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DawsonOpinion
WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2022
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Faith over fear
If you had asked
Granny what she
was scared of, she
would have
laughed right in
your face.
“Not much.” she
would reply.
“Aren't you
scared of something happen
ing?” I asked.
Her answer was a question.
“What's gonna happen?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn't know. But I did
know that for the most part. I
was scared of just about
everything as a child, and even
have moments as an adult
where fear sometimes plays a
big part in my decision mak
ing process.
Comedian John Mulaney
joked he was disappointed
quicksand wasn’t as big of a
concern as cartoons led us to
believe, and I felt that in my
soul. Especially when Granny
told me her dad lost a mule in
some quicksand once.
She may have been exag
gerating about that.
For someone who wasn't
scared of anything, she made
sure to instill a healthy respect
for it in me, starting with that
quicksand. She told me to
never open the door for
strangers, even if they said
they were family or had some
thing for one of my family
members.
There was really no fear in
that happening; I wasn’t ever
home alone and Granny loved
telling everyone I wasn't a
‘latch key kid’ since that was
SUDIE CROUCH
Columnist
the stuff of after-
school specials
induced night
mares.
“Fear is a
healthy emotion,”
she'd remind me.
By definition, she
meant it was wise
to fear her and heed her warn
ings, or else be met with dire
consequences.
“Your fear is letting you
know something is amiss,”
Mama would caution. “You
need to listen to it.”
So I was taught, to a large
degree, that fear was a com
mon emotion to encounter,
and may even be my friend at
times.
I asked Granny once what
was the scariest thing she
lived through.
She replied solemnly it was
when my uncle Bobby was in
Viet Nam.
“How did you deal with
that?” I asked.
“I prayed. Every day,” she
said. “I knew he was going to
come home. I prayed.”
Maybe it was her solid
foundation in her faith that
helped her tackle what seemed
to be insurmountable fears.
I know there has been a
time or two - or maybe even
three - where my fears or
doubts were stronger than my
faith, and I would say so.
She’d be quick to tell me
how wrong that was and how I
needed to change my attitude.
“Then why does it feel like
everything is going wrong, no
matter what I do?” I cried.
The old gal took a deep
breath and looked at me.
“You think I ain't had times
when things went wrong? I
have. But let me tell you
something, Lil ‘Un, sitting
there and having a pity party
for yourself doesn't do you a
bit of good.”
“Then what do you propose
I do?” I asked. “I don’t see
any option here.”
“There’s always an option,”
she stated matter-of-factly.
“For one, you can just sit still
and let whatever it is work
itself out. A lot of things will
do just that if you leave 'em
alone. Just don’t make a deci
sion out of fear. It will always
lead you astray.”
“Sometimes it feels like I
have no choice but to do that,”
I said. And it did - still does at
times. There are times that I
panic and in a moment of fear,
want to make a hasty decision.
Being scared, it seems, can be
a powerful motivator.
“Just know any choice you
make out of fear is never
going to lead to happiness,”
Granny said. “It will only lead
to more sorrow and heartache,
because you jumped too soon
to see all the possible out
comes.” For someone who
never graduated high school,
she had a depth of wisdom.
I thought of all the
moments, the decisions she
probably had to make that
were fraught with fear.
If Granny was ever scared,
she didn't show it. When she
was faced with something that
would have knocked the wind
out of anyone else, she just
charged ahead. She may con
sult with my grandfather first,
and after he developed
Alzhiemer’s, she would go to
her brother, Almand for wis
dom.
It wasn’t to help her feel
better; it was probably for
someone to tell her not to do
something she shouldn't.
But, the important thing
was, Granny didn't let her fear
dictate the steps she took in
her life. I've thought about her
gumption and her faith recent
ly, especially when some trou
bling moments have crossed
my path.
Those moments have been
fraught with anxiety, doubt,
and great fear. Will I make the
right choice? Am I doing the
right thing? What should I do?
I realized, after much
thought, that I was trying to
make a decision out of fear.
Something the Redhead
Prime would never do.
