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Page A— Wednesday, August 25, 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 24,20ll Twenty three Waynesboro homes were about to be con demned by the city council. Building Inspector Marcus Cobb said the houses were unht for habitation and would face demolition unless brought up to standards. A Waynesboro man, Earl Alphonzo Bolar, 48, died from injuries he received while an inmate in the Richmond County Jail. Another inmate, Jeremy Gene Taylor, 30, was arrested for allegedly beating Bolar to death. Highway 56 between Waynesboro and Augusta would be widened to four lanes if a proposed one-cent sales tax is passed in a referendum. Other projects included construction of a new truck route on the west side of Waynesboro. 25 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 29, 1996 The Waynesboro Police Department began enforcing the two-hour parking limit in the downtown business district. Violators who received a ticket were given a $10 fine. Two truck drivers were killed when their tankers collided at the intersection of Highways 80 and 23. The deaths were the second and third at the intersection in less than a month. Joe Jackson and Tim Carey won the annual Rotary Club Golf Tournament with rounds of 55 and 58 to win by a mar gin of 10 strokes over Wade and Mitch Marchman. Proceeds from the tournament go to support the club’s various local projects, including scholarships. 50 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 25, 1971 Pharmacist Walt Seeger joined the staff of Taylor’s Drug Store. The son of Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Seeger of Midville, he is a recent graduate of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Georgia. Rev. Gary Linebaugh, pastor of the Waynesboro Bible Church since 1965, resigned to accept a call from a church in Port Crane, N.Y. 70 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 30, 1951 Louis Pintchuck was named captain of the 1951 Waynes boro Hurricane football team. Frank Griffin and Jones Skin ner were co-captains. The team was set to play in its opening game against Metter on Sept. 14. Twin brothers Sidney and Seabie Sapp of Sardis were working together at McChord Air Force Base in Washington State. They were the sons of Mrs. Mary D. Sapp. Lullaby of Broadway, starring Doris Day and Gene Nelson, was playing at the Grand Theatre. We welcome your letters Letters to the editor of The True Citizen are welcomed and encouraged. These are pages of opinion, yours and ours. Letters to the editor voice the opinions of the newspaper’s readers. The True Citizen reserves the right to edit any and all portions of a letter. Unsigned letters will not be published. Letters must include the signature, address and phone number of the writer to allow our staff to authenticate its origin. Letters should be limited to 400 words and should be typewritten and double-spaced or neatly printed by hand. Deadline for letters to the editor is Tuesday at 9 a.m. Email Letters to the Editor to: truecitizennews@live.com. P.O. Box 948 • 629 Shadrack Street Waynesboro, Georgia 30830 Telephone: (706) 554-2111 • Fax: (706) 526-4779 Published every Wednesday by The True Citizen, Inc. Periodical Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Georgia (USPS 642-300) POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The True Citi zen, P.O. Box 948, Waynesboro, GA 30830. Roy F. Chalker Roy F. Chalker Jr. Publisher Publisher 1945-1970 1970- Lavonna Johnson, Managing Editor; ShellieSmitly, Fea ture Writer/Reporter/Associate Editor; Marianne Smith, Office Manager; Martha Chalker, Advertising Sales; Roy F. Chalker, Jr., Printing Manager. SUBSCRIPTION RATES $1 per single copy at locations all over Burke County. By mail: In Burke County, 6 months, $22,1 year, $34,2 years, $56; outside Burke County, 6 months, $29, 1 year, $49, 2 years, $82; outside of Georgia, 6 months, $34, 1 year, $59, 2 years, $96; One-year online edition only, $25. All prices include state and local tax. Yeah... Translator SAFELY DEPART. J KABUL AIRPORT EVACUATION BEN ROBERTS benroberts@bellsouth.net $42,110,200. That’s the amount of the proposed budget for Burke County for the 2022 fiscal year that begins in just a few short weeks on Oct. 1. According to a report from the county manager’s office, that figure represents a 16-per- cent increase over the 2021 budget of $36.4million. I’m quoting these numbers with the belief that they are still correct. When this process started a few weeks ago, these were the numbers Commis sioners were working with for the operation of the county’s general fund. That, however, was a couple of budget work sessions ago and various de partment heads and elected of ficials have since stood in front of the Commissioners to ask for various needs and wants, some of which were not included in the $42 million. Admittedly, there are far more interesting ways to spend a Tuesday evening, but it is still disappointing to look around the room and see it virtually vacant outside of whoever is there asking for money, maybe another media person and my self. Taxes and spending are the two biggest things that tend to get people riled up, and setting the budget is the spending part of that equation. In another couple of months, the commis sioners will meet to discuss and set the yearly property tax rates. Virtually nobody will show up for those meetings either. So just what exactly makes up $42 million worth of spend ing, you might ask? Obviously, the county’s got to keep the lights on and the air or heat running in all their buildings and offices. There’s an insane amount of fuel for everything from motor graders to weed-eaters. New equipment requests in clude the usual: hretrucks, am bulances and police vehicles. There are tractors