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VIEWPOIN
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
She Sttnes
gainesvilletimes.com
Sunday, December 16, 2018
JOHNNY VARDEMAN
vardemanl 956@att.net
Youngsters got
their game on
in Roper Park
Before youth sports became so organized,
young people in the Roper Park neighborhood
around Virginia Circle off Thompson Bridge
Road in Gainesville “got up” baseball and foot
ball games at the park. No coaches and few, if
any, spectators or parents.
The Roper Park field’s “fence” was Thomp
son Bridge Road, and if you hit the ball over the
road, it was a home run, according to Fletcher
Carter, one of the players way back when. But
Van Peeples, another young participant, said
nobody could do that.
The park today has a real ball diamond, play
ground, picnic pavilion and tennis courts.
In Carter’s young mind, “Roper Park seemed
to just sort of appear.” He remembers such
“teammates” as Peeples, Donnie Smith, Phillip
Sumlin, Pete Whiten, Norman Bramlett, Ronnie
Delk, Allen Doveton, Joe Wiley, Jimmy Henson
and Sammy Harmons, among many others who
would gather to play at the park or a nearby
pasture, which he called “the center of our
universe.”
Roper Park was the main attraction, but Vern
Sayre’s Cake Box Bakery nearby ran a close
second. On an early morning, the youngsters
were lured by the sweet smell of doughnuts
cooking at the bakery.
“After following the creek that flowed
through the pasture and behind the bakery,”
Carter recalled, “we would enter through the
back door to be sur
rounded by metal racks
filled with large trays of
sheer pleasure.”
Getting their fill, they
then would climb into
the back of the Sealtest
Milk truck and pol
ish off the remaining
doughnuts with pints of
ice cold chocolate milk.
Roper Park came
about Feb. 3,1955,
when W. A. Roper
deeded the land to
the City of Gainesville
strictly for park and
recreation purposes.
Roper, known as
“Cousin Arthur,” was
somewhat of a charac
ter around Gainesville,
a successful Realtor
and insurance agent.
His Roper Hill off
Cleveland Road, now covered with apartments,
was once a picnic area with a mountain view.
When he died at age 86 in July 1963, The
Times called him a “Realtor, humanitarian and
humorist who had inspired newspaper readers
for years with his column, ‘Cousin Arthur.’”
His car struck a truck on Thompson Bridge
Road the day he died, but doctors said a heart
attack killed him.
Roper had told editors at The Times that of
all the business and civic activities of his life,
writing the newspaper column was the most
rewarding and fun thing he did.
His columns, often including poems, were
reprinted in newspapers, magazines and church
publications all over the country. He wrote of
his childhood days plowing behind a mule and
working in a garden.
The newspaper wrote that Roper’s religion,
wit and love of country were reflected in his
writings. He didn’t mind teasing his many
friends through his column, but never in an
unkind way.
Roper wrote the “Cousin Arthur” column
for The Times without pay. He once appealed
to readers to lobby The Times for “at least $1 a
week.” That never happened, but he continued
to write his column.
Roper often was called on to speak to church
groups, and one of his favorite pastimes
was attending campmeetings and church
dinners-on-the-ground.
In Gainesville, he partnered with W.A. Car
lisle and W.H. Slack in the real estate business
and acquired large holdings of property.
For a while, Roper dealt in real estate in Flor
ida, and he was the one who proposed to Gen.
Sandy Beaver of Riverside Military Academy
that it build a campus in Hollywood, Fla. For
many years, the school alternated between the
Florida campus and the one in Gainesville.
His generosity to his church, First Baptist on
Green Street, and to the community was well
known. The gift of land for Roper Park was an
example, and six decades later, it continues to
be enjoyed by people of all ages.
Roper,
known as
‘Cousin
Arthur,’was
somewhat of
a character
around
Gainesville,
a successful
Realtor and
insurance
agent.
A landmark of sorts came tumbling down
last week. The old brick home of Ode Parks
at the corner of Enota and Park Hill Drive in
Gainesville fell to the wrecking ball. Parks was
Gainesville’s assistant fire chief and a familiar
sight in the yard or on the porch of his long
time home, and the horses he kept in the pas
ture along Enota were a bucolic respite from
the congested city intersection. The property
will become a site for offices.
RAFAEL YAGHOBZADEH I Associated Press
Demonstrators walk through tear gas during clashes Saturday, Dec. 8, in Paris. Crowds of yellow-vested protesters angry at
President Emmanuel Macron and France’s high taxes tried to converge on the presidential palace, some scuffling with police
firing tear gas.
Is France's rollback of carbon
taxes a major setback
tor environmentalists?
Rollback seems like a
setback, but progressives are
determined to impose them
BY MERRILL MATTHEWS
Tribune News Service
The recent French demonstrations against President
Emmanuel Macron’s gasoline tax increase may have
been the first such uprising, but it prob
ably won’t be the last — in France or
elsewhere.
