Newspaper Page Text
Page 4 — Wednesday, September 29, 2010, TheTrue Citizen
★ * ★ ★★ * it it ★★ * it it -ir
The Pledge Of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which
,it stands, one Nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
★ -A'’*’*-
i
First full day of fall
By Keith Graham
Before noon, I had worked up a sweat. How? Sit
ting on my shady screened porch reading the news
papers.
It’s hot here where I live. I don’t yet know the of
ficial reading but the prediction was that we would
reach 95 degrees Fahrenheit. It was humid, too.
And what’s wrong with this picture? Overnight,
the seasons officially changed. Summer ended. Fall
began.
A friend told me a couple of days ago that fall is
his favorite season. When people ask him why, he
jokes, “Because I like to see things die.” But I know
why he really likes the season. The summers in the
southern U.S. are so excruciatingly uncomfortable,
but autumn at least offers some hope of cooler tem
peratures.
I know some people relish the heat. I don’t. My
family has lived in this sort of climate for genera
tions, but I must still have too much Celtic blood
flowing through my veins to adjust. The only time
I’ve been comfortable out of doors in several months
was during a vacation to Ireland and Scotland, where
the temperatures are suitable for human habitation.
They complain about their weather, too, but little
do they know. Putting on a jacket, occasionally, in
August, as I did there, feels like heaven to me.
I wonder sometimes how this place must have
seemed to the first Celts who arrived. They were
Scots. They came in 1733 - in February. The weather
in February is tolerable here. I like February, maybe
because that’s the month when I came into this
world, too. But how did those early Scots find that
first summer in a new British colony, centuries be
fore air conditioning but not before heat and hu
midity and gnats and mosquitoes and roaches and
the other menaces of a southern summer in what’s
now the U.S.? The fact that any of them stayed
through a sweltering June, July, August and, yes, a
hot September, too, is stunning.
And me? Why have I stayed all these years? A
simple reason: I love people here, many people. We
have forged a culture of sorts, with some good ele
ments along with many bad ones. Yes, it’s hot here
and it’s humid. But, yes, too, this is home, no matter
what.
A hot home.
I go out in the heat every day. Often, I stay out in
it for a couple of hours at a time. But I always long
for the cool. The start of fall to me is not about watch
ing things die, as my friend said. It is about hope.
Hope that more tolerable weather lies ahead soon.
Hope is a good thing. If the weather can change
for the better, maybe the culture can change for the
better, too, in the place that I call home.
Keith Graham is a writer and blogger who recently
moved to San Francisco after living most of his life
in Atlanta. His blog is called the Great Speckled
Fish.
t W-xixt (Ktilsctt
P.O. Box 948 • 601 E. 6th Street
Waynesboro, Georgia 30830
Telephone: (706) 554-2111 • Fax: (706) 554-2437
Published every Wednesday by TheTrue Citizen, Inc. Pe
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Citizen, P.O. Box 948, Waynesboro, GA 30830.
Roy F. Chalker
1915-1994
Roy F. Chalker Jr. Bonnie K. Taylor
Editor & Publisher General Manager
Elizabeth Billips
Associate Editor
Jill DuMars, advertising composition and computer pho
tography; Betty Belk, accounting and bookkeeping;
Lavonna Drawdy, advertising composition and design
and advertising sales; Lisa J. Chance, page designer;
Anne Marie Kyzer, staff writer; Tres Bragg, staff writer
and advertising composition; Marianne Smith,
classifieds, circulation and accounts receivable.
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“It's amazing how the candidates expect us to forget all their
faults and still remember their names on election day."
RFD
Looking Back
By Bonnie K. Taylor
General Manager The True Citizen
I guess we will finally see residents using the new sidewalks
on Manau Lane soon. The Waynesboro Exchange Club Fair is
set for Oct. 19-23, and fair-goers will likely use the new side
walk on their way to the event entrance.
I know the sidewalks are part of the
greenway, but to me it does not seem the best
use of sidewalks in the city. I realize it is still
in the production stage, but I see keeping the
grass and weeds around the sidewalk a chore
the city workers will not be able to find time
to keep up. The weeds have been at least three
feet tall in some areas around the sidewalk
before workers trimmed them. Sidewalks need
edging to look well manicured.
I am a firm believer if you build it, you
need to take care of it. I’ll jump down off my soap box and give
the city a chance to do their job ... but remember ... I’ll be
keeping an eye on the sidewalks.
Don Lively
10 years ago: September 27, 2000
The Bank of Burke County announced it would relocate its
Waynesboro office from East Sixth Street to 855 North Liberty
Street, the home of the Rev. and Mrs. Harold Rowland.
