can guarantee that you wouldn’t see any more of those darned things blowing around the streets. Also, the state should adopt the deposit and redemption laws for beer and soda cans and bottles. It works wonderfully in the northern states like New York, where there are people who often redeem hundreds of dollars a day in bottles and cans. And you won’t see any of those cans and bottles all over the roads either. A nickel per can or bottle is much more than the aluminum would pay at a recycling place and the glass, which pays nothing now, would be a nickel profit.
Just clearing out the clutter! Next week, back to saving the world from ourselves!
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