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Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com.
DawsonOpinion
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
Gov. Deal reflects
on the past as he
looks to the future
My recent conversation with Gov. Nathan
Deal covered a lot of ground. In last week’s
column, we talked about some of his accom
plishments over the past eight years of which
he is most proud, including criminal justice
reform that is a model for the nation. We talked
about the HOPE Grant, a scholarship that pays
100 percent of tuition for students to attend
technical colleges to
learn skills that are
in high demand for
Georgia’s workforce
in 17 programs of
study from automo
tive technology to
computer technolo
gy, welding, practi
cal nursing and even
movie production set design.
To say the program has been a rousing suc
cess is an understatement. 88.4 percent of stu
dents who receive the HOPE Career Grant find
job placement in their fields upon graduation,
and 99.2 percent overall find job placement of
some kind upon completion of the certificate.
We talked about The REACH (“Realizing
Educational Achievement Can Happen”)
Scholarship Program, a needs-based mentor
ship and scholarship program started in 2012 to
encourage middle school students from low-
income families to graduate from high school
and be prepared for the 21st-century work
force. Students and their parents/guardians
must sign contracts agreeing to maintain the
minimum GPA, have regular school attendance
and meet with mentor-coaches.
For those in the program, unexcused absenc
es have dropped by 30 percent and disciplinary
infractions have dropped by 60 percent, on
average. This year, the REACH Georgia
Program will serve 134 school systems and
nearly 1,800 students.
We talked about the Legislature finally fund
ing Georgia K-12 Quality Basic Education Act
after its initial passage more than three decades
ago. We talked about the fact that the governor
has appointed more judges to the bench in
Georgia that any governor in the state’s history.
We talked about his veto of the religious free
dom bill and the restoration of the tax cut to
Delta Air Lines and a bunch of other stuff.
Finally, it was time to talk about the man,
Nathan Deal. For the first time in over 40
years, he isn’t going to be in the political spot
light. For the first time since 2010, he isn’t
going to be the chief executive of the eighth
most populous state in the nation.
What is he going to miss most? “I can tell
you what I won’t miss,” he said, “I won’t miss
the crisis phone calls. I will enjoy the absence
of pressure for a change.”
How about hobbies? The governor said, “I
don’t play golf and I don’t do much hunting,
but I like being out on the land. I love to fish.”
He said he might even try his hand at fly-fish
ing. He should have plenty of opportunities for
that. North Georgia has some spectacular trout
streams and some spectacular trout to go with
them.
Does a boy growing up in Sandersville think
that someday he might like to be governor of
Georgia? “Not at all,” he said, “There was a
period of time that I intended to be a veterinari
an.” That changed when his mother got him
involved in public speaking and he became so
good at it that he and a group of Baptist teens
won the state competition at Mercer University.
Gov. Deal said the environment at Mercer
appealed to him and that led to his attending
school there on a program which allowed him
to fast-track into the study of law while still
completing his undergraduate work. It was also
at Mercer where he met fellow student Sandra
Dunagan from Gainesville, whom he married
and where he began his law practice while she
taught school.
He was the county’s first full-time assistant
district attorney, struck a lot of juries and got to
know a lot of folks. When the opportunity
came to run for state Senate in 1980, he took it
and won. He served that part-time position for
12 years, becoming president pro-tem of the
Senate. “Driving back and forth from
Gainesville to Atlanta over those years was
very wearying,” he recalls, “so when
Congressman Ed Jenkins announced his retire
ment, I decided either get in politics full time or
get out.” Deal won the congressional seat in
1993 and kept it until resigning to run for gov
ernor.
Deal is most enthused when talking about
the role the first lady has played in his life and
his career. As first lady, Ms. Deal has visited
over 1,000 schools in all 180 school systems in
Georgia’s 159 counties, promoting early child
hood reading, as befits a former schoolteacher.
“Sandra is not much for sitting around,” he
said. “She likes to remind me that she travels
the state by car and not by helicopter like the
governor,” he laughs. “I remind her she could
probably run for governor and win.”
I have known every governor — some better
than others — since Ernest Vandiver in the late
1950s. I have liked some better than others. I
like Nathan Deal. He is a good man who has
been a good governor and done good things for
his state, quietly and with dignity. May he
enjoy his well-deserved retirement. He has
earned it.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar-
brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA
31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist
Adjusting to a Santa-less Christmas
Spoiler alert: the following
may cause some to doubt the
existence of a certain yearly
visitor who travels by sleigh
and eats all your cookies.
Now, you’ve been warned.
No one warned me, though.
But suddenly, there was no
mention of Santa.
The potential threat of tell
ing my child Santa knew
when he was sleeping, when
he was awake, when he’d been
bad or good no longer carried
the weight it once had.
Maybe I should have known
when my child stated that was
“creepy” one year that some
thing was changing.
In his younger years, I had a
list to give Santa before the
Halloween candy was gone.
Once, he found the note in
the floorboard of my car,
where it had fallen out of my
bag. He was maybe four at the
time and worried if he would
get presents or not.
“But you didn’t mail it,” he
said forlornly. “How will
Santa know what I want?”
