Newspaper Page Text
Page 4A— Wednesday, August 4, 2021, The True Citizen
OPINIONS
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
The Pledge Of Allegiance
1 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.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
LOOKING BACK
{this week in Burke County history}
10 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 3,20ll
Ralph McCook and his son Jamie McCook were both
arrested and charged in connection with the shooting death
of Jamie McCook’s live-in girlfriend, Amy Nicole Brown.
Both men had claimed the shooting was accidental, but Burke
County deputies decided otherwise and arrested both men.
Heather Savelle assumed her duties at the Cooperative
Extension Service as the county’s first full-time 4-H program
advisor in eight years. She had recently completed her mas
ter’s degree at the University of Georgia.
Waynesboro Downtown Development Authority Director
Andrea Stein was terminated after almost five years on the
job. “Inefficiency” was given as the reason for her dismissal.
25 YEARS AGO -AUGUST 8,1996
Augusta Attorney Neal Dickert defeated incumbent Su
perior Court Judge Bettieanne Childers Hart of Waynesboro
by 1,195 votes. Preston B. Lewis, III was elected Judge of
the Burke County Probate Court and Alma Tuff defeated
incumbent Magistrate Judge Patricia Hall McDonald.
Well known Burke County educator J.W. Bell died at the
age of 70. He had retired after 34 years as a teacher after
serving in the U.S. Navy.
Construction began on a new office at the Burke County
Airport. The new facility, which would include a small
meeting room and two restrooms, was expected to cost an
estimated $25,000.
50 YEARS AGO -AUGUST 4,1971
The Georgia Departments of Agriculture and Public Health
issued an urgent request that all horses, mules and ponies
in Burke County be vaccinated against Venezuelan Equine
Encephalitis, which had already killed more than 1,300
horses in Texas.
Don Cowart opened a new TV and Appliance Sales and
Service Store on Sixth Street in Waynesboro. He operated
similar businesses in Sardis and Augusta.
Joe Rendek assumed his duties as Minister of Music and
Youth Activities Coordinator at the First Baptist Church
in Waynesboro. The Chicago native was a graduate of the
Baptist Bible Institute in Graceville, Fla.
75 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 9,1951
Anew Pure Oil Service Station, operated by Fred DeLaigle
and Lamar Cochran, was opened at the comer of Twelfth
and Liberty Streets.
Goldberg’s Furniture advertised three-piece mahogany
bedroom suites for $69.95 and upholstered wood kitchen
stools for $1.00 each.
Mr. and Mrs. William Tolliver Cunningham of Lexington,
Ga. announced the engagement of their daughter, Virginia,
to Henry Cormac Hopkins, Jr. of Waynesboro.
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My wife, who was in her
vehicle a few cars behind me,
parked and came and sat in my
track. We talked about our day
as we normally would. At some
point she asked if I felt okay?
Yeah. Fine. You? Yeah.
Both of us awoke with a stiff
lower back the next day. She
had a pretty bad headache. It
was Good Friday so I had the
day off from work. I sat on the
couch most of the day watching
TV. That was the extent of any
side effects.
A few weeks later, we gave
up masks and went back to a
mostly normal existence.
I say all this because as I write
this, COVID numbers are on
the rise across the country and
are now ticking up in Burke
County as well. Admittedly, I
have trouble understanding this.
COVID, both the virus itself
and the effects it had on our
economy and way of life, had
wreaked havoc on us all in some
way. There are people right here
in this community who lost
their lives. One day they were
fine, the next they were sick
and then their families were
planning a funeral.
Masks, while simple in their
application, were a pain in the
backside. And frankly, it was
just weird having conversations
with them on our faces.
The vaccines were supposed
to be our way out of all of this.
But in order for them to work
effectively, the majority of our
population has to get them.
That hasn’t happened. Not in
America. Not in Georgia. And
not in Burke County.
I understand having ques
tions and concerns. I don’t
fault people for being skeptical.
What I cannot understand is
the failure to seek answers to
those questions from a qualified
health professional; or worse,
taking the advice of someone
from a Facebook post or a radio
or TV host that you agree with
politically.