I took a step back and
looked at my options.
Her words to sometimes sit
back and let situations work
themself out on their own res
onated in my heart.
“When you do that, you
give yourself time to let the
dust settle, so you can see
what you really need to do,”
she had said. “It gives you
time to make your own plan.”
Granny never made a hasty
decision, and in taking her
advice, it can give me the
opportunity to not only plan
my own next steps, but
maybe, just maybe, take a leap
based in faith and not fear
after all.
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."
This virus often causes symptoms
Who needs to
live forever to
be immortal?
This is not a
piece I was dying
to write. It’s about
death. The great
equalizer. The
reason I bring up
the subject today
is that I read a
piece recently that
scientists are looking seriously at ways to
keep us alive forever. No more wakes. No
more inflated obituaries. No more people
saying nice things to the family about us
they really didn’t mean. No more squab
bling over who gets what in the estate.
Some deep-pocketed moguls seem to
think there might be some big bucks in the
effort. Big bucks, as in an estimated $610
billion by 2025. According to my abacus,
that’s two-and-a-half years from now. This
tells me that we must be worth more alive
than dead. Sorry about that, estate planners.
Heavy hitters like Paul Thiel, co-founder
of Pay Pal and Jess Bezos, Amazon’s chair
man plus whoever is running Google these
days are all funding initiatives to figure out
a way to keep us - and them, I would
assume - from kicking the bucket. The
ideas range from “rejuvenating cells” to
“hacking” the little boogers in order to
“recode” them. If some nerdy kid locked
away in his bedroom can hack my comput
er, how hard can hacking a cell be?
At a recent conference at the London
Institute for Mathematical Sciences which I
was unable to attend because it occurred the
same week I had scheduled to rearrange my
sock drawer, director Thomas Fink told a
Washington Post reporter that life could be
engineered to live longer if we could figure
out why we age in the first place. Scientists
agree that all organisms degrade over time
and eventually break down. That is probably
why my knees ache.
Forrest Sheldon, an associate at the insti
tute thinks that “if the aging process is a
mechanism inside the cell controlled by a
transcription program, we might be able to
influence it.” I’ll take his word for it because
I have no idea what he is talking about.
This isn’t the only effort at trying to figure
out a way to help us achieve immortality
which I will say modestly that I think I have
already managed to do, thanks to my witty
and thought-provoking columns. (Pause for
applause.)
There is cryonics where they freeze your
body, hoping to figure out how to thaw you
out which seems still to be a bit of a prob
lem. And then there is something called
“mind-loading” which involves scanning
the brain accurately enough to copy it to a
computer in digital form. The computer
would then supposedly be able to experi
ence feelings and have a conscience. What it
would not be able to do is write witty and
thought-provoking columns which, by the
way, doesn’t require a conscience.
Searching for eternal life on this earth is
nothing new. It has been going on for eons
and to no avail. Remember Ponce de Leon
who came to Florida supposedly looking for
the Fountain of Youth? All he found was
water that smells like rotten eggs and a tour
ism industry.
The big question that must be asked is do
you really want to live forever? That means
if you can, so can a nutcase like Vladimir
Putin. And that little fat guy with the bad
haircut who runs North Korea. And the
Supreme Whoever in Iran that hates Israel
and won’t let women ride bicycles. Not to
mention the Woke crowd, Cancel culturists
and robocallers.
On the other hand, I would have humor-
impaired wingnuts on both ends of the polit
ical spectrum to gig into all eternity as well
as more tut-tut special interest groups than a
yard dog has fleas, assuring me of an end
less supply of witty and thought-provoking
columns and further immortality. Not to
mention a bunch of cranky emails.
I could paint forever and eat banana pud
ding forever and avoid broccoli forever,
hoping the stuff couldn’t get its cells hacked
and might disappear forever. I could bleed
Red-and-Black and never run dry and watch
You-Know-Where Institute of Technology
win three games a year into perpetuity.
Alas, scientists admit all of this is a long
way off and might not even happen- not the
three wins a year for YKWIT, that’s a given
- I’m talking about staying alive forever.
