About The Advance. (Vidalia, Ga.) 2003-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2021)
gfre Aiiuancg The ADVANCE, September 29, 2021 /Page 5A OPINIONS “I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his repute for the freedom to think, And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak.” —James Russell Lowell editorials The Wheel Fell Off From the Porch By Amber Nagle Well, the front wheel of the riding lawn mower fell off again Friday — third time this year. My husband, Gene, had hopped aboard the seat, cranked the big orange zero-turn lawn mower, and driven it down our long driveway to cut the grass at the front of our property. Ten minutes later, I happened to look out the laundry room door and saw him walking back up the hill toward the house carrying something. He looked hot and disgruntled. I stepped out onto the front porch to ask what was wrong. That’s when I saw the big tire in his hand. When he got close to the house, he threw the tire and the big metal frame into a flower bed and blurted out an expletive that would make my mother cringe. He then huffed by me and into the house, slamming the laundry room door behind him. Thud. I stepped off the porch and studied the wheel. The long bolt that affixed the orange wheel frame to the decking of the lawn- mower had sheared off again — just like the other two times. The first time it happened, we drove to Home Depot and bought a sim ilar bolt. That bolt lasted about a month. Then, we ordered the exact replacement bolt from an online shop and waited a week or more for the bolt to be delivered. When the package arrived, it contained two bolts, almost as if the vendor knew one would fail — as if the parts company was saying, “Here’s a spare, just in case.” The actual repair process only takes about an hour, but Gene and I are starting to believe our efforts are in vain — that we are throwing away our money, wasting time, and getting our hands dirty and greasy for nothing. I understand my husband’s frustration. We’ve gotten a lot of rain recently, and the grass is growing like weeds, which is kind of funny since a lot of our turf areas are actu ally weeds, not grass. It’s been hard to keep up with the grass cutting, even when the riding lawnmower is functioning properly with four working, attached wheels. After Friday’s wheel incident, I fol lowed Gene into the house. “So ... what happened?” I asked gently. “I was driving along, then all of a sud den, the ride got really bumpy,” he said. “Next thing I know, the wheel rolled away from the lawnmower at a 45 degree and fell over in the grass.” I envisioned the wheel rolling away on its own — going rogue. Of course, I dared not laugh. We all encounter periods when things just start breaking or falling apart. We’ve been on a roll recently. Looking back, I think it all started in the summer when I realized that the radio and speakers weren’t working in the car due to a blown out ampli fier. We fixed it with a part we ordered off of eBay. Since then, it has been one thing after another. We have a cracked windshield that needs to be replaced, a big tree that fell dur ing a recent storm that needs to be cut up and burned, an overhead light fixture that sizzles when we flip the wall switch, a Weed Eater trimmer that won’t advance its twine, a washing machine with a malfunctioning door, an air conditioner that has decided not to blow out cool air, and now the riding lawn mower is out of commission — again. It’s hard to work full-time and manage all the broken stuff around here sometimes. Our weekends consist of fixing broken things then catching up with the backlog of chores. It can be exhausting at times. When my father was alive, he often joked that he “was going to take that chain saw and throw it out into the river,” or “take that trolling motor and throw it into the riv er.” Whatever he was frustrated with at the time, that’s what he noted he was going to hurl into the deep waters of the Ocmulgee. It was just his way of voicing his aggrava tion. He never really threw anything in the river — well, not that I’m aware of. I’ve witnessed Gene get so annoyed with a project that he slung his tools into the woods. I eased into the woods and re trieved them. When something fails or an unexpected problem arises after a laborious, tiring pro cess, people often use the idiom, “then the wheels fell off,” to describe the disaster. The irony of our most recent lawnmower story is that the wheel actually fell off — no idiom required to describe that fiasco. Gene was simply riding along, and then the wheel fell off — literally — for the third time this year. Ugh! LETTERS TO THE EDITOR... Our American Heritage and Legacy is Toast! Tucker Carlson: Joe Biden revealed why he supports illegal immigration in 201S, he wants to change the country. Joe Biden could stop the influx of migrants at the southern border, but he won’t. “An unrelenting stream of immigra tion.” Why? Joe Biden said it. To change the racial mix of the country. That’s the reason. To reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here, and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the third world. And then Biden went further and said that nonwhite DNA is the source of our strength. Imagine saying that. This is the language of eugenics. It’s horrify ing. But there’s a reason Biden said it. In political terms, this policy is sometimes called the great replacement — the re placement of legacy Americans, with more obedient people from faraway countries. They brag about it all the time, but if you dare to say this is happening, they’ll scream at you with maximum hysteria. And yet here you have Joe Biden confirming his motive, on tape, with a smile on his face. No one who talks like this should ever be the President of the United States. The president has a moral obligation to represent all Americans equally, not just those of a specific color. For four years, remember, they told you Donald Trump was a racist. But has anyone shown that Trump ever in his life said anything half as disgusting as Joe Biden said on that tape? No. No one has. Daniel Reeves, Augusta, GA Veteran, U.S. Air Force COVID Masks The constant wearing of the face mask to protect people from becoming infected by COVID virus has potential drawbacks that should be given serious consideration. The air we exhale is made up of C02, and moisture