About The Coastal courier. (Hinesville, Ga.) 1980-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2018)
CALL 912-876-2566 TO SUBSCRIBE COASTAL COURIER (Hinesville, Ca.) - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018- 7 What’s in with Justin ‘The Shape of Water’ is well worth watching “The Shape of Water” is an award-season contender that does anything but disappoint. Having recently won the Golden Globe for best direc tor for Guillermo del Toro and receiving 13 Oscar nominations, it’s no surprise. This is as equally haunting as it is beautiful in its story, spirit and visual nature. Sally Hawkins stars as a mute janitor who works at a science research facility in the early 1960s. She stumbles upon a laboratory where a mysterious Justin Hall Film critic creature is being held for study and experimentation. Michael Shannon costars as a colonel who captured the beast. Once Hawkins’ character sees the creature for the first time, she becomes deeply fascinated with it and soon learns that it has hu man capabilities, and she begins to communicate with it using sign language. It has a penchant for eggs. She also discovers that the facility wants to use the creature to beat the Russians to space and she feels it’s up to her to save it and set it free. This is where it goes into E.T. territory, but it works. Strangely or perhaps unsurprisingly, the creature and Hawkins begin falling in love and they share a breathtaking sequence involving her bathroom being flooded. Del Toro once again brings his bizarre, fanciful sensibilities to the fore in a film that com bines “Beauty and the Beast” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Hawkins turns in a beauti ful performance, and she has a lot of support from the likes of Shannon, Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer. As for the visuals, del Toro crafts this movie with haunting sequences punctuated by stellar cinematography and a musi cal score that accentuates the imagery. It’s no surprise to see how this landed 13 Oscar nominations. As a cinematic experience, “The Shape of Water” is unforgettable. Grade: A- Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence, and language. Hall is a syndicated columnist in South Georgia. Good folks of Lennox Valley 1 1 2 1 1 C 1° 11 Church mens breakfast disrupted by rumors, women If you were to ask just about anyone in my hometown in early 1998 to describe the annual Men’s Breakfast and Turkey Shoot at First Baptist Church, you would have heard words such as “exciting,” “fun” or “loud.” Undoubtedly, a description of “hotcakes, sausages and biscuits filling plates to their brims” would follow, along with praises for the dozens of Valley wives dutifully preparing a feast in the church kitchen. Two events conspired to ruin any hope of the usual festive atmosphere surrounding the annual affair. If it wasn’t enough that Juliet Stoughton and her “crew of troublemakers” were sponsoring a competing breakfast for Valley women just across the corner at the Meth odist Church, Bascomb Finch had unwittingly created an atmosphere of chaos by running down Main Street on Friday night, shouting that he had seen A.J. Fryerson walking through the playground at the Methodist Church. Raymond Cooper noticed immediately something was amiss after arriving early to set up a remote broadcast from the men’s breakfast. Instead of the usual 30 or so women crowd- Welcome to _Lennox Valley, N my hometown! .Kevin Slimp’s The Good Folks "of Lennox Valley ed around the kitchen and working to decorate the tables, Cooper counted no more than six women hurriedly making preparations. Any other year, the fellow ship hall would have been packed with hungry men at 7 a.m., ready for Brother Billy Joe Prather to ask God’s blessings on the food they were about to receive and the targets they would soon be filling with bullets. But here it was 6:55, and there were no more than a couple of dozen men scattered throughout the room, looking hungry and a bit bewildered. Marvin Walsh joined Ray mond as they took their seats to begin the broadcast, scheduled to start at the top of the hour. At 7 a.m. sharp, the group of hungry men had swelled to approximately 120, less than half the usual size of the annual breakfast. “I told you we had trouble,” Marvin leaned in to tell Ray mond in a hushed tone. “This A.J. thing has everybody riled up. Conspicuously absent at the breakfast was Earl Goodman. A close friend of Raymond Coo per and perhaps the most vocal Valley resident in opposition of Juliet Stoughton during the mayoral election, it seemed