Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4A
BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2018
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Her name was Fannie
I’m not sure where it began.
The records say the first conversation between
Fannie and me occurred early one frosty February
morning in 1947. Knowing Fannie, I am sure there
were many conversations during the previous nine
months. I just wasn’t listening.
Fannie, an only child, was born to Mabel and
Floyd Butler on Christmas Day in 1918. Floyd stood
6-3 and was a railroad engineer. Mabel stood 4-10,
maybe 4-11 in Sunday heels. Floyd wanted a boy
that December. His first toy bought before the birth
was a football.
Obviously, Fannie and her
auburn-red hair, was a sur
prise on the delivery table.
There are a couple of things
about Fannie that her friends
and family remember. First,
she was a talker. She loved to
talk. She could talk to strang
ers as easy as she could talk
to family and friends.
She talked about the good
times, the bad times, and she
would talk when you didn’t
want to hear the message.
Fortunately for my brother and me, she was also
a good of a listener. For that, my brother and I will
always be thankful. Whenever we needed someone
to listen to us, she was ready and willing. But if we
wanted her to listen, then we had to be ready to
hear her point of view afterwards.
Fannie also loved to dance. She loved the big
band music. It wasn’t a surprise to walk into the
living room and catch her doing the “Charleston.”
I remember a few cookouts with friends at Pine
Mountain where she and Dad would jitterbug and
do the shag to the music on jukebox. Fannie did
most of the dancing as dad shuffled across the floor
keeping up with her.
Expectations were such a part of her life and she
poured them into our lives on a daily basis. There
weren’t any boundaries. Her expectations walked
us through school, church, Boy Scouts, as well
as with family and friends. If you accepted a task,
you were expected to do it right and to complete
it. Actually, you were expected to go above and
beyond. Failure was never an option.
Fannie’s life centered around our family. Close
family ties were a trademark. Maternal and paternal
grandparents were always a part of the family. She
was proud of the family and proud that she and Dad
sent three children to college, the first on our side
of the family to obtain any education beyond a high
school diploma.
Fannie was everything a mother could be. She
was Mama, Mother, Fannie, BB; she was a mother
first, a confidante, a friend and a grandmother to
her children and the grandchildren.
As always in family, there are stories. Once, she
was in the attic where she had no business being.
My brother and I were in the kitchen with a neigh
bor when all of a sudden there was a loud noise
and a leg was hanging through the ceiling. The
neighbor, although strong in her faith, yelled and
ran from the house after looking above and seeing
a leg dangling in space.
Spring cleaning was a big deal in the ‘50s and
‘60s. I remember one day Mother was in her bed
room cleaning and I heard the sound of a pistol
being fired. I ran into the room and there was
Fannie standing by the window, frozen in time and
whiter than the white wall paint, still holding the
pistol and pointing towards the window, mouth
wide open.
My first question was, of course, “What hap
pened?” Without moving she said, “It went off!”
While cleaning the dresser drawers, Mother had
found her father’s .38 caliber pistol and being cool,
had taken it and pointed it at the window.
In the coolness of an Annie Oakley, she had
aimed the pistol, pretended to pull the trigger and
said “bang.” Twice more she pointed at imaginary
targets. On the third aim, she pulled the trigger
when she said bang and blew out the window. I
don’t recall every seeing Fannie touch the pistol
again.
I saw that same look on her face several years
later during a thunderstorm. We were fishing at a
friend’s lake and had gone up to their lake house as
a thunderstorm approached. We were sitting in the
living room and Mother was sitting by the front door
with the door open enjoying the breeze accompa
nying the storm.
A bolt of lightning hit a tree by the porch, arced
to the porch, came through the front door, passed
by Fannie and grounded on a metal strip along the
wall.
It followed the strip into the bathroom and
grounded through the floor. It was several minutes
before Fannie could blink, get her hair to lie down
or talk. It was one of the few times in her life that
Fannie was truly speechless.