“The magic of Christmas,”
I said. “He knows already;
he’s been watching, remem
ber?”
Cole accepted this as truth,
thinking there was indeed a
Santa-vision screen in the
North Pole, keeping the jolly
old elf up to date on what
everyone wanted.
One year, he wrote his list
and gave it to the Santa on the
square, not saying a word to
SUDIE CROUCH
Columnist
anyone about what he wanted.
“What are we going to do?”
I whispered to Lamar.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“He said he was only telling
the Big Guy what he wanted
and nobody else.”
When Dec. 25 rolled
around, Cole surveyed his loot
and shook his head.
“Santa’s slipping; he didn’t
get anything I asked for.”
We never knew what the
child requested, but I think this
may have been the beginning
of the end.
“What happens to kids if
they stop believing in Santa?”
he asked randomly one sum
mer.
It was 190 degrees and my
hair was sweating. Why was
my child worried about
Christmas?
“They get underwear,” I told
him.
“Oh,” was all he said.
A few days later, he brought
the conversation back up.
“So, you really get under
wear if you stop believing in
Santa?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He nodded, slowly, thinking
this through. He was wrestling
with either a decision or a plot
and didn’t like the outcome of
either.
“I think I will believe a little
bit more,” he said.
Christmas came and went,
and he seemed to still enjoy
the moments of suspended
disbelief, but I wondered if it
was true or just for my sake.
Was it selfish for me to want
him to continue to believe a
little bit longer?
For him to be caught up in
the magic of Christmas and
the hope that miracles can and
do exist — was it wrong for
me to want him to hold on to
that?
“Do you still believe?” he
asked me one day a couple of
years later.
“In what?”
“Santa.”
The question had caught me
off guard as it was yet again,
no where near Christmas.
I thought sincerely about his
question, knowing this was it.
This was probably when he
was giving up the world of
make-believe.
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“You really believe in
Santa?”
“Yeah.”
He eyed me cautiously.
“They say Santa was a real
person that went around
throwing toys in the windows
of poor people’s homes, so
their children could have
Christmas,” he said. “But he
doesn’t do that now, does he?”
“Maybe not him personal
ly,” I said, choosing my words
carefully. “But maybe it is
someone carrying on the tradi
tion. And I believe in the hope
and magic of the season,
where people do good for
other people. I think that is
what Santa, or Saint Nick, was
supposed to be about.”
He considered this for a
moment.
“If I stop believing, am I
going to get underwear this
year?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
He nodded.
And just like that, a few
years ago, we shifted from talk
of Santa to the practicality of
present buying. Gone are the
days of writing letters to Santa
or leaving out milk and cook
ies, with carrots for the rein
deer. It made me sad to think
the days of magic and make-
believe were behind us.
“What are you getting the
baby for Christmas?” Mama
asked.
Even though he is 14, he is
and will always be, the baby.
“He needs a computer,” I
said. “And underwear. Lots
and lots of underwear.”
Sudie Crouch is an award win
ning humor columnist and
author of the recently e-pub-
lished novel, "The Dahlman
Files: A Tony Dahlman
Paranormal Mystery."
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Not reciting traditional
creeds doesn't mean
you aren't a Christian
Oh boy, am I excited, I get to poke
fun at CNN and Huffington Post, two
paragons of religious ignorance.
It seems that at the funeral of
George Bush the other day that
President Trump did not recite the
Apostles Creed, the oldest of the con
fessions. Religious confessions and
creeds are exactly the same thing.
In my Presbyterian Church we often
recite creeds. We are a confessional
church and we have a whole book of
them. Sometimes we recite the
Apostle’s Creed. Sometimes the
Nicene Creed. And even sometimes
we say a portion of the Westminster
Confession, which I think is the high
water mark of all protestant confes
sional statements.
But Huff and CNN ignorantly called
them prayers and said that the presi
dent did not take part in the service so
blah blah blah he is a bad person and
disrespectful. Where do those organi
zations find their supply of such
unschooled and silly writers?
That very old creed is a short state
ment of what some say are the essen
tial tenants of Christianity. But not all
Christians say creeds.
I have a lot of Christian friends that
would never say a creed. They dis
agree on theological points. That
does not make them less Christian. It
does not make them disrespectful. It
may mean that they are very careful
and will not say what they do not
believe.
Some of those people at that funer
al probably do not agree with a single
thing in that confession. They just
made a meaningless noise with their
mouths. I don’t think people should
make a statement about faith unless
they understand what they are saying
and agree with it. To do otherwise is
to make themselves a liar in front of
the rest of us and in front of God.
I do not know why the President
did not say the creed. But there is no
fault in the man for his silence. The
people who say otherwise need to
pause and think about the words of
Christ in Matthew.
For those of you in the national
news business who don’t know, that
book is part of the New Testament. It
is worth reading. Let’s hope that
CNN and Huffington people spend
some time in that book.
For those of you who are interest
ed, come out to my workshop and we
will have a discussion about the
Westminster Confession around the
wood stove. And we could tip a little
Scottish beverage in celebration of
clear thinking.
Gary Pichon
Marble Hill
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