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PAGE 4A -FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS —WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6. 1990 Opinion Our childrens’ futures could go up in smoke They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Maybe that is why an estimated 1 billion packs of cigarettes are being pur chased by children each year. More than 3.000 teenagers be come regular smokers each day. according to the Surgeon Gener al. At least five million of today’s children are expected to die of smoking related illnesses in their later years. Why do these children have the desire to smoke 0 Especially when smoking is more of an ac quired taste than a natural in stinct. These children are follow ing the examples set by their idols, role models, their peers. If this is the trend our children are following then we need to re examine the good examples we are giving. Additionally tobacco industry officials should be pressured to change their advertising meth ods. Instead of showing a big bill board of two people fitting the characteristics of teenage role models enjoying the pleasures of smoking, show the long term ef fect. Advertise the addiction, the coughing, the painfulness of lung cancer. How many people who ON YOUR PAYROLL COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Chairman Michael Bennett. 4301 Post Road, Cumming. GA 30130 Vice Chairman Barn Hillgartner. Still Road. Cumming. GA 30130 Secretary Michael McGaughey. Nicholson Road, Cumming. GA 30130 James Harrington, Norcross Road, Cumming, GA 30130 Charles Welch. 102 Laurel Lane. Cumming, GA 30130 NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES I.S. Senator Sam Nunn 303 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510. Telephone: 1- 202-224-3521. Atlanta number: 3314811 U.S.SenatorWyeheFowler 320 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington. D C. 20510. Telephone: 1-202- 224-3643. Atlanta number:33l-0647 U.S. Rep. Ed Jenkins, 9th District 2427 Rayburn Building, Washington, D C. 20515. Telephone: 1-202-225-5211; Gainesville number 1404-536-2531. STATE REPRESENTATIVES Rep. Bill Barnett. District 10 P.O. Box 755. Cumming, Ga. 30130. Telephone: 887-6582. Sen. Nathan Deal. District 49 P.O. Box. 2522. Gainesville. Ga. 30503. Telephone: 1404-522-9978 Sen. Sallie Newbill. District 49 7205 Riverside Drive. Atlanta, Ga. Telephone: 1404-394-5676 Gov. Joe Frank Harris 203 State Capitol. Atlanta, Ga. 30334, Telephone: 1404-656-1776 Forsyth County News USPS 205-540 A New York Times Company (Established 1908) PUBLISHER-SCOTT M. BROWN Forsyth County News MANAGING EDITOR-SALLYLYN M. HILL Gumming, Georaia 30130 ADVERTISING DIRECTOR-HARRIET H. VINCENT Telephone - 887-3126 CIRCULATION DIRECTOR-GRAHAM B. KIMBROUGH Published Sundays and Wednesdays by Forsyth County News Company, 121 Dahlonega St. Second class postage paid at Cumming, Ga. and additional of fices. Subscription rate for Forsyth and Dawson counties, $13.00 per year; other Georgia counties and out of state subscriptions are $40.00 per year. Advertising rates and deadlines available upon request. Postmaster: Send address changes to Forsyth County News/P.O. Box 210, Cumming, Ga. 30130. Street Talk What’s the hardest part about graduating from high school? _ ■■■■■ V - ' r . ’*• d k V wsjjL- mm^m Tammy Kinney Losing all your friends. ,‘_ started smoking as teenagers are trying to quit now but can't? Those statistics need to be adver tised equally. Additionally, laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors need to be strictly enforced. Cur rently 44 states, soon to be 45, have passed laws restricting the sale of tobacco products to mi nors. Yet only three states re ported citations, last year. Laws are for the protection of both adults and children. If adults don't abide by the law and refuse to sell to minors how are we going to protect our children? And finally we need to be care ful of the image we project to our children. We say we don’t want our children to smoke but we let them buy candy cigarettes. Or when a child finishes his or her sucker often times they begin pretending the stick is a cigarette mimicking an adult they look up to. This is when the child should be taught that smoking is not a "cool - 'thing to do. Let them know they are imitating a bad habit, not a good one. When it comes to children smoking, we adults should not be flattered. I?* - 1 1 MaS^.'^^p *?B.' % '/fz* Danny Pruitt The realization that you’re going to be on your own and you control your life now. I Watching the changes of nesting birds I sat on the porch eating lunch and enjoy ing the beautiful day with its clear air. sun shine. and nice breeze. Glancing up. I no ticed the empty nest. 1 remembered last spring, watching the other robin as she te diously brought pine straw and sticks, piece by piece, and formed the home, her nest She soon got used to my being there, and knowing 1 was not a threat, continued her work. I remember the day I came home and saw her just sitting on the nest, and I knew one por tion of her labors had ended and another had begun. Sure enough, before too much longer, she could be seen flitting back and forth to the nest with food, and she and the father robin would light in the nearby tree scoping out the ground for food, and the nest for activity of their noisy youngsters. The nest was not at my eye level, so it took a while for the baby birds to be seen poking their open-mouthed heads up. But I could hear them long before that and what a racket they made. They kept thei r parents busy pro viding for their needs. Then, one day when I stepped out on the porch, I noticed one of the baby birds was gone. The nest had become very