Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by Georgia HomePLACE, a project of the Georgia Public Library Service.
About The Commerce news. (Commerce, Ga.) 1???-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2016)
PAGE 4A THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS • THE COMMERCE NEWS WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2016 Editorial Views The great debate over bathrooms Admit it. Never, ever, did you think that public bathrooms — and who could go where — would become a national issue discussed in the same breath and with the same fervor as the presidential election. Okay, so we have a diverse pop ulation comprising male, female and transgender individuals all, of whom will have the need to use public restroom facilities and many of whom get uncomfortable with the prospect of using the same facilities as someone of another gender defi nition. But, seriously, is this an issue warranting debate in the U.S. Con gress, every statehouse in America and a new policy from the federal government? How is it conceivable that the matter of restroom prefer ence ranks up there with manag ing the federal deficit, developing a workable immigration policy, com batting extremism, protecting our natural resources, improving med ical care for veterans, dealing with climate change, improving race rela tions, protecting American interests at home and abroad and developing a practical system of healthcare cov erage? It’s not like the Congress and the various state legislatures have resolved the issues that actually are crucial and have free time to delve into the minutia of life and politics. If deciding bathroom policy is on the agenda, it’s a clear sign that the leg islature has lost its collective mind and should be sent home until such matters arise that deserve legislative consideration. If voters subscribed to the notion that it’s time to “make America great again,” they would elect legislators and presidents who will focus their energies on alleviating poverty, pro viding security, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, protecting the rights of all citizens and improving edu cational opportunities — or any of the myriad other issues that actu ally have relevance to Americans’ quality of life — instead of chasing rabbits like bathroom policy, same- sex marriage or encouraging Ameri cans to arm themselves against their neighbors. We’ve got far too many politicians who rise to the bait of emotional ideological battles at the expense of dealing with the prob lems and issues that beset every government and impact millions of Americans. It must be startling for visitors from other nations to turn on the TV to catch the news and learn that the most powerful, richest and influ ential nation in the world is caught up in debate over which bathrooms people should use. It ought to be embarrassing for us. The only bathroom issue most people really care about in regard to public facilities is cleanliness — not that we need legislation or a federal directive to deal with that. Unless otherwise noted, all editorials are written by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@mainstreetnews. com. The Commerce News ESTABLISHED IN 1875 USPS 125-320 P.O. Box 908 Jefferson, GA 30549 MIKE BUFFINGTON CoPublisher SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher Mark Beardsley. Editor THE COMMERCE NEWS is the legal or gan of the city of Commerce and is pub lished every Wednesday by MainStreet Newspapers Inc. Periodical postage paid at Jefferson, Georgia 30549. Subscription Rates Per Year: $25 POSTMASTER send address changes to THE COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson, GA 30549. Respite in the apolitical garden The garden is a place of respite. The up-and-coming tomatoes, pole beans, butter beans, eggplants and okra are strictly apoliti cal. The outcome of the presidential primary contests is of no concern. Hillary or the Don ald in November? Not an issue amongst the raised beds. That’s a good place to be and a fine posi tion to take. There is no escaping a presiden tial election under normal conditions, let alone in this extraordinary year, and as fascinating as this election is, the 24/7 cycle of news and commentary wears one down. An escape to the garden is a welcome reprieve. The biggest threat in the garden is neither liberalism nor conservatism. It is the cutworm. I don’t know its politics, but it devours the tender stems of green beans and pole beans with the fervor that Tmmp attacks Clinton. Like him, the cutworm is unapologetic, but it established its presence long before the can didates lined up and will likely be back next year when the dust has settled after 2016. That it never tweets about its successes is a mark in its favor, though not enough that I forgive it for the damage it wreaks. Once they outgrow — or outlive — the cut worms, the pole beans have but one mission — grow as tall as possible and reproduce. The weather and other insects will determine whether the bean harvest is slim or abundant, but the donkey-elephant show dominating everything beyond the garden fence is delight fully irrelevant. In the garden, Trump and Clin ton don’t exist. It's Gospel According To Mark By Mark Beardsley Like politics, the garden produces successes and failures, both of which are unpredictable. 