Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

4A ®lj 11) era lb <©a??tt? Tuesday,April 27,2021 ^ ^ Opinions Ruffin's Renderings: Watching the Braves BY MIKE RUFFIN mffinml@gmail.com There was a time in the history of human civilization when you couldn’t watch major league baseball on televi sion very often. When it came to doing so, the United States hadn’t ad vanced much beyond the town of Bedrock. Those were the an cient times when there were only three commer cial television networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC). Of those three only NBC showed baseball games, and they only showed one per week. The Satur day afternoon Game of the Week was must-see TV to me. At some point they added an occasional Monday night game, which brought some welcome joy to the begin ning of the week. I was a Braves fan. It frustrated me that the Braves seldom if ever appeared on the Game of the Week. I asked my father, the late great Champ Ruffin, why that was. “They only show the good teams,” he said. He had a point. The Braves did win the Western Division in 1969, the first season that divisions existed, but otherwise the teams of the late 1960s and the 1970s were pretty bad. Fortunately, during much of that pe riod we had the privilege of following Mr. Henry Aaron’s pursuit of the career home run record. WSB-TV did show around 20 Braves games per year, no matter how bad the team was. As 1 recall, they showed only road games. 1 would sit quietly, transfixed by the activity that our outside antenna cap tured from the air and transmit ted to our 19- inch black-and- white window on the world. Then, Ted Turner sud denly beamed down from the starship Outra geous, and the next thing you knew, people were watching what was now dubbed “America’s Team” (1 regarded the slogan as forgivable exaggeration, no matter how hard Yankees fans laughed at it) on the self-proclaimed “Super station” via something called “cable television.” When they finally strung enough cable together, the new technology reached all the way to Barnesville, and lo and behold, we could watch every Braves game from the comfort of our own homes. It was the dawning of the age of Aquari us. WTBS had let the sun shine in. When my Good Wife and 1 moved to Louisville, Kentucky so 1 could attend seminary, we rented an apartment in a seminary-owned complex that bore the imaginative name “Semi nary Village.” Somewhere along the way, more cre ative minds nicknamed it “the Gospel Ghetto.” It wasn’t all that bad. It also wasn’t all that good. One deprivation we had to live with was lack of access to cable televi sion. I guess it was one of the ways we suffered for Jesus. We finished our pen ance and moved out of the Ghetto after a couple of years. I am happy to be able to report that we were able to watch the Braves without inter ruption for the next 40 years, via either cable or those newfangled satel lite dishes they came up with. Then an even newer technology came along that seemed like a good idea: streaming. So, we joined the proud throng of cable-cutters and sub scribed to a streaming television service that we liked very much. It pro vided us with access to all the stations that carry the Braves. Until it didn’t. Due to market forces or capitalism or greed or something (I’m pretty sure socialism had noth ing to do with it), our streaming service (and most streaming services) stopped carrying the regional sports channels that show the Braves games. Now we can only watch the nationally televised games. On one hand, it feels like regression. On the other hand, we now have more time to do more important things. And you know, despite all the time 1 just spent writing about it, there really are much more important things than watching the Braves ... Mike Ruffin is a Barnesville native who lives in Yatesville and works in Macon. His new book, Praying with Matthew, is available at helwys.com and at Amazon. Ruffin’s Renderings Say yes to tough, rewarding work KAY S. PEDR0TTI kayspedrotti@gmail.com Once upon a while ago, my friend Brother Jimmy Fambro (Hope Tree Minis tries) and 1 had a conver sation about the on going financial struggle to keep enough funds and food for the needy families in Barnesville. 1 opened my big mouth and said, “What you need is a big yard sale to raise money.” My “brother” held me to that - and the origi nal plan, which was to have the event at the Food Bank, has grown into a much larger en deavor and will be held Saturday, May 8, at Ritz Park from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We are already fill ing up available space in the food bank with goods for the sale and have made appeals for more, which have been successful but not over whelming. We are in need of not only good things to offer at reasonable (more like unbeliev able) prices, but also we need volunteers to set up, sell and take down; pickup trucks to transport goods from the Food Bank to Ritz Park at about 7-7:15 on May 8; tarps (trying to find tents also) in case of rain; folding chairs; a generous donor to provide two outdoor toilets for the day, bottled water for work ers and customers, and more things that prob ably will arise as we get closer. Everyone who reads this column in The Herald Gazette knows 1 love Barnesville and Lamar County - it is without doubt one of the best communities 1 have ever lived in. I know our people are generous; maybe there will be enough of us to devote a couple of hours on May 8 to help out. 1 keep going back in my mind to that Bible passage in Galatians 6:9 that was one 1 memo rized a long time ago from the King James: “Be not weary in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap, if you faint not.” It seems to me, my friends, that all of us are well-doers in some way or another. Surely the chance is here to get out of your houses, do something truly good for the community and “the least of these,” and meet some very good people whose spirits are wonderful. If you will call at 678-603- 7268,1 will start sched uling volunteer hours; if things change for you, we will accommodate. My thanks go out to my husband for his patience and under standing (he’s agreed to transport stuff); to my good friend, Michael Rogers, who was the first to volunteer his help; to ah who have contributed their items so far; to my Lamar Arts board for their support of a president who