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Dirt road days
W HEN I WAS growing
up in Dry Pond, a dirt
road stretched past our
house, curved in front of our neighbors’
yards and continued onward up a hill,
interrupted only by the wooden slats
of a bridge that crossed a small creek.
We really were “rural.” One of our
neighbors still used a white mule,
“Mr. Monk,” to
plow his garden.
And Dry Pond
Country Store
was really a
country store.
Eventually our
road was paved
and marked with
a green sign
— Mitchell Road
— and another,
somewhat insult
ing one — “Slow Children at Play.”
While the new pavement was kind
of cool because it meant we could
ride our bikes fast, fast, (just who is
slow here?) speeding to the curve on
smooth asphalt, it also meant there
was a lot more traffic on the road.
More and more we wouldn’t speed
to the curve with complete abandon
because we might ride into the path
of an even speedier pickup truck.
I thought about those days when
I looked through a photo album my
mother showed me recently. There I
was, standing proudly with my big
banana-seat bicycle, ready to take on
the summer day. We did have quite
a bit of freedom, when we would
spend the day outdoors, visiting the
neighbors, exploring at the creek,
pretty much on our own without our
parents worrying that something (or
somebody) might “happen to us.”
Now when I visit my parents, there
are houses everywhere and I always
have to look both ways more than once
before driving out onto the highway.
Actually, I now have to look both ways
before pulling out of their driveway. I
nearly pulled out in front of someone
the other day when leaving my par
ents’ house, and when headed there,
I have caught myself flipping on my
blinker to turn into their yard because
of a car or two close behind me.
But that’s the way Jackson County
is these days. Busy. Growing. And
pretty strange sometimes for those
of us who remember “when.”
It is still almost shocking to me when
I drive over West Jackson way. I’m not
on that side of the county often any
more, and it truly has exploded. I found
it interesting a week or two ago to read
that Braselton tops the list of fastest-
growing areas in the United States. I
don’t know if we now call it Brazelton,
with a long A, or Braselton of olden
days. Similarly, is the neighboring
town of Hoschton to be pronounced
Houusch-ton now or Haaahsch-ton?
The history is still there, as are
some of the remaining “natives,”
but the Jackson County of dirt
road days is long gone.
I was laughed at and sneered at
because of my sentimentality during a
magazine-writing class I took in col
lege. I wrote a story about the proposed
enlargement of the Dry Pond airport
that was causing so much controversy
at the time in the early 1990s - well,
airport expansion is still a topic,
but now it seems more of a given,
rather than something to be halted.
I conducted interviews with those
in favor of and against the airport,
but, in looking back, I clearly was
biased. Perhaps the line about the
deer coming out of the woods behind
a resident’s house was a little much
— okay, it was a lot much, but...
“Progress is a good thing. What
do you want?” my classmates asked.
‘To end up in a ghost town?”
“No, of course not...”
Still, I am amazed and sort
of awed by the changes I see
around me almost daily.
I remember when it was a big
thing, an exciting thing, when
McDonald’s opened at what is now
Banks Crossing. That’s about all that
was there then — a visit constituted
a big Sunday evening treat — and
now you can hardly see it for all the
other signs. Actually, that McDonald’s
is gone, replaced by a new, more
“adult-friendly” McDonald’s.
Well, that’s the way it goes.
People who live on dirt roads now
might ask (I guess there are a few left),
“Don’t you remember how hot and
heavy the dust was in the summer?”
And it was probably a good
thing that there wasn’t much traffic
on those dirt roads, because much
of the time when your bicycle tire
hit a rock or a “sand trap,” you’d
go flying over the handlebars.
But that’s the thing about nos
talgia. It’s pretty one-sided.
Still, I can’t help but be nostalgic
sometimes, especially when I wonder
if my children will have the freedom
we did in those dirt road days.
Jana Adams Mitcham is features
editor of The Jackson Herald.
jana. a.
mitcham
Inside: Community fundraisers coming up — page 2C
January 20,
2010
0 The Jackson Herald
Jana Adams Mitcham,
Features Editor 706-367-8760
jana@mainstreetnews. com
Section C
THE CAST
The cast for “The Odd Couple” is pictured, including (front, L-R) Mary Jane Cagle as Cecily Pigeon; Chuck Miller as Felix;
Shawnmarie Budde as Gwendolyn Pigeon; (back, L-R) Jani Taylor as Murray; Lynn Mulvey as Speed; Jay Holl as Oscar; Shawn
Mulvey as Vinnie; and Rodney Kesler as Roy. Photos by Katie Huston
‘The Odd Couple’ shows this week
Jefferson Community Theatre
production begins Thursday
T HE JEFFERSON Community Theatre will pres
ent its second production, “The Odd Couple,” Jan.