Evidently, hacking rejuvenated cells isn’t as
easy as it sounds. Rats.
I guess I will just forget all the science
talk and get back to churning out witty and
thought-provoking columns. After all, there
is more than one way to be immortal.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dick-
yarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
By Dr. Larry Anderson
Anderson Family Medicine
If it is not COVID, then what is it?
We, the docs, are seeing more and
more illnesses that have similar symp
toms as COVID. People will say they
have COVID because of their symp
toms versus getting tested and know
ing for sure. Yes, COVID can give you
cold-like symptoms and gastrointesti
nal symptoms and a cough. With test
ing, we are seeing an organism named
LETTERTOTHE EDITOR
Scary economic times
We are all concerned about the econ
omy. The good thing is that unemploy
ment is down to 3.2% and wages have
increased by 5.5%. People have jobs at
higher pay. But, what about inflation!?
The important thing to remember is that
inflation goes up and down. Under
President Reagan the rate at one time
was higher than present day at 14.7%.
But, by 1984 was down to 3.2%. Now it
is high again—the latest at 13.5%. It is
not the fault of the current administra
tion. It will go down!!
Outside forces such as wars, supply
chain problems, shortages, mortgage
scams, and pandemics are usually the
cause of inflation. We are experiencing
some of those now. Not to “poo-poo”
this fear, but if we understand what
causes inflation and look at charts
showing how it fluctuates it may calm
our fears. In the meantime, we must
take cost cutting measures at home. It
Human Parainfluenza type 3. You
guessed it, there are 4 types of this
organism. The name is misleading. It
is a virus but it is not influenza.
Normally children are more suscepti
ble but adults are getting it also. Mild
cases can last 7-10 days but more
severe cases can last for weeks with
bronchitis, pneumonia or other respi
ratory disorders being the end result.
Sometimes antivirals can be helpful
but since it is not a bacteria then anti
biotics are not effective treatment.
would be nice if corporations would do
the same, but instead they continue to
raise prices and are experiencing record
profits.
One of the biggest price increases has
been in gas prices. Again, this fluctuates
based on the same things mentioned
above. This pandemic may be one of
the biggest causes. At the beginning of
the pandemic when we shut down and
people weren’t driving as much, oil
companies were still producing the oil
we had previously demanded. It was
sitting in warehouses because they
couldn’t sell it, so they cut production.
That took some time. Now we are
demanding oil again, but it takes time to
ramp up production. But time will bring
the prices down. At the end of George
Bush’s presidency, oil was at $4.11 a
gallon; by the 2nd year of Obama’s
presidency, it was down to $2.45. Now
the average is $3.9 in Georgia and $5.8
in California. This is not President
Biden’s fault. Supply and demand is the
issue.
similar to COVID
When in doubt or Dr Google is not
helpful, get evaluated and tested. Wear
a mask. Wash your hands. Stay away
from sick people.
Just for completeness there is anoth
er organism that carries an influenza
name but is a bacteria that does
respond to antibiotics. This was dis
covered in 1892 during an influenza
pandemic. It was thought to be the
causative agent for influenza. It was
not. The name is Haemophilus
Influenza. Thanks for reading.
On a personal note, when we had
food rationing in World War II and
inflation was at 9.2%, my grandmother,
a home economist, held classes and
wrote articles for families on how to cut
food and energy costs around the house.
We could also cut some of our luxuries
that have become everyday things.
Don’t stop at Starbucks on the way to
work to buy a $3 cup of coffee. Don’t
go out to dinner as often—cook healthy,
cheaper meals at home. When my hus
band and I bought our first home, mort
gage rates were at 18%. We bought our
home using what is call an ARM know
ing that the rates would go down and
we could refinance. We had a new baby,
but still managed to cut other expenses.
Presidents in most cases can’t totally
control the economy. They can do things
to soften the blow, which President
Biden is doing. Hang in there—don’t lis
ten to the fear mongers. Steps are being
taken to make things better.
Bette Holland
Dawsonville
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist
