About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2019)
PAGE 9A 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, APRIL 3, 2019 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. Explaining life to someone with icing on their face is not easy I sat down recently for a chat with my twin great-granddaughters, Hadley Ann Yarbrough and Harper Grace Yarbrough, on the occasion of their first birthday. I thought this would be a good time to share some of my life experiences and to gain some per spective on what their generation is think ing about the world in which they find themselves. The conversa tion was delayed briefly while they smeared birthday cake icing on their faces and chewed on their presents, some of which were not intended to be chewable but, hey, that’s the younger generation for you. After a few spit-ups and a couple of poops, the twins were ready to get down to business. I wanted to take it slow. As bril liant as these two seem to be, it is obvious they have much work to do before they master the English language. This is a chal lenge they share with their great-grandfa ther, who is still grappling with who-vs- whom and that “I-before-E” stuff. I asked the twins how they viewed Donald Trump’s performance as president. Hadley Ann was ready for that one. “Blah! Blah! Blah!” she said with icing on her face. An interesting observation from one so young, however, when you think about the amount of time the Leader of the Free World spends on his Tweet machine obsessing over what some irrelevant jerk in Hollywood thinks about him, “Blah! Blah! Blah!” does seems appropriate. Out of the mouth of babes. We were treading on dangerous territory here. President Trump’s supporters aren’t overly endowed with a sense of humor and take any perceived criticism of the man up- close and personal. “Pfft!” Harper Grace said and then spit up. They can’t say I didn’t warn them. Admittedly, while they do have a few years before they can register to vote — and there is that whole learning to read and write thing that awaits them — lam curious as to what their political leanings might be. Hopefully, they won’t be wild-eyed, fire-breathing wing- nuts on either side of the political spectrum. I told them that I am not beloved by either side because I don’t like illegal aliens traipsing into our country like they own the place and making us learn to speak their language instead of learning ours. At the same time, I don’t like guns everywhere except under the Gold Dome or private school vouchers because legislators are too lazy to fix the problems surrounding public schools. I’m just not a wingnut kind of guy. My all-time political hero is the late Gov. Carl Sanders, a Democrat. I also admire former Sen. Sam Nunn, another Democrat, as well as the late Sen. Paul Coverdell, a Republican, and Zell Miller, who started out as a staunch Democrat but ended up acting like a Republican. Clearly, my politi cal tastes are ecumenical. As I extolled the virtues of these great men, Hadley Ann smeared more icing on her face and Harper Grace began chewing on some of the gift-wrapping paper. I got the feeling they were not listening to what I was trying to tell them. I hope this doesn’t mean we are raising a couple of potential wingnuts in the Yarbrough household with a propensity for smearing icing on their faces and eating gift-wrapping paper. Wingnuts can be weird. You should see my mail. I said my middle-of-the-road approach to politics should serve as an exemplary stan dard by which to shape their own political philosophy. They could certainly do worse than having their great-grandfather as their role model. “Blah! Blah! Blah!” Hadley Ann said as she applied more birthday cake icing to her face. “Pfft!” said Harper Grace. I take this to mean they have yet to be convinced. As they were crawling across the floor to parts unknown, I reminded them that the future of the world rests on them and their generation. This is a staggering responsibility and one they should take very seriously. Life is about more than smearing birthday cake icing and eating gift-wrapping paper. They should thank their lucky stars they have a great-grandfather around to guide them on the perilous journey that lies ahead of them. “Blah! Blah! Blah!” said Hadley Ann. “Pfft!” said Harper Grace, who promptly spit up. The twins may think they know it all right now, but just wait. One of these days they are going to have to deal with who-vs- whom and all that “I before E” stuff. Then they will discover the old man had been right all along. Pfft! You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar- brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb. "Look! The birds are back, the flowers are blooming! Isn't spring grand?!!" Sometimes too much is never really too much It seems like for the majori ty of my life, I have had a hard time fitting in. Maybe ‘fitting in’ is the wrong term. I have just always felt like at times I was out of place. A feeling of just being the odd one out or somewhat slightly different. It may stem from child hood, being overweight in a sea of skinny kids and always being a little bit different than the other kids in some way. In addition to my shortcom ings and inadequacies, there have always been moments where I have been accused of being too much of something. Too mouthy. Too independent. Too stubborn. Too loud. Too quiet. Practically every personali ty trait you can imagine was reduced to being an