2014 was a banner year for okra, but doing the same thing with it the next year produced a dismal crop. Garden beds that supported tomatoes in abundance last year may be a virtual wasteland this time around. To be honest, what happens in the garden in 2016 is more relevant to my contentedness than the presidential election. Of course, none of my garden crops are apt to send troops into battle over a need to demonstrate resolve, nor will a crop failure tank the S&P 500 or incite a foreign government. Outside of the fence, my garden does not exist. On the other hand, my Brandy Boy tomatoes (assuming there are any) and my okra will delight me, and the eggplants and butterbeans will enhance many a meal, which that is more gratification than I dare expect from the White House, regardless of the occupant. While nothing I do or do not do could ever cause a president to fail or succeed, in the garden, at least, my labor and attention can effect a difference. The president and his henchmen in Congress may fritter away my taxes and leave me nothing to show for them, but my pole beans and kale will reward me for whatever resources I allocate in terms of labor, fertilizer and water. The garden is a de-political zone. The only dissension is among me, the weeds, slugs and insect pests. There are no debates over agri cultural policy between the bumblebees and the honeybees, and failure is accepted as part of the natural process, hopefully to be learned from. The butterbeans get along fine growing amongst the tomatoes and okra; the eggplants do not begrudge proximity to the zucchini. Everything coexists, if not in harmony, at least in silence. We live in an era where computers and mobile devices outnumber human beings and access to information and news from across the world wherever we are at any time is considered a necessity. But there is no WiFi in my garden, no need to check my email or my messages. Perhaps we magnify the effect politics has on our personal lives, but I know that whatever happens with Tmmp or Clinton will not matter inside my little garden. It’ll be just fine, regard less of the political winds. The louder the cam paigns get, the quieter I find it in the garden. Sweet. Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Com merce News. He lives in Commerce. With ink in their veins Back before television (BTV), when the world was new and its crust was still cooling, telegrams were the closest things we had to the texts we now fire off to each other, cell-phone-to- cell-phone, in nano-seconds. In those olden BTV days, we used newspa pers, radio, and movie newsreels to keep us apprised of the news — a job now done with greater immediacy by outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. But newspapers give us more than news “sound bites.” They give us depth and detail—plus crossword puzzles and comic strips, recipes, advice columns, book and theater and movie reviews, sports reporting, editorials, and “columns” by featured writers. My family had one of the very early tele visions, but I grew up thinking that it was the morning paper that was essential to daily life. A newspaper landed on almost every doorstep in our apartment complex. My dad read out loud from the Telegraph & Sun, or the Herald Tribune, while Mother made our breakfast. “Listen to thisl” was one of my favorite phrases. I didn’t realize that we had a newspaper family. I didn’t connect our love of newsprint with my grandmother closing herself up in the kitchen and pounding away on her old Royal typewriter before the sun came up. And it didn’t seem odd to me that my mother and her brother had both gone to journalism school. Didn’t everyone? Buzzie Hardy (really Charles L. Hardy Jr.), our Commerce mayor for many years, grew A Few Facts t A Lot of Gossip II By Susan Harper up in even more of a journalism family than I did. His great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran, started it all by raising three sons who became news publishers: Albert S. Hardy Sr. (The Gainesville News'), James Broughton Hardy (The Thomasville Times), and Benjamin Hill Hardy (The Barnesville News-Gazette). Then Albert Sr. did the same sort of thing, raising three sons who went into the printing and newspaper business: Charles L. Hardy, Sr. (The Gainesville News), Albert S. Hardy Jr. (The Commerce News), and J. Milton Hardy, who had a photo studio and newspaper pho toengraving business in Gainesville. Buzzie joined his uncle, Albert Jr., at The Commerce