Local industries reported their employment numbers as fol
lows: Kwikset, 650; Samsons. 420; Globe Furniture, 185; Helmac,
150; Ritz, 130; Ramstar Mills, 90; Gary Safe, 80; Perfection
Schwank, 60; Legion Industries, 60; Mr. Golf Carts. 42; Spe
cialty Timber. 40; Cowart Iron Works, 30; and Fiamm, 20.
25 years ago: September 26,1985
The Town & Country Woman’s Club recognized Marion N.
Walker for her many contributions to the community. She had
been involved in the Burke County Historical Society, the reno
vation of the courthouse, museum and Confederate cemetery.
She was also active in preserving the Bartram Trail and many
other cultural and historical treasures.
The Georgia Power Company presented the Burke County
Chamber of Commerce with an aerial photograph of the county’s
- See Looking Back, Page 6
PLOWED UNDER
There’s nothing left.
Not a nail. Not a stone. Not a scrap of wood.
It’s hard to remember exactly where it sat
and the only way I’m able to get my bearings
is to look toward Mr. D and Miss Joanne’s
home, across the road, still as stately as it
was when they built it years ago.
Not ours though. Ours is gone.
The old house.
It became “ the old house “ when I was
twelve years old and we moved to a new house
that Daddy built a quarter mile away in a little
pecan orchard.
It once stood among a stand of trees. Live oaks. Sycamores.
Magnolias. And those cussed chinaberries.
Look toward the spot now and all you’ll see are neat, straight
rows of recently picked cotton stalks.
We eventually tore down the old house, and the barn, and the
tool shed and the outhouse, but until a few years ago there were
still a few reminders of the old homeplace. A couple of the more
sturdy trees survived and the brick foundation footings remained
in place.
The new owner finally got rid of those too.
There’s nothing left but the memories.
The old house was old before I came along. The outside walls
were built in the old lapboard style. By the time I could remem
ber the boards had aged and warped and whatever paint had been
applied had long since been scrubbed away by the winds and the
rains and the scorching summer sun.
The inside walls were also wood, nailed to studs, but they
were flat, not overlapped like the outside. They had shrank over
time and it wasn’t unusual for the cold wind to discover the
cracks when winter was approaching. Every few years my folks
would have to tack up thick wallpaper in the living room, back
then called the "front room”, and the kitchen to help keep those
areas warm.
In the early days of winter Daddy would build fires in the
fireplace and when it got colder he’d wrestle the old potbellied
stove in from the back porch where it lived all spring and sum
mer. Granddaddy Morris, worked part-time at a sawmill and he
kept us supplied with firewood.
Eventually we had gas stoves installed in the two main rooms.
The bedrooms were never heated but Mama had dozens of
quilts and blankets. On the coldest nights she would pile them
on us until we could barely move.
We stayed plenty warm.
In the middle of the old house was a junk room. It was al
ways so full you couldn’t walk through it to get from one room
to the next. I loved it. I’d crawl around under the stacks of old
tables and chairs and beds and cardboard boxes and pretend that
I was exploring a cave.
That was cool.
The house was pretty primitive.
The lights in each room hung from cords in the ceiling and
you turned them on by screwing in the bulb. Turning off the hot
bulb by partially unscrewing it required a dishrag.
The first water into the house was from a yard faucet that
somebody had run up into the kitchen from a hole drilled in the
floor. Later on we got a real sink with hot and cold water.
Another hole in a corner of the kitchen floor was used by
Mama to sweep the neverending supply of dirt that farmhouses
attract right out to the underside of the house.
There were no showers or porcelain baths. We bathed in a
number ten tub filled with water from the faucet until Daddy
splurged and bought an elongated, galvanized one that most people
used to water cows.
The bathroom was fifty yards from the house. A two-holer.
God only knows why anybody would want to share that particu
lar function, but, there it was.
I never used a flush toilet with regularity till I went to first
grade.
There was a lightening rod on the rusty old tin roof. It was
made of artistically twisted cast iron with a spearhead on top. I
don’t know if it worked but I know we never got struck.
The old house would be considered a firetrap these days but
my memories of it are mostly good.
How the rain beating on that tin roof sang me to sleep so many
nights.
How I’d stand close to the pot bellied stove and feel the heat
warm the front side while my backside froze.
How the moon behind the trees cast friendly shadows through
the curtainless windows across my bedroom wall.
I remember, but there’s nothing there now.
Not a nail. Not a stone. Not a scrap of wood.
Not forgotten.
Don Lively is a retired police officer and freelance writer. He
lives in Shell Bluff. Email Don at Livelvcolo @ aol.com.
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