annoying characteristic. Some of these things I couldn’t even control. I couldn’t stop being inde pendent; it was the only way I knew how to be. Stubborn was part of my nature; being loud came from having a grandfather who was partially deaf. My normal inside voice was probably two octaves above someone at a SUDIE CROUCH Columnist sporting event. Being too quiet was only mentioned in cases where I didn’t like someone or felt even more self-conscious of my environment. Needless to say, being accused of being too much anything has made me feel like I don’t fit in even more. “It’s okay to be too much,” Mama told me one day. “I don’t know about that,” I replied. “It is,” she said. “You come from a line of women that have been too much. I could be too much where you were concerned. Or when things were unfair at work. Being too much is perfectly fine when you are making sure everyone is being treated fair ly or being the voice for those who can’t stand up for them selves. And Granny, as you are aware, was always too much. She was too strident and too harsh at times, but only when she needed to be.” Mama was right in both of those regards. She had the juxtaposition of being too nice at times to be too scary when it was necessary. Granny’s personality was best described as strong and for midable because she was too independent. “I feel like I can’t be myself, though,” I said. I didn’t. I have felt like I can’t say what I really think sometimes because I will be called too much of a shrew. I have shrunk myself down to where I want to be invisi ble, so no one will notice what I do — or do wrong — so I can hide from the con stant criticism. “How does that make you feel?” Mama asked. “Horrible,” I told her. “Then why do you do it?” she asked. Why? Well, there are lots of reasons. I hold my tongue, so I don’t tick someone off. I try to be polite and accommodat ing, even when I am the one being wronged. I seek to keep the peace instead of rocking the boat. “How’s that working for you?” Mama asked. “Don’t Dr. Phil me,” I tell her. “I’m not. I just wonder how that is making you feel.” Awful. I felt weak and sti fled. Mama agreed. “Well, look back over things. I think you will see, life was better when you stood up for yourself and were too much. God didn’t make you a shy, quiet person. He made you stubborn and persistent because He knew you know how to use those gifts.” Maybe she was right. I had felt like my life had been stuck and was it maybe because I was going against my nature and not being myself? It was, however, a time the too was used to amplify another word. But, maybe it was time to stop living small and safe and to start living too much. The world doesn’t need us to shrink ourselves or be less than who we are. That’s a dis service to the world and us. If anything, we need to stop diluting ourselves and start living life full strength and be proud to be called too much. Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor columnist and author of the recently e-pub- lished novel, "The Dahlman Files: A Tony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery." 'Stubborn was part of my nature; being loud came from having a grandfather who was partially deaf. My normal inside voice was prob ably two octaves above someone at a sporting event. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Security here at home I believe that we are entering a peri od of increasing risks to our normal peace and tranquility here in the foot hills. Our situation is changing. I wish that I am wrong but the winds of change are blowing now and the sta tistics say that crime is on the rise around here everywhere we look. There is the increasing risk of crime to each one of us and there is a larger national threat to the unity of the country. We should begin to think about how best to prepare for that growing possi bility that things will get a lot worse. There is clear evidence that the slowly gathering storm of drugs, big money associated with drugs and the violence and theft associated with that culture is following the flow of growth into our once isolated community. We are already spending, per citi zen, a comparatively high amount on security and yet we need to spend even more. We need to provide more money to our sheriff so that he may field more patrol officers. Our sheriff should do everything possible to make sure that he puts as many officers in the field as is possible every day. More spending on the security func tion does not automatically mean higher taxes. We could shift our spending from other areas toward the sheriff. I have reluctantly come to this hard conclusion that we need to shift because our security risks are chang ing for the worse as they are changing all over the U.S.A. Drugs provided to our children, sex crimes, theft and crimes of violence are all getting worse. Given the national mindset about these manifest evils, I see little chance that we will reverse those trends. All we can do is try and be prepared and make sure we have enough deputies in our communities to try and suppress it as much as we can. We need more deputies’ boots on the ground and that will cost. Many of you will find this sugges tion troubling and many will not want to change how we do things. But change is upon us now and we must look and focus on the things that real ly matter. General security is that thing above all others. Tell your elected commissioners what you think we should do. Gary Pichon Marble Hill
