Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007 4A Daniel F. Evans President Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Foy S. Evans Vice President Editor Emeritus Don Moncrief Managing Editor Letters to the editor A big ‘thank you’ from the mayor The opening weekend of our annual Christmas At The Crossroads was a huge success. Each of the events was well attended and enjoyed by all. A number of people need to be thanked for all their hard work in making the weekend so successful. Julie Evans and Melanie Lewis put together the best parade our com munity has ever witnessed. This was no easy task and took weeks of preparation and planning. Our downtown merchants followed up with many activities that made Saturday afternoon a most enjoyable time in our beautiful downtown. Sunday evening's worship service at the old courthouse was also well attended. The hundreds that gathered to take time to remember the real meaning of the season were blessed with a most inspirational message as well as fun singing familiar old Christmas carols together. The lighting of the community Christmas tree in honor of our military and public safety personnel was recognized by all in atten dance. The use of the portable stage from the ag center was greatly appreciated as was Larry Wood and his work with the sound system. The Perry Ministerial Association is to be commended for all their hard work in putting this significant event together for our community. Boy Scouts and their leaders spent hours prior to the Sunday evening service getting luminaries ready for light ing. They are so faithful year after year in helping to make this event unique for the City of Perry. To the volunteers at the Perry United Methodist Church who serve hot chocolate and cookies every year following the Sunday evening worship service and to the children who give meaning to the true spirit of Christmas with their program on the steps of the church - thank you. To the employees of the City of Perry who make all of this come together we owe a debt of gratitude. These men and women in the public works department and in our fire and police departments make this event happen. Without them there would be no Christmas at the Crossroads. They spend many hours making sure everything is ready for the event as well as following up after all the activities are over to make sure things are back to normal for the community. They are the most dedicated, hardworking men and women I have ever been associated with and I am proud to serve with them as we serve the citizens of our community. Merry Christmas! - Perry Mayor Jim Worrall Judicial salaries: Time for Georgia to act 1 n the next session of the General Assembly, there will Ibe many issues on which folks disagree. There is one matter, however, on which we all agree: “justice for all” requires better pay for judges serving in Georgia. For the past two years, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts has warned us of the consequences of the ever-widening gap between the salaries of judges and those of lawyers in the private sector, as well as senior law school professors. In his 2005 Year-End Report on the Judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts noted: “There will always be a substantial difference in pay between successful government and private-sector lawyers. But if that difference remains too large - as it is today - the judiciary will over time cease to be made up of a diverse group of the nation’s very best lawyers.” And in his Year-End Report for 2006, the chief justice pointed to a growing trend among experienced judges who are retiring from the bench early, then moving to more financially lucrative work in the private sector - and away from the increasing demands, sacrifices and risks associ ated with judicial service. At this point, you might be asking, so what? Why See LETTER, page $A More respect, less name calling On several occasions I have begun to respond to writ ers demanding the right of Warner Robins residents to vote on whether or not Sunday sales of alcoholic drinks should be permitted. Just as often, I decided not to enter the debate. Recent comments have been filled with such disgusting verbiage that I must enter in “where angels fear to tread”. To suggest that those citizens who oppose the Sunday sale of alcoholic drinks are mentally ill as one writer did is nauseating. All citizens are constitutionally guaranteed the right to petition government. Those citizens opposed to Sunday sales were simply petitioning government as were pro ponents of the measure. Their opposition was based upon their moral value. Those in support of the measure See LETTER i, page HOW TO SUBMIT: There are three ways to submit a letter to the editor: E mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to Houston Home Journal at 1210 Washington St., Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at the same location between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number (the last two not printed). The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. BELIEF Come to see our mushroom There they are, six turtle shells on their backs and laying (or, is it, lying?) on our kitchen table. The largest is almost the size of a ' 10-gallon hat and the smallest is about the size of a coffee cup. And what we intend to do with them is tie them together, vertically (largest to smallest in descending size order), and hang them in our barn out on Highway 127. Do you think it will make an interesting display? If so, come by to see them. Over to my right, on the fireplace hearth, is a straw basket full of flint rocks. There is nothing particularly unique about “my rocks” except that I thought, when I found them, that they were pretty interesting rocks. Janice caught my habit and she found some of them. So, we have this basket and several other containers full of “inter esting” flint. I have trouble getting rid of my rocks, so we keep them. Maybe we can take them out to our barn, spread them out on a very large table, and let disinterested people see them. The flint rocks were found by us while looking for Indian artifacts. And, we do have some pretty good artifacts. They are not “world class” like Buddy Andrew’s collection, but they are pret ty good. Now, the question is how to display the arrowheads. You have to be careful with arrowheads because not nice peo ple will steal them. And, then, there’s