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Page 4— Wednesday, January 5, 2022, The True Citizen
OPINIONS
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LOOKING BACK
{this week in Burke County history}
10 YEARS AGO - JANUARY 4,2012
Pauline Jenkins was sworn in as Waynesboro’s first Black
and first female mayor. She had previously spent 12 years
on the city council.
Hundreds of tons of kaolin coursed through Brier Creek.
The pollution was because of a leak from a kaolin company
near Wrens.
Sgt. Curt St. Germaine was terminated by the Waynesboro
Police Department after nearly ten weeks of unpaid leave
for declining to take part in a mandatory Taser training rou
tine. The training would have required him to be shot with
electrified darts.
25 YEARS AGO-JANUARY 8,1997
Burke County’s representatives in the state legislature
expected $6.1 million to be approved for construction of the
Augusta Technical College campus here.
Waynesboro City Council passed an ordinance setting a
25 mph speed limit for all city streets not part of the state
highway system.
Suzanne Railey, a third grade teacher at SGA Elementary
School, was named Burke County Teacher of the Year.
50 YEARS AGO-JANUARY 5,1972
Thomas Ward was the new Sports Editor of The True
Citizen, succeeding Phil Chalker, who was named Assistant
Production Manager of Chalker Publishing Company.
First National Bank opened its new branch at the comer
of Sixth and Shadrack Streets.
The Georgia Field Trials opened its 72nd running at Di-
Lane Plantation.
70 YEARS AGO-JANUARY 10,1952
Joe J. Reynolds, Jr., president of the Georgia Field Trial
Association, sais he expected a large number of registrants
for the annual trials to be held here in the following weeks.
Heyward Gnann, Jones Skinner, Billy Hopper and Louis
Pintchuck were among the members of the Waynesboro
High School boys basketball team playing in the annual
CSRA tournament.
“Fort Worth” starring Randolph Scott was playing at the
Grand Theatre.
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Don Lively
It’s New Year’s Eve Eve, the
day before New Year’s Eve, as
I begin this week’s scribblings.
Every single time that I write
“New Year’s Eve”, I wonder to
myself if it’s supposed to have
an apostrophe.
New Year’s Eve?
Or, New Years Eve?
Is “years” possessive, or just
multiple?
Spellcheck seems to believe
that the apostrophe needs to
be there.
Personally, I don’t know.
What I do know is that I’ve
wasted time and words, so
let’s get to the real heart of the
matter.
Happy New Year, Y’all.
As I have for the past several
years, this year I only made one
New Year’s resolution.
That resolution is to not
make any New Year’s resolu
tions.
Why bother, I’ll just break
them all before January is a
week old.
But just because I don’t
follow that tradition doesn’t
mean that there won’t be lots
of “new” things in my life as I
begin 2022.
Some new things cost money.
My first real expense of 2022
was for new tires. I’m pretty
hard on my pickup, putting it
through all kinds of trials and
tribulations during any given
year. I use it to jerk stumps out
of the ground. I use it to haul
firewood, often more than the
suspension seems to enjoy. I
drive it a few miles to church,
twice every Sunday, and a few
thousand miles a couple of
times a year on my road trips.
So, I go through tires pretty fast.
I also finally got around to
replacing the windshield that
got cracked in Montana almost
two years ago on one of those
road trips. I was stopped beside
the road watching a herd of elk
through my binoculars when a
truck almost identical to mine
hew by kicking up rocks, one
of which put a bullseye on the
glass. The bullseye eventually
became a spiderweb. Thank
fully, it never impaired my
sightline so I just lived with it.
No more.
2022 New Year, new wind
shield.
So, I’m ready to roll.
My little brother Willie and I
have an ongoing, good-natured
debate about whether or not
my preferred translation of the
Bible, the New International
HAPPY AND NEW
Version (NIV), is a legitimate
version. He, like millions of
believers, prefers the tried-
and-true King James. I love the
KJV also, but for my purposes
the NIV makes things clearer.
I have to remind Willie that the
KJV is also a translation, as are
all modern-day versions. As I
said, good natured. Anyway,
I will begin 2022 with a new
Bible. My current one is over
25 years old and is getting
pretty battle-worn. Not only
that but for some reason the
printing seems to be shrinking
as I get older. So, I ordered my
self a new Word, complete with
large-print lettering, chapter
indexing and Jesus’s Words in
red letters.
Oh and, it’s still the NIV.
I begin 2022 looking forward
to new adventures.
I’ve always taken my epic
road trips in the spring or the
fall but recently I’ve been ex
ploring the idea of going on a
wintertime road trip across the
fruited, and in many place the
frozen, American plain. I’d love
to see Yellowstone, the national
park, not the TV show, covered
in snow. Same for Monument
Valley. Or the Mojave Desert.