odd that Goodman wasn’t present for his favorite event of the year. As Brother Billy Joe ap proached the microphone to ask God to bless the food, ev eryone in the room stood. Hats were removed, and chattering stopped. The annual breakfast was no smalltime activity. The ladies served breakfast as the men re mained seated at their festively decorated tables. Raymond Cooper, happy to talk about anything other than A.J. Fryerson, described the go ings-on, with a bit of embellish ment, to the listening audience. “We have an outstanding group of men on hand for this year’s breakfast,” Cooper began, obviously less than truthful. “What do you think about to day’s festivities, Marvin?” “You’re right about that,” Walsh responded. “This is the favorite day of the year for a lot of men in the Valley.” Describing the food heaped on his plate, Raymond said, “I don’t think there’s much chance I can finish all this.” The truth is the turnout was so much lower than expected, the women in the kitchen had cooked probably twice as much food as necessary. Double serv ings were the norm for the day. Cooper was the first to notice Iris Long slip in the door of the fellowship hall with her note pad and camera. As Long wrote something on her pad, Coo per was quick to let the studio audience know about Iris’s appearance. “You know,” Raymond said to his listeners, as if speaking only to Marvin, “knowing Ms. Long, she will probably distort the truth and write something to demean the gala taking place here today.” Marvin was quick to jump in, “I wouldn’t doubt that one bit. That’s just the type of thing she would do.” “Annnddd,” Raymond continued, “it seems like she’s taking pictures at angles to make the crowd seem smaller than it is.” “I noticed the same thing,” Marvin snapped back. “Next thing you know, she’ll be taking a picture of the wall behind her.” It was about that time Earl Goodman finally made his way into the fellowship hall. Walk ing directly toward Raymond’s table, he motioned for Ray mond to come toward him, obviously wanting to talk in private, without the entire radio audience listening in. “Where have you been, Earl?” Raymond asked in a less than friendly tone. “I went by the Method ist church to see what those women are up to,” Goodman answered. “How many folks showed up to eat?” Cooper inquired. “Probably a couple of hundred. And it’s not just the folks that showed up to eat. It’s the folks in the kitchen! There are at least 20 men in there cooking for those women. And that’s not all. They’re all talking about Bascomb seeing A.J. last night.” Walking over just in time to hear what Earl was saying, Marvin turned to Raymond and grunted, “I told you this was go ing to be trouble. I just knew it!” Visit Lennox Valley.com to get inside information about Bascomb Finch and A.J. Fryer son “Lennox Valley: The Book” is now available at Amazon.com and other booksellers. LIVING WITH CHILDREN Emotional, entitled kids cause school shootings We’re a month, more or less, into the new year and America has already suffered two school shootings. As usu al, the usual voices are calling for increased restrictions on the buying and selling of guns. But guns are not the problem, a contention I can prove. In 1963, at age 15, I packed my bags and went to live with my father in Valdosta, here I attended Valdosta High School. Hunting being a prima ry feature of male culture at VHS, I quickly acquired the necessary gear including a Ste vens double-barreled shotgun. During deer- and duck-hunt ing seasons, I rose well before the start of school and joined several buddies out in the field. After a couple of hours of shooting (or just sitting in a blind and freezing), we put our guns in the trunks of our cars, drove to school, stripped John Rosemond Family psychologist off our hunting duds (un der which were clean school clothes), and went to class. Everyone — including the principal, teachers, parents, and kids who didn’t hunt — knew that the student parking lot contained a small arsenal. No one ever mentioned it, and believe me, it never occurred to any of us that our gun could be used to even some score or vent some frustration. Lots of males in my gen eration, especially those who grew up in small towns or ru ral America, report a similar high school experience. No, guns are not the prob lem. The problem is feelings. I am a member of the last gen ¬ eration of American children whose parents disciplined not only our behavior, but also insisted that we exercise emo tional self-control. I am also a member of the first generation of American