There were numerous life lessons along the way
and Mother taught us from the heart. Thank-you
notes were not optional. She reminded us to be
polite, to be honest and trustworthy. Trust God. Say
your prayers. Smile. Look people in the eye when
you talk to them. Love one another. I can’t count
the times she reminded us “Life isn’t easy but it’s
worth the living.”
I never recall her using the word sacrifice but as
I recount the years and think about the times, I am
astounded at the sacrifices made by Mother and
Dad.
See Terrell on Page 5A
Should we arm
school personnel?
Should schools have a few employ
ees carry guns while on campus? That
is the central issue in both a local
and nationwide debate about how to
respond to school shootings. Locally,
the Jefferson Board of Education is
debating whether or not to adopt a pol
icy that would allow admin
istrators to have an armed
employee(s) in the system’s
schools. The idea has got
ten some pushback from a
group of parents who argue
that “teachers” should not
be armed.
That debate echoes a
similar debate taking place
across the nation in the
wake of February’s high
school shooting in Parkland,
Fla. where 17 students were
killed. The U.S. has a long
history of shootings and killings on
school and college campuses. Ten peo
ple, nine of whom were students, were
killed in a Pennsylvania school building
by a group of Indians in 1764. In the
250 years since, dozens of people have
been killed and hundreds wounded
by gunfire on school grounds across
the country. One of the worst was in
1966 on the University of Texas campus
where a student climbed into a tower
and killed 17 people and wounded 31
others. In 1989, five children were killed
and 32 wounded in an elementary
school in Stockton, Calif. Five students
were killed and 10 wounded in 1998 in
Arkansas when two middle school stu
dents shot classmates. And of course,
there was Columbine in 1999 where 15
were killed and 21 wounded, Virginia
Tech in 2007 where 33 were killed
and 23 wounded, and Sandy Hook
in 2012 where 26 were killed and two
wounded.
The underlying issues in that debate
are many and the idea of arming
school personnel is just one aspect of
a much more complex issue. Mental
illness, easy access to guns and the
increased availability of high-capacity
weapons have all contributed to these
mass shooting events (and schools
aren’t the only venues for these, either.
We’ve seen mass shootings in theaters,
shopping malls, churches and other
locations where people are easy tar
gets.)
There are at least three broad view
points about arming school personnel
in response to these incidents.
First, there are those who believe
arming school personnel is the wrong
solution. This argument questions
whether or not any teacher, coach or
administrator would have the technical
skills or “courage under fire” emotional
capacity to really confront an intruding
school shooter. That’s a valid concern.
Just because a teacher or coach has
shot at paper targets on a range with
a pistol doesn’t mean they have the
overall skillset needed to face down
someone armed with a high-capacity
AR-15 rifle. Even the highly-trained can
miss when under threat — a recent
Jefferson policeman was confronted
at night by a man wielding what he
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thought was a gun; the cop fired 10
times and never hit the man. Shooting
under pressure is incredibility difficult.
In a school setting, a shootout between
an intruder and someone armed could
lead to even more deaths from fly
ing bullets up and down a hall or in
a classroom. Then there’s
the question of whether or
not armed school personnel
would have the emotional
ability to confront someone
carrying a weapon capable
of mass shooting. The SRO
at the school in Parkland
didn’t go inside the building
to confront the shooter —
would an untrained “ama
teur” defender be able to do
so? In addition, the security
of the weapon itself on cam
pus isn’t 100 percent. For an
armed person to have any chance at
being effective, he or she would have
to have a gun on them at all times.
Locking up a gun in a box on campus
serves no purpose. But carrying a load
ed gun in a school environment has
risks, including a possibility that one
or two people could take that gun away
and use it in a classroom against teach
ers and students. Finally, there is a real
concern that in the event of a threat,
arriving law enforcement officers might
not be able to distinguish between an
armed intruder and an armed teacher.