21-24.
The play will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday-
Saturday, Jan. 21-23, and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 24,
at the William Duncan Performing Arts Center at Jefferson
High School.
AT DRESS REHEARSAL
Jay Holl plays Oscar
Madison in “The Odd
Couple.”
SHOW-READY
Rodney Kesler, who plays
Roy in “The Odd Couple,”
is shown at dress rehearsal
Thursday.
“The Odd Couple” is
a 1965 Neil Simon play
that was later adapted into
a film and a TV series. It
features two mismatched
roommates, one neat and
uptight, the other easygo
ing and slovenly.
Felix Ungar, a neu
rotic, neat freak news-
writer (photographer in
the television series), is
thrown out by his wife,
and moves in with his
friend Oscar Madison, a
messy sportswriter.
The cast also includes
poker buddies Murray,
Vinnie, Roy and
Speed, and Cecily and
Gwendolyn Pigeon, a
pair of sisters who live
upstairs.
The Jefferson pro
duction will be directed
by Keith Johnson. The
cast includes: Rodney
Kesler as Roy, Jay Holl
as Oscar, Chuck Miller
as Felix, Jani Taylor as
Murray, Lynn Mulvey as
Speed, Shawn Mulvey
as Vinnie and Mary Jane
Cagle and Shawnmarie
Budde as the Pigeon sisters.
Dinner packages are available for $35 each. Dinner will
be at Fusion on the Square in Jefferson, the show will be at
JHS and dessert will be at the Midland Cafe on the square in
Jefferson. Regular adult tickets are $10 each and seniors are
$7 each. To get tickets in advance, call 706-367-5714.
A RETURN
APPEARANCE
JaniTaylor, who plays
Murray in “The Odd
Couple,” was also
cast in the Jefferson
Community Theatre’s
first production,
“Steel Magnolias.”
POKER BUDDIES
Poker buddies of Oscar, played by Jay Holl, include Shawn Mulvey as Vinnie, Lynn
Mulvey as Speed, Jani Taylor as Murray and Rodney Kesler as Roy. “The Odd
Couple,” a production of the Jefferson Community Theatre, opens Thursday.
Johnson comments on directing debut
Jefferson theatre group looks to three shows a year
By Jana A. Mitcham
HE JEFFERSON Community Theatre
group, now in production with its sec
ond show, “The Odd Couple,” contin
ues to seek more actors, crew and board mem
bers. The group plans to expand its repertoire to
three shows a year, begin
ning this year, and Keith
Johnson, board member
and director of “The
Odd Couple,” said Neil
Simon’s trilogy of plays,
as well as a dinner show
are on tap.
“We do have plans at
present to add a dinner
theatre show - possibly a
murder mystery - at the
Jefferson Civic Center in
the spring and hopefully make that an annual
event,” Johnson said. “So, starting in 2010, we
plan to do three shows a year. We are not sure
what the actual show will be in April, but we do
plan to perform Neil Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach
Memoirs’ this summer. It is the first of a trilogy of
plays that he wrote that are semi-autobiographical,
and we plan to do all three in sequence - ‘Brighton
Beach Memoirs’ in the summer, ‘Biloxi Blues’
next January and ‘Broadway Bound’ in the sum
mer of 2011.”
GROWING THE THEATRE GROUP
Right now, the community theatre group “is
working out great,” Johnson said, with the board
meeting monthly and everyone involved.
“We have a great core group of actors (two
returned from ‘Steel Magnolias’) and crew (almost
the same as with ‘Steel Magnolias’), but we are
always looking for more,” he said. “We need more
actors, behind the scenes people, and board mem
bers. All but two of the actors - there are eight total
- in ‘Odd Couple’ are Jackson County residents -
the other two live in Athens and Buford.”
Anyone interested in joining the theatre group
may contact Beth Laughinghouse at 706-367-
5714.
With a community theatre group, all members
bring their varied experience to the show. For
example, a different person will direct each play
and bring his or her style and directing and acting
experience to the play, from beginning to end.
“I have a different style of directing than the
director of ‘Steel Magnolias,’ but it is the style I am
used to from most of the productions I have been
in,” Johnson said. “This is my first time direct
ing, although I was co-assistant director on ‘Steel
Magnolias’ and was assistant director on ‘Willie
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ for Athens
Little Playhouse several years ago.”
Johnson is employed full-time with Jackson
EMC and is in graduate school, but has also made
time through the years for theatre.
“I have acted in many shows in Augusta,
Athens, Carrollton and even Atlanta and
continued on page 2C
JOHNSON