those pieces of flint that we think were “Indian tools”; but, we are not exactly sure. I look in the arrowhead books and I see similar rocks classified as tools, but I’m still not totally positive about “my tools”. -—? medicmp ) Shopping habits at MLC' school mean late sleep As the bard of retail would ask, “What price, O hunter of bar gains, O bidder of Black Friday, O dropped shopper, what price will thy pay?” Apparently whatever they are asking. That’s why thousands of- Americans either queued up half a day before stores opened or arose in the middle of the night to be on line early the day after Thanksgiving. At stake were thousands of dollars in savings on selected items, presump tively for Christmas gifts. A quick tour of newspaper and news agency websites Friday revealed photos of the hidden costs of getting a good deal: sleeping overnight on cold con crete; sleep deprivation with no guaran tee of scoring a Wii or other similarly situated gizmo; or even a slight risk of limb as shoppers compete in the Short Supply, Big Demand Holiday Bowl. As an adherent of the “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” School of Holiday Shopping Habits, I have never really participated in Black Friday. I did end up at a Retail Universe way sta tion late Friday, shopping not for a gift but rather for a necessity. The trip was without incident. My heart was light. Like many other in the MLC school, I have neither the energy, organization or foresight to rise before dawn for a ()ne voice ca/t-. make a (///fere/tee Columnist SgagJJlf’' lwalker@whgb-law.com "But, you get the picture. I'm a collector. Not a serious collector of any one thing, but a collector.” Then there are my political campaign posters and political memorabilia. I’ve got some pretty good “stuff”. It’s inter esting - well, at least to me it’s interest ing. I’ve got a 1949 Herman Talmadge for Governor poster, and an original (first time he ran) Franklin Roosevelt for President poster, and a match ing Henry Wallace for Vice-President poster. My cousin, Don Daniel, gave me the Roosevelt and Wallace posters. I also have an original Jimmy Carter for President poster. I thought the Carter poster might be valuable until I recent ly saw an identical one in an antique shop in Marietta selling for $75. Then there are my books. I love my books. When I read a book, I want to own it. Perhaps that’s why I don’t go more often to the library. If you give me a book, I’ll write in the front of it the date and your name and the cir cumstances of the gift. When I finish the book, likely as not, I will then write in it as to my opinion of the book. George y.Q. Morris News Service george.ayoub@morris.com holiday bargain. Actually, I can think of no particular bauble or whirligig that would cause me to set my alarm at 3:15 a.m. to shop. Not even a white football with black stripes. The faux leather football is a gift from Christmas past, long past, my past. I loved it as much as I ever loved a Christmas gift. I mention it here only because I know my mother and father lost no sleep in securing it, nor did the process by which it was purchased matter to me when I found it under the tree on my seventh or eighth Christmas morning. Please factor into this good-old-days shtick and sob story that I am old, or at least old enough to have grown up without a mall. Since the days of black and white footballs, we have become a nation of shoppers. I make no judgment on that; it’s only an observation. In fact, my father toiled in retail the last eight years of his life, so we knew full well the HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL Most often, there is a good report; otherwise, I wouldn’t have finished it. I never write an evaluation unless I read every word in the book -1 don’t cheat! I love my books, like to own them, and like to feel and smell them. I’m a book collector. It will probably be a problem for my children when Janice and I are gone in getting rid of all these books. Recently, Janice found a giant mush room (as big as our second largest turtle shell) out on our farm, and on the same day I found a giant fungus growing on an oak tree. Since she had the mushroom, I refused to be outdone and got the fun gus. We still have both of these inter esting “conversation pieces”. Well, at least she and I talk about them! I have model antique cars, trucks and tractors and a few signed baseballs and six, or so, signed footballs. I could go on. But, you get the picture. I’m a collec tor. Not a serious collector of any one thing, but a collector. And, I think I know why: It has to do with my child hood and my cousin James’ stamp collection (yes, it was world-class) and Papa’s telling me about the rocks and birds and our science club under the fig tree on Swift Street. But, that’s subject matters for future articles. For the time being, let me say that we have some pretty interesting stuff in our barn on the Marshallville Road - at least we think so. Come by to see us, and I’ll show it to you, including Janice’s mushroom in a stand over the sink in the bam. Editor’s Note: On page BA, you’ll find some interesting letters written in response to Larry Walker’s previous col umn Dec. 1 on UGA’s Herschel Walker. pressures of Christmas. As a nation of shoppers, it only stands to reason that we are at our best on Black Friday and the attendant holiday shopping season that follows. That’s why it should neither surprise nor concern us that shoppers camp all night or push and shove a little to com plete their link in the commerce chain the day after Thanksgiving. All of which makes us MLC shoppers (last minute, prone to shrugging dith erers), out of step with the rest of the retail world. It’s a blessing and a curse. Saving money or getting a good deal makes my day as much as it does yours. I sometimes wish I had some of the mer chandising moxie, instincts and drive of those who arrived at stores before dawn Friday morning, credit cards at the ready, a plan in their pocket. The boots were an aberration. I sim ply have very few shopping chops. So I sleep later the day after Thanksgiving. I wait to shop. And I will have to be content with hanging a shin ing star upon the highest bough because between now and Dec. 25, inventory and prices will never be what they were in the wee hours of Friday morning. George Ayoub is senior writer at The Independent of Grand Island, Neb. Reach him at george.ayoub@morris. com.