parents who fell for progressive psychologi cal propaganda to the effect that insisting upon emotional self-control was repressive ly authoritarian and would prime our kids for future seri ous mental health problems. My graduate school pro fessors stressed the need to help children “get in touch” with their feelings, talk about them, and express them safely. A child’s feelings, I learned, contained deep meaning that needed to be divined, dis cussed, and properly directed. This was the late 1960s and early 1970s. By the 1980s, children were venting their feelings rather freely all right — including toward parents and teachers — and child mental health was tanking. Mass school shootings began occurring around the same time and are now taking place, on average, weekly. As I said, guns are the means but the problem is what I term emotional entitlement syn drome — the narcissistic belief that certain feelings are all the excuse one requires to justify anti-social and/or self-de structive behavior. To widespread emotional entitlement one can add the effects of encouraging high self-esteem (which is asso ciated, we now know, with low respect for the rights and property of others) and the demonization of shame, the primary purpose of con science. A calamity was sure to ensue, and it has. It includes not only school shootings, but the widespread use of social media as a platform for acting out personal soap operas (i.e., emotional dramas), a dramatic rise in child and teen depres sion and suicide, cutting, ep idemic bullying, and millions of children on psychiatric medications that may cause more problems than they solve (if they solve any). The great irony in all of this is that psychology, the very profession that manufactured the propaganda that is fueling this calamity, is the very pro fession to which schools and parents turn whenever it rears its ugly little head. And so, around and around we go and will continue to go until we figure out that ther apy is no substitute for firm discipline. A family psychologist, Rose mond operates two websites; johnrosemond.com and parent- guru.com. DIXIE DIVA A great character, Poet, colors himself out of game One of my favorite characters ever and one that readers have unfail ingly enjoyed is my friend, Poet, the scion of a cotton family who speaks in lyr ical tones and has always been interestingly uncon ventional. For Poet, life has never held rules. Let me clarify. He is honorable, kind, smart and filled with integrity so he doesn’t cheat or lie, and he takes pride in his word. But for years, I have watched with fascination as Poet colored outside the lines and took his cue from no one but himself. Perhaps I even lived vicariously through him. He was brave about his choices and obedient Ronda Rich to his restlessness. He did what he wanted when he wanted. Often were the days that he’d climb into his truck, take off with a trail of farm dust scattering behind him and wind up wher ever he took a notion. He answered to no one. He always made sure that he owed nary a soul, though he does like for others to owe him either in money or favors. Some of my most enjoyable times have been the adventures with Poet for he’s always game for anything and he has a beautiful way of expressing himself in rich Southern language so he’s terrif ically entertaining. His observations are wise and summed up in wit. One night out at dinner, the conversation turned CITY OF HINESVILLE NOTICE The Mayor and City Council of the City of Hinesville will hold a meeting on Thursday, February 1, 2018 from 1:30 p.m. until 2:30 p.m., at City Hall in the Council Chamber, 115 East M.L. King Jr., Drive, Hinesville, Georgia. The purpose of the Meeting is to enter into an executive session to discuss personnel matters. All interested citizens are invited to attend. Let us love you. Leet We accept Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and most insurances Walk-ins Welcome Henry A. Taylor, II, D.P.M. Diplomate, American Board of Podiatric Surgery 127 MacArthur Drive • Hinesville, GA 31313 AUwaysfeet@hotmail.com • Fax: (912) 876-4069 (912) 876-TOES (8637) to a Southern politician whom I hold in admira tion while Poet teeters, skeptically, on the center line. We debated and I defended. We were sitting in a booth that didn’t have a partition between us and the adjoining booths. The group of four dining be- hind us got up to leave and one of the men came over and introduced himself to Poet, reminding him that they had met previously. He said, “I couldn’t help POET continues on 8 Proud to be in Liberty County