and dump trucks for the road department. The recreation department wants new picnic tables and facility maintenance has asked for a new zero turn lawnmower. The tax assessor’s office, where I am employed, wants a new map printer. According to our budget request, that will set the county back about $3,000. The commissioners plan to move forward with the reno vation of one of the former cotton warehouses behind the new judicial center this fall. The goal is to consolidate the offices of the tax assessor, tax commissioner and the planning commission. In my opinion, housing these offices under one roof will greatly ease the burden on tax payers and property owners. A permit to move a mobile home into Burke County requires a visit to all three of those offices. This move will make that far less time consuming. And it’s not uncommon to walk into the tax commissioner’s office with an issue and immediately be told you need to go to the tax assessor instead - or vice versa. Still, that renovation will cost well over a million dollars, and that’s before the county has purchased the first new desk, office chair or computer. Of course, the county also employs a large number of people, including myself. Re gardless of the amount of your paycheck, a job with the coun ty is a pretty good one: full medical benefits for full-time employees, a pension plan funded solely by the county and discounted dental and vision plans are all provided at no, or extremely low, cost. The county has a “step plan” pay scale where for every year of employment, you get a two- percent raise. Throw in another two-percent cost of living ad justment for 2022, and every county employee is looking at a four-percent raise sometime over the next 12 months. The commissioners have generously done this every year that I’ve g^ been employed by the county, BIRD DOG, and that’s coming 5 Don Lively (Reprinted from 2017) I hear them often. There seem to be two sepa rate families. I think one of the families spends its nights on the eastern edge of my property, deep in the trees. The other, I believe, resides somewhere in the op posite direction, to the west, across the road on the late judge's tract, within easy access to the water in the old irrigation pond that Daddy and Willie built all those years ago. Two families. Two packs, actually. Coyotes. I nearly always hear them on full moon nights and new moon nights. I know why they howl on full moons. It's in response to my worth less dog, Lucy AKA LooseE, and me, doing some howling ourselves. The coyotes, sometimes both packs at the same time, follow suit. I have no idea why they also seem to always howl on new moons. Maybe they're scared of the dark. Yes, I hear them, but I almost never see them. I saw coyotes regularly when I lived Out West. I saw them in the mountains and on the plains. In the country and in the city. Winter and summer. They were always around. Not so much, around these parts. I can only assume that South ern coyotes are not as amicable as their Rocky Mountain coun terparts. That's okay. Hearing them without seeing them only adds to their myste riousness for me. It's one of the things that makes living in the country unique. One of many. Out here in the country most of us have potholes that dot the length and breadth of our driveways. Most are not packed or paved and when the rains come, the rivulets wash away the weak places leaving behind barrelhead sized impressions. They're more of an inconve nience than a real problem. We spend a lot of time talking about how to patch them and we make plans to do just that. We just never seem to get around to OUT YONDER it. The upside is, nobody can sneak up to the house without being heard. The air is unquestionably clearer and more clean out in the country. There always seems to be a balmy breeze keeping the tree leaves and needles in a constant, gentle motion. Most days you can smell the pines or cedars. My trauma damaged old lungs love to take in the country air. That's not to say that ev erything in the country smells good. One recent year the fel low that farms the old home place decided to treat the held with some concoction part of which was processed chicken renderings. I suppose it would have been fine if the sun never came out and started baking the nasty mess, but, when that hap pened, it stunk to High Heaven for days. In my non-farmer mind, I can't imagine what benefit the soil got from hav ing poultry guts spread all over it, and I can't fathom anything nastier. Thankfully, that only happened once. Let's hope it stays that way. Out in the country there are still plenty of forested areas. My place is no exception and the adjoining properties are also heavily wooded. If I so choose, lean walk to most of the homes scattered in every direction from my house and never leave the cover of the trees, only touching asphalt when I cross a road. After living semi isolated in the woods for the past several years, I'm not sure I could ever again get used to living with neighbors just a few feet away. Speaking of relatives, folks who live in the country tend to form familial pockets in which kin people live close by. It has much to do with the fact that some of the land where the homes are built is ancestral, having been in the clan for cen turies. In my own locale, I live so close to the homesteads of a dozen cousins and a few aunts that I could walk to their places without getting out of breath or pulling a muscle. I like that. Living in the country means quiet days and even quieter nights. It means night birds and other tree critters singing you to sleep at night and others greeting you awake in the morning. Things seem to move at a slower pace. Which gives me plenty of time to ponder and think. Like, maybe it's time to patch the driveway. Or, maybe not.