I posed the thought of road trip
ping in the dead of winter to a
friend who was immediately
concerned about icy driving
conditions.
No problem. I’ve got brand
new tires.
New Year, new things.
I begin 2022 with a new
determination to take off the
handful of pounds that I packed
back on since Thanksgiving. I
worked hard over the last three
years to get healthier, so, salads
and greens, here I come again.
I begin 2022 with a differ
ent marital status, but we beat
that dead horse last week, so,
enough of that.
In 2021 I accomplished two
important events in the long and
drawn-out writing of my South
ern Gothic novel that it seems
I’ve been writing my whole life.
Hmm...I guess in one sense I
HAVE been writing it my whole
life. Anyway, those two events.
In 20211 finished the first chap
ter...and the last chapter. So, I
know how the story begins and
how it ends, now I just have to
tie it all together with the mil
lions of words I have stored in
hundreds of folders.
I better get busy.
So, no resolutions.
Just new ideas, thoughts,
dreams and adventures.
I hope that your New Year
will be your best ever.
P.O. Box 948 • 629 Shadrack Street
Waynesboro, Georgia 30830
Telephone: (706) 554-2111 • Fax: (706) 526-4779
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Office Manager; Martha Chalker, Advertising Sales; Roy
F. Chalker, Jr., Printing Manager.
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The ancient Greek story tells
of Pandora who was given a
wedding gift but ordered not
to open it. In time, curiosity
overcame her and she opened
the box, releasing death, evil,
and misery into the world. Pan
dora’s box refers to a source
of endless complications or
trouble arising from a single,
simple miscalculation.
There are words that cannot
be taken back after they are
uttered. Pandora’s one act of
inquisitiveness set many things
in motion, but catastrophes
often come as an accumulation
of events over time.
The United States and the
world are both confronted
with the serious consequences
of COVID-19; however, as
early as May 2018, the Trump
Administration’s former se
curity advisor John Bolton
restructured and disbanded
the White House pandemic
response team. While some
members of the team remained,
Michael N. Searles
others resigned or found other
positions. In July 2019, the Cen
ter for Disease Control (CDC)
epidemiologist embedded in
China’s disease control agency
left the post, and the Trump
Administration eliminated the
role. There was a cut in staff
by more than two-thirds of the
U.S. public health agency inside
China. In addition, the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and
the United States Agency for
International Development
(USAID), the global relief pro
gram that had a role in helping
China monitor and respond to
outbreaks, also shut their Bei
jing offices on Trump’s watch.
According to Reuters, reduc
tions at the U.S. agencies side
lined health experts, scientists
and other professionals who
might have been able to help
China mount an earlier response
to the novel coronavirus, as well
as provide the U.S. government
with more information about
what was coming. By October
2019, there were insufficient
funding sources designated
for the federal government
to use in response to a severe
influenza pandemic. On Janu
ary 22, 2020, President Trump
stated, “We have it totally under
PANDORA'S BOX
control. It’s one person coming
in from China. It’s going to be
just fine.” For the rest of 2020,
President Trump spent most of
his time denying the serious
ness of the COVID pandemic
although he did say on March
17, 2020, “I felt like it was a
pandemic long before it was
called a pandemic.”
The seriousness of the virus,
however, did not encourage the
President to act as more Ameri
cans died. On April 6,2020, the
COVID death toll in the United
States passed 10,000 and by
April 11, the death toll passed
20,000. By the end of 2020, the
deaths exceeded 340.000 with
20 million confirmed cases. On
January 20, 2020 as President
Trump’s term of office ended,
there were over 25 million
confirmed coronavirus cases
in the United States and over
400,000 deaths.
While President Trump never
admitted that he contributed to
the death count, Dr. Deborah
Birx, the administration’s coro
navirus advisor estimated that
30 to 40 percent of the 738,000
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.
could have been prevented had
the White House taken neces
sary steps to curb the spread
of the virus. Even when ex-
President Trump tried to rectify
his false statements by publicly
admitting that he had received
the COVID vaccinations, he
could not squelch the distrust
and resistance he had helped
release into the world. On a
recent Dallas, Texas speaking
tour with some of his most
devoted fans, Trump admitted
he had received the two shot
regiment and the COVID-19
booster. Instead of receiving
cheers, he was greeted with a
chorus of boos. Encouraging
the crowd to take credit for the
development of the vaccine in
“warp speed” and not allow
ing the other side to gain the
recognition did little to sway
their resistance. Waving off the
boos the former President said,
"don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t!" and
attributed the dissonance to a
"very tiny group over there."
We do not know if the release
of all matters of evils into the
world at time bothered Pandora.
Pandora’s Box while contrib
uting such devastation in the
world left one thing inside the
box and that was hope.