That could lead to even more tragedy.
A second view about this rejects
arming school personnel, but does
endorse the idea of having armed
SROs on every campus along with
the addition of metal detectors, con
trolled school entry points, additional
video monitors and cameras and better
school grounds access control with
gates, fencing, etc. In other words,
make it more difficult for anyone to
access a school building with a weap
on and have police on every campus
in case there is an intrusion. Many of
our local schools have already done
some of this with controlled entry into
the buildings, additional video mon
itoring and SROs. But none of that is
foolproof. Fire codes don’t allow for
just one entry and exit from a building
so additional doors are in place and
accessible. And as a practical matter,
most campuses have multiple buildings
that students have to traverse. Along
with that there are school buses, ath
letic fields and other venues that are
impossible to fully restrict.
See Buffington on Page 5A
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
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The way
different people
view politics
and elections
In case you didn’t know it or have been
napping, we are in the midst of primary
election season in Georgia.
The May 22 primary is fast approaching
and Georgia voters have some important
decisions to make. Actually the primary
has already arrived as early voting began
last week.
In 2018, there is
really no excuse not
to vote. Certainly the
“I don’t have time”
excuse can in no
way be viewed as
valid anymore. With
several weeks of
early voting (includ
ing a Saturday)
there are more days
than ever to cast
your ballot.
You can even
request an absentee ballot be mailed to
you and you no longer have to list a rea
son. A voter can simply request one, mark
his or her choices and return it.
As with each election season, I conduct
an informal poll among people I know.
Some colleagues have no clue there is
even an election. Some have never reg
istered to vote. Some are actually able to
name a few candidates vying for certain
offices.
And there is always one or two who
respond by wanting to know who the cur
rent governor of our state is. Sigh.
The statewide race at the top of the ballot
in 2018 is for the open governorship. With
Nathan Deal finishing his second term
he cannot seek re-election. There are six
Republicans and two Democrats trying to
win their party’s respective nominations.
The survivors of those primaries will also
face a Libertarian candidate in November.
It appears all but certain that current
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle will at least make it
into a mnoff on the GOP side. A recent
poll showed Cagle far ahead and it is
not beyond impossible that he may win
the primary outright. Chances are good,
however, that with six candidates dividing
the Republican vote, there will be a runoff.
Despite the way many people (those
who care enough anyway to know there is
an election) complain about the status quo
and “politics as usual,” it’s usually some
one who has been in the political game for
years (decades even) who rises to the top.
Current Secretary of State Brian Kemp
is also competing in the GOP primary
for governor and was in a tight race with
Hunter Hill for the crucial second-place
position. Only one point separated the two
in the poll I referred to earlier.
Others who have not been elected to
statewide office trail the pack even though
they are doing all they can to play up their
outsider status.
While all statewide offices are important
to citizens of our state (one of the most
important ones in terms of your wallet is
the Public Service Commission), it is the
local elections that people should always
pay close attention to.
Seats on local school boards, city coun
cils and the board of commissioners are
governed by a group of people who have a
great influence on your life as well as your
bottom line financially.
It is wise to learn as much as possible
about candidates mnning for any office
but especially those at the local level. They
control your property taxes, school taxes
and have more say over how much of
your hard-earned money you actually take
home each pay check.
Also, it is wise to always take with a grain
of salt candidates who simply use political
talking points. In the race for secretary of
state, for example, there are many of the
candidates who are bragging about things
they believe in that have absolutely nothing
to do with the day-to-day operation of that
office.
As the actual primary date gets closer
with each passing day it is important that
we all pay attention to these races and
make educated choices. Being a previous
office holder in no way qualifies someone
to be elected to another office. And cer
tainly any candidate who tries to use any
office as a stepping stone to higher polit
ical gain should not be considered at all.
Winder resident Chris Bridges is a for
mer editor of the Barrow News-Journal.
He welcomes feedback about this column
at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.
chris
bridges