cramped “This is an emergency! is there a decent role model in the house?!” Grammar can make language a big pain By David Grimes New York Times Regional Newspapers One of the dangers of writing a newspaper column is that you run the risk of having someone read it. I wouldn’t mind this so much if these read ers weren't so fond of pointing out my nu merous grammatical mistakes via arrogant, self-righteous letters that usually goes some thing like this: “Mr. Grimes: "Perhaps you were home watching The Three Stooges and stuffing your face with Doritos and bean dip on the day your 7th grade English teacher explained the differ ence between predicate nominative sub junctive gerunds and dependent participial conjunctive diphthongs. I’m referring, of course, to your column of April 18 in which you wrote: ‘Some say it was Bubba that done whonked Mr. Deedles over the head with the frozen carp, but it depends on who you ask.’ Mr. Grimes, allow me to point out that the grammatically correct construction here is not who, but whom. Please never let me catch you making this mistake again. “Sincerely, “A Fan” I have learned not to answer letters like this because there is always the chance that I will make another grammatical mistake and then the correspondence will go on endless ly. Besides, I do not want to encourage these people by making them think that they are correct in pointing out the distinction be —y n • ■ 4 « ,??5E3 Hank Gravitt Living life to its fullest □Or m rm lately, as the babies grew rapidly and pushed each other a lot, trying to make room for themselves in their limited world. So I wasn’t really surprised that one had spread its wings and flown. I watched as closely and as often as possible in the next few days, hoping to see one of the remaining birds actually take flight for the first time, but I missed the magic moment The closest I came was seeing the last fledgling perched on the nearby tree, glancing first at the ground, then at the nest, back and forth. I had to return to work before the young bird took flight, but when I got home that evening, it was nowhere to be seen. The nest was empty. Society members would lob by dictionary editors to do away with words that are too easily confused with other words. Al most nobody knows the differ ence between “affect” and “ef fect,” so let’s do away with one of the words and avoid a lot of needless mistakes. tween “who” and “whom.” I have never liked the word “whom” and I avoid using it when ever possible. “Whom” is a pretentious word that you would never use in everyday speech unless you happen to be an English butler. "Whom shall I say is calling?” the butler will say, scrunching up his nose in a manner that suggests he smells something dead. I’m sure “whom” is not the only word that needs to be pushed overboard, usage-wise. In fact, I’m thinking of starting a club that will work to purge our language of all words, phrases and constructions that I don’t know how to use properly. I’ll call it The Society for the Prevention of Grammatical Quib bling. (Let me know if you think of a good acronym. I’m partial to BUGOFF, but I can’t g W I — < ■ >v^^ fy^,„.-. 1 ».,i-, i Wayne Minchew Graduating is the hardest part for me. I really don’t need to draw any parallels. I think you’ll draw your own. This is gradua tion time. Many of you toiled hard, making a “nest”, a home, for your children. You pro vided for them, listened to their noise, watched them jostling for position And now you're going to have to stand back and let them fly. Like that young bird, many of them will perch somewhere between the past and the future, a little scared to let go of the familiar Others will take off on wings that have been waiting to fly for a long time. All will have to learn for themselves the sometimes harsh lessons of life. For those who have been blessed with good parents and good teach ers, the lessons will be less harsh. The oth ers, hopefully, will find help, and friends along the way. I looked at that empty nest a long time. It represents a lot of work and nurturing. For you parents whose children are leaving home, the nest isn’t really empty, just unoc cupied for a while. For you kids who are leaving your nests, keep your eye on it. It represents a lot of work and nurturing. When you’re headed for the future, it helps to re member where you came from. seem to make it fit.) Society members would lobby dictionary editors to do away with words that are too easily confused with other words. Almost no body knows the difference between "affect" and “effect,” so let’s do away with one of the words and avoid a lot of needless mistakes. Here are some other often-confused words that the Society might want to deal with: - Ensure and insure. - Emigrate and immigrate. Well and good. - Trustee and trusty. - Cement and concrete. Disinterested and uninterested. - Farther and further. - Impel and compel. Prostate and prostrate. - Principal and principle. That and which. If some of you are having trouble accept ing (excepting?) my propose changes, con sider this: Think of the English language as a tree and words as its leaves. As the tree grows, new words sprout while old words fall off, clogging your drainspouts and making a mess of your pool. In time, the tree will rot and fall on your house, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. So, as you can see, this language business is nothing to be trifled with. (David Grimes is a humor columnist for the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune. This ar ticle was distributed by The New York Times News Service) Bfa...',a- f - .. _-o;j?j ».:.'' Dahloris Prichard The choice of whether to go to col lege or not, and leaving your friends.