is involved in something else (but don’t worry - I am recruiting them too if possible) and especially to The Herald Gazette staff for help ing me with ad design, space in the paper, and happiness whenever I see them. The results may just amaze ah of us! Kay S. Pedrotti has spent some 50 years writing for newspapers. She is active in the Lamar County community and currently serves as the president of Lamar Arts. She lives in Milner with her husband Bob Pedrotti. Letter printing guidelines The Herald Gazette welcomes letters to the editor. For a letter to be considered for publica tion, please include the writer’s actual name, address and telephone number. Limit letters to 250 words or less. Shorter letters are ap preciated. Ah letters are subject to editing. No personal attacks on private citizens, po litical endorsements or letters that are racially divisive. Send letters to RO. Box 220, Barnesville, 30204, email it to news@barnesvihe.com or drop it by 509 Green wood Street, Barnes- ville. Kudzu and Clay: Honeysuckle Honeysuckle is, in my opin ion, one of the most fascinating spring flowers. Fascinating be cause you never really consider how much of it is hiding in plain view until the flowers just pop up one day and turn the entire atmosphere sweet. They also come with that added bonus of being edible. You can grab a handful of flowers and one by one, pull the stamen out ever so delicately and if you’re lucky, you’ll get one crystal clear drop of pure, heavenly nectar. 1 got to thinking about this simultaneously abundant and scarce resource when I was around seven years old. I’d go out in our back yard and start trying to gorge myself on the nectar. I never could get more than a few drops before 1 got tired and dis appointed. If only I had a way to stream line the process and collect the nectar from all the honeysuck le in my yard, I’d have enough for at least a Mason jar full. It would be worth its weight in gold, maybe even more. I set out early one morn ing, got my parents’ wheelbarrow, and pulled down every single honeysuckle vine with flowers on it I could reach. I got a Mason jar and a little chair and set to work pulling each little stamen out and trying to get that sweet nectar to fall in the jar... but it would not, it just stuck to the side of the jar. At the rate I was go ing, the priceless juice of the gods was evaporat ing quicker than it could collect. There had to be another way. Perhaps I could milk it like a cow teat, not that I had ever done that before, but that didn’t work either. Then I remembered this apparatus my mom used to squeeze the life out of vegetables when she was cooking. I had no idea what the small hinged contraption was but when I smashed a bunch of honeysuckle flowers in this thing, juice finally started dripping out, albeit very slow. After doing this for half a day and only get ting about two table spoons of juice I decided to call it quits. I was tired and thirsty, and curious what an entire mouthful of honeysuckle nectar tasted like. I didn’t even care if I wasn’t going to sell it, I would take pride in being the first kid to have ever experienced this rare treat. I took a sip and I spit it straight out. The contraption was a garlic press and no amount of scrubbing was ever going to get that flavor out. Probably woul have made a decent salad dressing though... % A a. l mil KUDZU & CLAY Chris Walter March net tax revenues up 3.7 percent The state of Georgia’s net tax collections for March totaled nearly $1.90 billion for an increase of almost $67 million, or 3.7 percent, compared to March 2020, when net tax collections totaled $1.83 billion. Year-to-date, total net tax collections approached $18.94 billion, for an increase of roughly $1.55 billion, or 8.9 percent, compared to FY 2020 when net tax revenues totaled $17.39 billion after nine months. The deferred com mencement of Indi vidual Income tax return processing - concurrent with the Internal Rev enue Service (IRS) guid ance that directed the acceptance and process ing of 2020 Individual tax year returns begin ning February 12,2021 - delayed income tax refund processing and contributed significantly to the highly favorable net tax collection reve nue variance reported in February. Subsequently, an acceleration of refund processing in the March reporting period reduced the impact of the refund processing delay on year-to-date net revenue collections. FLASHBACK In honor of Elizabeth Sellers 10 years ago Law enforcement had to be summoned to quell a melee at Aldora Field that erupted during a baseball game between the Lamar County Tro jans and the Crawford County Eagles. Trojan batter Ryan Lovick questioned a call and LC coach Greg Williams went nose-to-nose with umpire Irwin Croile. Croile then slapped Wil liams in the head and it was on. 25 years ago The annual Commu nity Awards Banquet was held and soldiers return ing from the Persian Gulf were feted. Award win ners were Leesa Wood- all, citizen of the year; Laverne Aiken, career woman of the year; Fan nie Gilbert, volunteer of the year; Phil and Bobby Ogletree, farmers of the year; Karen Shuman, STAR student; and Anne Darden Haisten, STAR teacher. 50 years ago The Nancy Hanks was to make its last run along the Atlanta-Savannah line through Barnesville on April 30. A special coach was set aside for the press. The last run marked the end of the golden era of passenger rail service here. 100 years ago Mrs. L. P. Hudson, a woman who was one of the oldest citizens of Barnesville and well known to all the older people of the vicinity, died at her home on Brown Avenue Satur day night, after a brief illness. She had been in declining health for some months and in fact for some years, as she was around 80 years old. She was Miss Mollie Graham and she was born here and lived here all of her life Zi)t Heralti #a^tte barnesville.com 770.358.NEWS P.0. Box 220 Publishers Staff SUBSCRIBE DEADLINES 509 Greenwood Street Walter Geiger Nolan George $30 per year in Lamar and sur- The deadline for public notices Barnesville, Ga. 30204 Laura Geiger Rachel McDaniel rounding counties; $40 outside is noon Thursdays; news and 770-358-NEWS Tasha Webster the local area. advertising before noon Fridays. barnesville.com General Manager Includes 24/7 access to Early submission is appreciated. E-mail: news@barnesville.com Missy Ware barnesville.com