News, working part-time from 1962 to 1965 while he was earning his jour nalism degree at UGA, and then full-time as advertising manager. Ten years later, Albert died and Buzzie became publisher and then owner, purchasing The Commerce News from his uncle’s widow, Estelle. So why did these Hardy offspring keep end ing up in the newspaper business? Did printer’s ink really run in their veins? No; it was some thing infectious: they were having a fabulous time. “The newspaper business was exciting!” Buzzie says. “We had a wonderful time growing up.” Albert Sr. was known and respected all over Georgia, and was elected president of the Georgia Press Association (as his son later was) and the National Editorial Association. Hardy kids and grandkids thrived in this heady environment. “Foreign journalists came to visit, and stayed with us,” Buzzie recalls. “And we went to the Georgia Press Association meeting every year in Savannah, traveling all night on the Nancy Hanks,” a popular and glamorous train that ran between Atlanta and Savannah every day and was named for a racehorse. The Har dys were the first in Georgia to convert to offset, cold-type printing; their Gainesville News made history! So, dear reader, this newspaper you hold in your hands has a distinguished genealogy and is still keeping us informed after more than 100 years in print, thanks in no small part to the Hardy family. It’s a part of Commerce history we can all be proud of. Susan Harpe■ is a retired editor, lecturer, and local library director who currently serves on the Jackson County and Piedmont Regional library boards. Yard art and brain clutter The other day I was driving in a rural area and passed a house where the front lawn was filled with all kinds of yard art stuff. There were statues of Mary gnomes, forest animals, tiny bridges, decorative rocks, little pagodas and a couple of gazing globes. You’ve seen places like that. They look like small junkyards. My first reaction was, “Why would anyone do that? It looks horrible!” But then I got to thinking about it. Nobody fills up their yard like that at one go. They install their decorations piece by piece. And each piece is somewhat attractive in its own way. When the family moved in, there was a bare yard. Obviously it needed some decoration. So they installed a statue, perhaps. Later they found the little bridge. It was adorable so they bought it and installed it too. True, the bridge had no connection with the statue, but they both were cute. Then all the other items came, each in its turn, and each attractive - alone. But together, the entire collection had no theme, no unity no purpose. Whatever desirability each item had on its own was lost in the cacophony of the whole. No doubt landscape architects earn their money: they keep that situation from arising. But after I had smugly criticized the hapless property owner, I thought of my library. Actually it’s the same: each book was chosen because I Writers In Rotation By Willis Cook dearly wanted to posses it, but there is no coher ence. It’s just a collection of books. And I love them all just as much as the yard-art guy loves his statues and pagodas. I have always been jealous of people who amass dedicated libraries: say something devot ed to Greek black-figure pottery, or Russian literature of the late nineteenth century. But that means turning down a delightful first edition of Edmond Gosse’s poetry. I crave such a book - although it compliments my other books about like a gazing globe compliments a statue of Bambi. And it’s not just books: my entire life has been a collection of yard art. I have been interested in stamp collecting, coin collecting, firearm collecting, woodworking, square dance calling, computer programming, oil painting. You name it and I like it - at least for a couple of years. My knowledge is a mile wide - and a quarter-inch deep. There are people who landscape their prop erty beautifully - keeping to a theme. Those are the places you see in House & Garden magazine. And there are people who live their lives devoted to one goal. They’re the ones you read about in the paper, who have achieved something noteworthy. Then there are the rest of us who putter along totally unconstrained. We dabble in this and we dabble in that, picking up the various bagatelles that attract our fancy: we spend as many hours as the dedicated people, but at the end of a lifetime we have an attic full of junk rather than, say a couple of books we have written. The next time I pass a yard-art grotto, instead of sneering at the owner’s naivete perhaps I’ll stop, go up to the front door and ask to shake the man’s hand. We are obviously kin. And you know, a pink flamingo staring into a gazing globe would sort of go together. Wouldn’t they? Willis Cook is a retired electrical engineer who was born in New Orleans and grew up in the Mississippi Delta. He lives in Franklin County.