At my yearly doctor’s ap
pointment this summer, my lo
cal doctor, the guy who makes
me take cholesterol medication
and tells me to go to the gym,
asked if I’d gotten a vaccine. I
responded yes. He said “good.”
In the same doctor’s office,
my wife asked our family pe
diatrician about our 14-year-old
daughter getting the vaccine.
He responded simply, “Get it.”
Don Lively
BEN ROBERTS
benroberts@bellsouth.net
Sometime earlier this year,
almost in a passing conversa
tion, my wife asked: Are you/
me/we getting the vaccine?
I don’t know. Probably.
Maybe. Is there a reason I/we
shouldn’t?
We had talked about it here
and there. Both of us work in
the public and had seen first
hand the effects of COVID.
My wife, in her position, had
sat through countless meetings
full of cautionary news about
the economy and what could
happen to the small businesses
of our community. We talked
about each of our parents and
their ages and health, both sets
of whom were already vac
cinated.
So, on a Thursday in April, I
drove around the Office Park,
let a local nurse I know jab me
in the arm with the single dose
vaccine by Johnson & Johnson
and then point me towards an
other part of the parking lot. A
gentleman directed me to a spot
and explained I was to wait 15
minutes to ensure I didn’t have
any sort of reaction.
Do you journal?
Yes, I'm aware that “journal”
normally should be used as a
noun, but in recent years jour
naling has become a verb.
It’s kind of like how the word
“antique” has also become a
verb.
“We’re going antiquing this
afternoon, want to come with
us?”
Americans have a way of
hijacking words to make them
fit into the language, rather
than simply using the correct
vernacular in the first place.
I digress, but only slightly
since we are going to be talking
about words today.
So, do you journal?
I actually keep two journals,
or diaries if you will, that I
write in every day. One of them
is one of those cute little five-
year daily thought volumes that
have gained in popularity over
the past few years. It asks 365
questions, each of which the
writer answers once a year for
five years.
My other journal is more
random with no silly little ques
tions to answer, just whatever
pops into my head at the end
of the day.
Frankly, my daily routine
isn’t really exciting enough
to warrant documenting it;
it’s not like I’m a foreign cor-
WRITE NOW
respondent covering some
faraway war from a foxhole.
But someday my descendants
might be interested to know
when I moved into my house
that by then will be decades
old. Or when I finished mak
ing that twisted wood walking
stick that’s been handed down
to them. They might even find
their own birth documented in
my scribblings just like I found
mine in Grandma’s diary.
The point is, keeping records
of our daily lives for folks who
come after us, in my humble
opinion, is very important.
Folks from the Blessed South
are the best story tellers on the
planet so it stands to reason that
someday, somebody will want
to read those stories.
Recently a gentleman rec
One of my biggest frustra
tions is the ignorance of how a
virus spreads and the point of a
vaccine. I have heard time and
time again, from people with
zero medical expertise, that
COVID is not any worse than
the flu, so there’s no need for
any vaccine.
To my knowledge, I’ve had
the flu once in my life and I’d
prefer to never have it again.
Since then, I’ve gotten a flu shot
every year to avoid catching it
a second time, but also to keep
from passing it to someone else.
The point of all of this is to
slow the spread of the virus, to
weaken its ability to travel from
one person to the next. You
may be the healthiest person in
Burke County but someone else
in your home or at your job or in
your church or standing in the
line beside you at the grocery
store may not be as healthy. It
can affect 10 different people
10 different ways.
The vaccine may not save
your life but it just might save
someone else’s. I’m just asking
that you consider that. Then call
your doctor and take his or her
advice.
ognized me at a local store and
after complimenting me on my
years of writing my weekly
scribblings, he told me a great
story about his father taking
him on a squirrel hunt. He had
me laughing out loud, some
thing I don’t actually do all that
often. Once he was finished he
had a request.
“Why don’t you write that
story in the paper.”
I very politely told him that I
couldn’t do that. I’d be stealing
his family history and making it
mine. I encouraged him to write
it down himself. His response
was exactly as I expected.
“I don’t really know how to
write.”