About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 2022)
PAGE 7 A 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, NOVEMBER 2,2022 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. Mias crazy for her ball Doodle is obsessed with treats. Cole calls her, claiming I’ve made the pittie-mix chunky from giving her too many of her favorite peanut butter bones. Punk just wants everyone to be where she thinks they should be, which means me within her line of sight and the cat on the other couch. Mia, well Mia’s crazy about her ball. A simple tennis ball. With the only thing coming in a close second being a stick. But her primary focus is the ball. Lamar started training her with a ball as soon as we brought her home when she wasn’t even a full two months old. The little five-pound nugget of fur took her ball train ing seriously, all decked out in her hot pink harness that was a bit big on her. Even as a tiny puppy, she knew a German shepherd was supposed to have a job and she’d lift that chin and fix her amber eyes on Lamar as he’d go through the commands. The ball was bigger than her mouth, but she’d get it up by the felt to carry it back to him, rolling over it a few times on her way. After a few minutes of training, she’d curl up by his feet, ball beside her, and nap for a bit. Puppying is hard work and requires a lot of rest. When she’d wake, she wanted to make sure everyone knew what she could do, taking her eyes off Lamar only long enough to catch my gaze and make sure I was watching. Once she was assured I was, her attention went back to the ball where her eyes followed its pattern in the air until she got it. “I’ve never seen a dog with such ball drive,” Lamar praised. We’ve had plenty of dogs with ball drive before. Comet had it. Roubaix had it. Venus, however, couldn’t care less about the ball. Ava wanted love - and food. Didn’t matter the order. The ball was OK but she preferred balls of meat to whatever makes up a tennis ball. But Mia seems to eat, drink, and sleep the ball and when the ball is out of her sight, she goes from a genu inely happy but wild pup to one who is lost without her favorite prize. One day she cried and whined at the door, all through an hour long Zoom meeting. I feared a squirrel was try ing to get in as they often do. As soon as the meeting was over, I let her out think ing she needed to go potty but she ran to her spot in the yard and got in position as if she was waiting for me to throw the ball. “I don’t have it, Miss Mia,” I told her. She gave me the German shepherd head tilt of confu sion. “I don’t. Come on back in. girl, it’s not time to work.” She wasn’t so sure she believed me but she came in and proceeded to cry and whine, eventually her cries turned to howls- long, pitiful, soul-wenching howls. Miss Mia was singing the blues. When Lamar finally came home, I told him about her plight. He walked back out the door and got her ball off the top of the porch rail. “I put it up there before I left and told her she’d get it later. She must have thought you’d get it for her.” Her love for the ball may be deep it is rivaled by her obsession over pieces of wood that she can destroy. “What happened in here?” I asked, surveying the wood chips that covered the bed, the floor, and maybe some of the ceiling fan. Mia looked up at me, her face full of joy and pride, and spit out a mouthful of wood. “What did you have?” Apparently, it was a stick the size of a small tree. We’re not even sure how she got it in the house but she has learned how to angle them to get them through the porch gate when they’re too big. She is too smart for her own puppy good, and for our sanity at times. This stick in particular was reduced to shreds quicker than any Fargo wood chipper ever dreamed of doing. A few days later, the unspeakable occurred. Mia couldn’t find her ball. None of them. We are smart enough to have a backup ball, and then a backup for that one; Pumpkin stole her third backup ball not too long ago and the senior pup was quite proud of herself for doing it, too. But Mia knows each of those yellow orbs and more importantly, she knows when one is not accounted for. Being true to her breed, that shepherd is determined to find the one missing. She barked at Lamar incessantly, running to the door, eager to go find her ball. “Where did she have it last?” I asked. “She dropped it when she saw a stick.” Once the stick had been destroyed properly, the ball was not where she thought it should be when she went to find it. She worried over that ball for hours, looking under the dresser, in every nook and cranny, doing a sweep of the bathroom, and even checking our pockets in case we were keeping the ball from her as a cruel joke. “She’s driving herself batty trying to find that ball,” I commented in the kitchen. Lamar looked at me. “Tell me about it. Who do you think she has helping her look for it?” We heard a loud crash and ran towards the bedroom. Mia’s ball had gotten behind some storage boxes in the closet somehow - we have no clue how -but she had been able to knock everything to the floor in order to get it. She laid there, gleefully gnawing at the yellow orb. Miss Mia had her ball and that was all that mattered. Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor columnist. She s a treat fiend, as SUDIE CROUCH Columnist Don't forget to set your clocks back, stay on the lookout for signs of illness By Dr. Larry Anderson Anderson Family Medicine The world is changing again. Autumn is in full swing. The leaf watchers are among us. When it is dark and when it is light is about to change again. Cooler clothes are going back into the closet and warmer clothes are coming out. Outdoor activities are going away and indoor activities are coming in. All of these changes are bringing new possibilities and new challeng es. Social distancing will be harder to maintain as we migrate to the indoors. We all know the drill: wash your hands, use the hand sanitizers, cough in your elbow, stay away from sick people, stay home if you are sick, get your flu immunization, eat as healthy as you can, sleep ade quately, stay active, keep moving, yes, and even button or zip your coat when it is cold outside. Add to this list when you need to do some thing to keep you healthy. Do not forget to set your clocks back or to use that as an excuse to be late for church. Be safe. Thanks for reading. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR City council needs strategic plan for future development Last week’s front page above the fold headline was, “Council OKs road annexation, rezoning.” As I read the article I kept thinking, you have got to be kidding. Rezoning of 312 acres from single family to multiple family. 195 rental apart ment units. So we can add this to the apartment developments occur ring and the number of high densi ty low square footage dwellings recently completed or in progress. The Board of Commissioners was opposed to this request for rezon ing. It took Mayor Eason to break the City Council tie vote. Shame on the Mayor. The City Council and County Board of Commissioners need to develop a united strategic plan for future development. Working as they do presently appears to be competition for income, not a con cern for citizens’ quality of life. Drive down Lumpkin Campground Road off 400 folks. Go to our cinema, or try to. The amount of traffic that is going to pour onto Lumpkin Campground from this mind boggling area development is beyond compre hension. Maybe that is how it has all happened, it was not compre hended. The urge parcel of land currently being cleared just north of our Chamber of Commerce is evident ly for some small single family homes, townhomes, and retail. Get ready for that traffic. And there is more development in the works. Board Chairman Thurmond ref erenced concern for service deliv ery in Dawsonville. Right on point. Our school system was proactive in planning and building and spending for future growth. The schools serve both city and county students. Perhaps there is some thing in their mindset that the Council and Commissioners might adopt. The many non-profits who pro vide services to so much of our population will be stretched beyond capability. And these ser vices are vital. Dawson County has always had the ability to create so much of its future. What kind of future is cur rently in the works? Gregg Anne Zubay Dawsonville Last week of Early Voting before Election Day Your chance to make a differ ence is running out. In this election you can choose Democracy, or you can choose the authoritarian Government of the Republican Party whose aim is to impose its will on the rest of us. But Democrats have demonstrated that lawmakers across a wide spectrum of political beliefs really can work together to pass popular legisla tion. The economy looms deeply over this election. Unfortunately, many people are suffering from the cur rent inflation. But people all over the world are experiencing the same thing. In America our rate of inflation is at 8.2% while most other countries are at 11 or 12%. The policies of the Biden adminis tration got us out of the pandemic recession which included millions of lost jobs, closed manufacturing plants, and a broken supply chain. Families got financial help, but manufacturing took some time to ramp up as did the supply chain. Therefore, there were not enough goods. Basic economics—prices went up. Unfortunately, corpora tions, especially fossil fuels have kept the prices high and therefore made record profits this year! But the Biden Administration is continuing to rebuild the middle class from the bottom up. In doing so they have: • Added 10 million jobs at higher pay • Dropped unemployment to 3.5%, a 50-year low • Added 700,000 manufactur ing jobs • Dropped the deficit by $1.75 trillion. By contrast, when Trump’s administration added $400 Billion to the deficit, by giving the wealthy and corporations a $2 Trillion Tax cut. Meanwhile, Democrats have brought the deficit down. Republicans always increase the deficit; Reagan by $105 Billion, GHW Bush by $300 billion and GW Bush by $1.2 Trillion. If Republicans regain power, you will see massive tax cuts for the wealthy which will result in an increased deficit. Then they will say we can’t afford Medicare and Social Security so we will have to cut benefits. They have already stated that is their plan. You have a choice in this elec tion. Choose Democracy and the middle class over an authoritarian government working for the wealthy. Bette Holland Chair, Dawson County Democrats Dawsonville Can we fix our federal government in time? I think we have a federal govern ment that is so bad it is scary. It spends mountains of money it does not have. Savings and invest ments will shrink as persis-tent inflation sets in. We are at the edge of a severe recession. We are now a country of com pletely open borders. Our military defenses are clearly weaken-ing. Our justice system allows lawless ness to grow bolder. Violent street crime haunts our cities. Our energy policy is going to leave us cold or hot, in the dark, and walking. The cause of cli-mate change is not even allowed to be debated. There is going to be famine in the world. The price for food, any food, in the USA is going to go up and up. The Executive Office numbers in the millions and seems to answer only to themselves and are a forth unelected branch of the govern ment. The spies and law enforce ment people are focused on intimi dating the other political party. We have sent too many fools to Washington. Rational, hard work ing, careful, smart, wise politi cians are now a small minority in Congress. We should do some thing. Gary Pichon Marble Hill Letter policy Letters should be limited to 350 words and may be edited or condensed.The same writer or group may only submit one let ter per month for consideration. Letters must be submitted by noon Friday for midweek publi cation. We do not publish poetry or blanket letters and generally do not publish letters concern ing consumer complaints. Unsigned or incorrectly identi fied letters will be withheld. Mail letters to the Dawson County News, P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534, hand deliver to 30 Shoal Creek Road or email to editor@dawson- news.com.
