About The Forest-blade. (Swainsboro, Ga.) 1996-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2021)
The Forest-Blade • ummiEmaniielConntyLive.com • Swainsboro, Georgia • February 24, 2021 5B Editorials Columns A place to be cherished Of all the duties associated with being Mayor, one that I espe cially enjoy is visiting the different depart ments and areas of city responsibility. You can learn a lot by talking with the good people who actually do the work, day in and day out. There's one place, however, where that's not quite so. It may sound a little odd, but talking isn't really nec essary here. This is a quiet, peaceful place. Many of us have friends and family there. In the spring and summer, city employees struggle to tame the grass and weeds, and control the shrubbery. Sometimes we win a little, usual ly Mother Nature wins more., but whatever the season, you can stand there in the middle of the Swainsboro City Cemetery and you just get the feeling that the good souls and the long-departed legends understand that the liv ing are just trying to take care of things as best they can, and it's alright. This is a gentle place where history and memory flow togeth er to give you a pret ty good lesson on the story of this communi ty Some of the names written in granite and marble all around you are the names of the city leaders and builders, but most are the names of the solid, hard-work ing people who just got up and got to work and made a life and a home for their families. This is a place of the highest honor, reverence, grat itude, inspiration, and love., It's not always an easy place to be, but if you happen to come here, you might learn a little about the Mayor Charles Schwahe life of this town and some good folks who lived here and called it home. Nope, not much conversation here, but a place to be cherished by us all. One of the goals of the City this year is to focus on a campaign to enhance and improve our City Cemetery. If you have any sug gestions or comments about improvements, you may submit them to: information@cityof- swainsboro.org. A conversation on politics with Junior I called Junior E. Lee, general manager of the Yarbrough Worldwide Me dia and Pest Control Com pany, located in Greater Garfield, Georgia, to see if he could help me make sense of the strange po litical world in which we find ourselves these days. Junior is not only one of most highly-respected po litical analysts in the nation, he is also a pest control pro fessional. That is a unique combination. Try calling the snoots in the newsroom at the New York Times and see if anybody there can tell you how to keep flea beetles from eating holes in your collard greens. Junior had just returned from Arveen Ridley's place where he had been spraying for cow ticks. He was head ed over to Aunt Flossie Ful mer's where he intends to take a peek inside her draw ers. I hope he is talking about looking for carpenter ants but I have to be careful how I deal with Junior. Pest control professionals tend to be very temperamental. I told Junior I had gotten a lot of mail about my col umns on Donald Trump. I was surprised how many people who say they are Re publicans agreed with me that the presidential election was over and that it was time to move on. And then there were those who claim that the election was a fraud and seemed to want to blame me for having brought the sub ject up. One even accused me of being a liberal. While I accepted the criticism with equanimity, I am sure a lot of Chardonnay-sip- ping. left-leaning wee nies would feel otherwise. Junior cautioned me to be careful what I say about Trump these days. If his supporters tore up the Unit ed States Capitol and talked about taking Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi hostage, what would keep them from storming the head quarters of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company in Great er Garfield, Georgia and taking him or our trusted colleague, Figby, hostage? He was particularly con cerned about the guy wear- Editorial Cartoons E. Lee ing the buffalo head running loose in Greater Garfield. Buffaloes are known as a haven for lice and the last thing the town needs be sides a mob attacking our headquarters is a lice infes tation. Junior says he has stashed away a considerable amount of malathion just to be on the safe side. It not only works on lice, it has shown to be effective on fruit flies, too. Leave it to Junior E. Lee to cover all the bases. I told Junior that while several readers admit ted that the Capitol riots went too far, they want ed to know why nobody seems upset with a bunch of young hooligans looting and burning down build ings, turning over police cars and barricading roads. Junior said that the riots have occurred in cities with liberal mayors. Also, the goons are treated with kid gloves by the media which are infested with more lib erals than lacewing larvae in a cotton patch. (Junior The Family Scrooge Uncle Ed would squeeze a penny until Lincoln's face was no longer visible. He wasn't the kindly uncle who would buy you an ice cream cone. In other woads he was tight and stingy. When his wife begged for for a new car, he purchased her a huge eye-popping di amond ring. His best friend once asked, "why did you buy your wife that expensive diamond, when you knew she needed a car instead?" He patted his friend on his back and answered with a sly grin on his face; "Now where would I find a fake car?" He once had a window air conditioner that he took out of the window of his electric bill was too high during the hot summer months, and stored it in the barn until the bill came down substantially. His wife and children must have gone through some try ing times and developed a layer of thick skin, because Lord knows they need it! Toward the end of his life when an ambulance was needed, he refused to get in because he thought three hundred dollars was too Dick Yarbrough and his pest control analo gies again!) He said since I am a liberal, I should have been able to answer my own question. I told him that was just what one reader thought and that I didn't appreciate his sarcasm. Junior said he was just josh ing. He says he knows some liberals and that I have got a long way to go before I could ever qualify as one. I'd have to refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, kneel during the National Anthem and demand that North Dakota be given back to the Chippewas. I hope that reader sees this. In closing, I asked Junior E. Lee if things were ever go ing to get back to normal or was this the way life was going to be - Republicans fighting with Republicans; Democrats spending money faster than they can print it; a pandemic that won't seem to go away; QAnon conspir acies; calls to defund the po lice. It is all so depressing. Junior said not to worry. NASA has told him there is a chance that a giant as teroid headed this way could hit us in 2068. That would take care of the Proud Boys, global warm ing and all the other stuff. I don't know where he hears these things but I would suggest that we take it se riously. To be on the safe side, I am going to pray for forgiveness for all my many transgressions. Junior says the only thing he plans to do is to take a long look inside Aunt Flossie Felmer's draw ers. There is only Junior E. Lee. Thank goodness. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dick- yarb. Ronnie Johnson much of a steep fee for a short ride to the hospital. He de manded his wife take him in stead tot he hospital in their run-down station wagon that seldom started on the first try. Looking intently at his wife's reaction, he said "that's high way robbery!" He never owned a house because he al ways rented. He and his fam ily never indulged in a more expensive lifestyle. They are mostly home grown retables and raised the own livestock . They never owned a new vehicle, and never visited a mechanic, because Ed did his own mechanic work. Uncle Ed was not much of a church goer. I think he sel dom went because he wasn't willing to part with 10% of his weekly earnings. He often said he was more "spiritual" than religious, because the spirit has no boundaries or material substance, where as religion needs money to pay the preacher and the church bills, and that takes money and more money. But Aunt Carolyn and the children went to church reg ularly, and always paid the 10% myth to the Lord's work and good graces, and the family was blessed and pros pered. When Uncle Ed died last week, it was discovered that he was a millionaire many times over. Aunt Carolyn had been a retired school teacher in South Carolina and they had never chased any of her checks. He had also retired from the Bomb Plant and only spent a small portion of his weekly check. It seemed Uncle Ed had enjoyed saving money, rather than spend ing it. It was like collecting antiques, which one never sells or gets rid of. He collect ed money like one cherishes stamps or collects baseball cards. You give up the fleet ing, simple pleasures of life, for a payoff in the future that may never come your way again. The Forest-Blade ©2021 All rights reserved. Gail Williamson, Editor / Publisher Whitley Clifton, Newsroom Editor Emanuel County Newspaper, Inc. 416 W. Moring St., P.O. Box 938 • Swainsboro, GA, 30401 Telephone: 478-237-9971 • Facsimile: 478-237-9451 Internet: www.EmanuelCountyLive.com news@emanuelcountylive.com • advertising@emanuelcountylive.com © 2021 Emanuel County Nezvspapers, Inc. The entire contents of this newspaper are copyrighted. Any reproduction or dissemination without the express written consent of the publisher is strictly prohibited. We welcome Letters to the Editor from our readers. Flowever, due to increas ing production costs, we must request that letters be kept to approximately 350 words. All letters must be signed by at least one person. Address and telephone number of the writer should also be giv en. The Blade reserves the right to edit let ters and limit the number of letters on any one subject from any one person.