Hundreds of thousands of French
working-class demonstrators took to
the streets of Paris and other parts of
the country to protest Macron’s 25-cent
per gallon gas tax increase, with more
increases to follow. The revenue would
supposedly be used to fight climate
change.
It’s not like gasoline in France is
cheap. The average price of gas is
about $7 a gallon, according to the
Associated Press, which adjusted for
the European use of liters. That’s $140
to fill up a 20-gallon tank. Ouch!
And that’s in a country where the
average income is about two-thirds that
of America’s.
Macron didn’t care because he, like many progres
sives, wants to be seen as a leader in the fight against cli
mate change, regardless of how much that legacy costs
the working class.
But it turns out his French constituents do care — a
lot.
Macron was stunned by the size and determination of
the spontaneous revolt. After insisting he wouldn’t cave
on the gas tax, he did, and he is now promising even
more concessions.
France may be the most disruptive, but it isn’t the first
populist pushback.
Australia became the first country to repeal its tax on
carbon emissions. That’s where the government imposes
a tax on each ton of carbon released into the atmosphere.
Even though it was considered model legislation, the
Aussies didn’t want it and the Senate repealed it in 2014
— after only two years. Prime Minister Tony Abbott
called the tax “a useless destructive tax which damaged
jobs, which hurt families’ cost of living and which didn’t
actually help the environment.”
Sounds like the French demonstrators.
Closer to home, California raised the state’s gasoline
tax by 12 cents last year to 55.22 cents per gallon, the
second highest in the country.
Instead of rioting like the French, Californians forced
a statewide tax-repeal vote last month. The effort failed,
with 45 percent voting to repeal, but then gasoline isn’t
$7 a gallon in California — yet.
But larger battles may be coming.
For example, socialist and Rep.-elect Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., recently told an audience, it’s
“inevitable that we can use the transition to 100 per
cent renewable energy as the vehicle to truly deliver
and establish economic, social and racial justice in the
United States of America. That is our proposal and that
is what we are here to do.”
The federal government currently imposes its own tax
on gasoline: 18.4 cents per gallon. Small croissants com
pared to France.
Rollback not a setback,
but they must be more
palatable to woo Americans
BY MICHAEL E. KRAFT
Tribune News Service
In early December, large-scale street protests forced
the French government to roll back its newly imposed
fuel taxes. The French president later
vowed to lower other taxes as well and
to increase wages. The protesters won a
six-month reprieve on the taxes, which
may or may not return.
The unexpected intensity of public
reaction in France raises the question of
whether any form of carbon tax is now
politically feasible. It is, but whether
the public views carbon taxes as accept
able depends largely on how they are
designed and presented.
Some background is helpful. The
French decision came during the same
week that the latest U.N. conference
on climate change began in Poland. At
that meeting, delegates strongly urged
nations to accelerate their efforts to
reduce carbon emissions as new sci
entific studies underscored potentially
catastrophic effects of a rapidly chang
ing climate.
The latest U.S. study, the 1,600-page National Climate
Assessment, written by more than 300 federal agency
scientists and released just the week before, argued that
we must act aggressively to deal with “substantial dam
ages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health
and well-being,” that can be expected over the coming
decades.
There is little reason to be complacent. Other scientific
reports in the past several weeks indicate that global emis
sions of carbon dioxide, largely generated by use of fossil
fuels, are expected to continue rising this year by about 2.7
percent — 2.5 percent in the U.S — driven by strong eco
nomic growth in the U.S., China and India.
One inescapable conclusion is that neither the United
States nor most of the world is on a sustainable path in
energy use, and time is running out to change direction.
While many different policy actions can help to reduce
reliance on fossil fuels, there is no doubt that carbon taxes
have a major role to play.
France simply got it wrong and its yellow vest protests
reflected that.
Carbon taxes are widely and successfully used in
Europe and many other nations to reduce energy con
sumption and promote alternative energy sources. They
also are strongly favored by economists and many policy
makers as more efficient than other governance tools.
In contrast to what has been done elsewhere, the
French fuel taxes were both poorly designed and care
lessly imposed.
For example, only about one-fourth of the new tax rev
enue was directed at environmental actions that might
compensate for climate change, such as investing in
alternative energy technologies or subsidizing energy effi
ciency and conservation.
Moreover, gas prices in France already were very high
compared to the U.S. The additional tax of 25 cents per
gallon was simply too much for many working families,
and they were angry.
Merrill
Matthews is
a resident
scholar with
the Institute
for Policy
Innovation in
Dallas
Michael
E. Kraft is
professor
emeritus
of political
science and
environmental
affairs at the
University of
Wisconsin
Johnny Vardeman is retired editor of The Times.
He can be reached at 2183 Pine Tree Circle N.E.,
Gainesville, 30501; phone 770-532-2326; email
vardemanl 956@att.net.
■ Please see MATTHEWS, 4D
■ Please see KRAFT, 4D