from our lungs and small amounts of mucus from our mouth as we talk, sneeze or laugh is deposited on the mask over time, accumulating varying amounts of moisture that the mask col lects, becoming wet. This moist mouth cover is touched, pushed about, adjusted and constantly taken on, off, and pock eted over many times. People’s hands touch many, many objects collecting germs that are deposited on these masks, creating a Petri dish of possible serious sickness. Moisture plus heat plus bacteria plus time equals potential illness. Ergo, follow the science, not the pol itics. Michael C. Gioia £4M0N0 &U2S STICKS TU2 MNPfRte* Philip Weltner used his pickaxe for public good He was called “Mr. Anonymous, Jr.” I thought about him the other day, after I read the U.S. Depart ment of Justice has launched a statewide inves tigation into Georgia’s pris ons, focusing on prisoner-on-prisoner violence and whether the state is violat ing inmates’ constitutional rights by fail ing to adequately protect them. This past week, members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus Committee on Crisis in Prisons held their own hear ings as well. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Long before Tom Murton became warden of the Arkansas prison system in 1968 and discovered massive abuses in the system that led to his dismissal — He was the inspiration for “Brubaker,” a fictional account of that incident and portrayed by Robert Redford — Dr. Philip Robert Weltner was getting himself arrested in Camp bell County (now a part of Fulton County) and placed on the chain gang. The year, 1912, and Dr. Weltner wielded a pickaxe, posing as a convicted forger when he actually was deputy so licitor general of Fulton County. Welt ner was seeking to expose abusive prison officials and point out the less-than- ideal treatment of inmates. He allowed himself to be “outed” after a couple of days in order to focus public attention on abusive prison officials and point out the less-than-ideal treatment of inmates. Alas, here we are 119 years later and it is deja vu all over again. But I submit Philip Weltner’s un dercover work back then was a lot more dangerous than in today’s 24-7 news cy cle and social media blather. He was one of a kind. I was honored to know him. Dr. Weltner was the father of the late Georgia Cong. Charles Longstreet Weltner, a Democrat who represented the Atlanta area in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1962 to 1966. Charles Weltner was one of only two Southern members of Congress to condemn the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963 that killed four girls and injured a number of others. He was the only member of the state’s congressional delegation (and the only Democrat from the Deep South) to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was liberal when that was not a popular position in our state, to state the obvi ous. In 1966, Cong. Weltner refused to run for reelection when the state Demo cratic Party demanded he sign a loyalty oath that would require him to support Lester Maddox’s gubernatorial cam paign against Republican U.S. Rep. Howard “Bo” Callaway. Weltner said, “I love the Congress, but I will give up my office before I give up my principles.” And he did. Cut from his father’s cloth. Charles Weltner later became a judge in the Fulton County Superior Court and then an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. In June By Dick Yarbrough 1992, he was elected chief justice. He served just a few months before his death in August 1992. Dr. Philip Weltner was also the fa ther of Callender Weltner Dorsey, a Steel Magnolia of the first rank. She was married to Jasper Dorsey, who became vice president of Southern Bell’s Geor gia operations and a valued mentor to me. So was Callender, although she suf fered fools poorly, and I tried not to give her a lot of opportunities to suffer. An unabashed Roosevelt New Dealer, Philip Weltner clashed many times with segregationist Gov. Gene Talmadge and had a role in scuttling Talmadge’s senatorial campaign against Richard Russell. He was a social re former, ahead of his time. He worked tirelessly for prison reform, juvenile jus tice, public education and race relations. In 1933, Dr. Weltner was named the second-ever chancellor of the University System of Georgia and later president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, from 1943 to 1953. When he arrived, Oglethorpe was unaccredited and facing serious financial problems. When he re tired, the school had been reaccredited and was in solid financial shape. Dr Weltner was a close associate of philanthropist Robert Woodruff, who was known as “Mr. Anonymous,” and who financed so many long-lasting proj ects including the Memorial Arts Center in Atlanta with the quiet help of Dr. Philip Weltner. Hence, “Mr. Anony mous, Jr.” So why am I telling you this? Kids today are all about tearing down our past and are no doubt blissfully ignorant of the good works of giants like Dr. Philip Weltner, who came before them. They need to do their homework and under stand there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. History has shown he did it right. He used his pickaxe for good. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@ dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb. ^Ainianre (The Advance Publishing Co., Inc) PO Box 669, 205 E. First Street, Vidalia, GA 30475 Telephone: (912) 537-3131 FAX: (912) 537-4899 E-mail: theadvancenews@gmail.com The Advance, U. S. P. S. #659-000, successor to The Advance and The Lyons Progress, entered weekly at Vidalia, GA Post Office. Periodical Postage paid at Vidalia, GA 30474 under Act of Congress, March 4, 1886. P.O. Box 669, East First Street, Wm. F. Ledford, Sr. Publisher. Subscription Rates per year: $40.00 in county, $55.00 out of 304 zip code. (POSTMASTER: send address changes to The ADVANCE, P.O. Box 583, Vidalia, GA 30475). Copyright © 2021, Advance Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. The design, concept and contents of The Advance are copyrighted and may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission from the publisher. R.E. "LID" LEDFORD, PUBLISHER 1924-1976 WILLIAM F. “BILL” LEDFORD SR., PUBLISHER 1976-2013 Publisher & Managing Editor: WILLIAM F. LEDFORD JR. Vice President: THE LATE ROSE M. 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