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Flagpole Magazine
October 9, 1991
William Orten Carlton = ORT.
Special Correspondent For The Flagpole.
Writing a column every week isn’t half
the challenge you might think. Somewhere
in my canyons, I know of a syndicated
columnist who appears seven days a week
in a good many newspapers. Alas, I forget
who it is, but the fact is that he writes seven
columns a week that one would see in his or
her hometown daily, were it to print every
day. What the casual reader would not
know is that this guy turns out TWO columns
a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,
without claiming to be overworked. He
claims that writing one column leads to
something to write subsequently, and as a
snowball gets bigger and bigger as it r olls
down a mountainside, ideas themselves
grow like topsy, leading to further and fur
ther exploration. Seems the more often I
turn one of these column-babies out, the
more things I think of to incubate for further
print-children, as it were.
One of the greatest pleasures of my life
right now is the fact that folks stop me on the
street as I’m hustling off to wherever to tell
me how much fun they had reading my last
column, or how they identified (or didn't), or
that they appreciated what I had to say. If
anything, I could turn out pieces like these
that appear Flagpoleanly on a daily basis
and be able to mine the information file I
involuntarily carry around in my over
crammed cranium for years to come. The
more I write, the more comes to mind. Now
I understand why Eudora Welty has quit
letting her adoring fans knock on her door
down the street from The Jitney Jungle in
Jackson, Mississippi to ask for autographs:
at age 82, her time needs to go more to
writing down what she has in her head and
less to signing books, unless a fan's timing
just happens to be right: she has to stop
every now and then to hit the plumbing or
sleep or eat: you know, little bothers like
that. Besides, her fingers would resemble
a leper’s if all she did was type: after all,
she's been doing it for something akin to 71
tears. "Should I live so long," thinks Ort.
rather smugly.
Last week, my stepdad and I made a
road trip to Savannah. We were crammed
into the truck like a couple of sardines, but
the trip was fun and we accomplished a lot.
I met up with some new turf and he got to
see places he’d never even heard of in all
his 88 years. "Where the hell are we 9 ’ he
asked more than once. The answers were
the likes of: "Rocky Ford, Georgia," "We’re
in Midville," “Fixing to come into Statesboro,"
“Almost to Bartow," and "This is Mayfield,
GA. 31059. “ To the last one he said "Where’s
the post office? I don’t see a flag flying."
"They closed it back a ways. That used to
be the zip code," I answered. "Looks like
there’s a lot here," he yawned as he glanced
at the three or four
houses plus a
sleepy convenience
store. "This must
have been some
tov/n back about
1920. I bet
everyone’s in the
cemetery but you
and me and that
couple of folks over
there." He was right.
Bui as we passed
through Egypt,
Georgia, he slipped: he failed to look for
pyramids, much less mention them. He
was tired and anxious to make it to Savan
nah, or he’d have thought of that: he usually
doesn’t miss a tack. We'll be hard-pressed
to find another interesting-but-fairly direct
route when we make a return trip, but maybe
I can wangle us a ride from Savannah to
Claxton and thence up through the likes of
Swainsboro and Kite and Wrightsville and
on up Ga. 15 toward home, taking in Beau
tiful Downtown Meldrim and what few nether
reaches there are of Evans County in the
process: if there are any, we’ll scrounge
them up. Hey, I can smell those fruitcake
fumes in my mind’s nose from here, and I’m
not thinking of Bogart, either.
Goodwill Industries has a fine new store
in Savannah located on Sallie Mood Drive
not too far over from the Oglethorpe Mall on
the southside of town. Access can also be
had by using Waters Avenue if you have a
handy map: either on the seat or in your
head will do. They closed their store in
Brunswick when they opened this one, and
it’s plenty big for both places. I also
squeezed in time to visit the Goodwill in
Statesboro (it’s right downtown), and hit the
Salvation Army store on Montgomery Street
in Savannah: they have only the one store
there, but there are two other Goodwill
Stores for the next trip: one in downtown
Savannah and the other out on the east
side, sort of on the way to the beach if you
drive funny. Shopping in thrift stores is apt
to be the most natural type of recycling for
you to do, and such
places abound in
Athens: two Salva
tion Army stores, a
Potter’s House out
let, plus Emmanuel
Episcopal Church’s
wondrous Thrift
House... digout my
Ort.icle in the Sep
tember 25th. issue:
it has lizard? on the
cover and is green.
Maybe you’d rathei
check the Phonebook: even I am in there,
although admittedly I’m mighty rarely awake
and available to answer the phone...call
the thrift stores instead of me, wouidja?
My point is this, sleepily: recycle all you
can It’s early Sunday morning as I write,
and Georgia has just smashed Clemson.
That’s’a nice, but you oughta see the moun
tains of rubble sitting out on the streets that
you’re managing to sleep through. Even
drunks can be known to recycle stuff, folks.
We could use some of those European-
style bins on the corners (and not just one or
two, either) for cans and bottles and plastic.
Just this evening, I pulled the plastic stuff
out of my trash can to recycle for when I
trundle my glass and aluminum off to wher
ever. If they wanna give me 20 for it all,
that’s fine, but it’s really the thought that
counts and not the money. Remember that
as you pull those beer cans aside and save
them for the end-of-the-quarter cash crunch.
Hey, people chuckle at me for doing it, but
I even pull returnable beer bottles out of the
trash and put them in case boxes to return
when I go to buy beer. They bring $1.20 a
case if you have the right bottles and the
proper boxes to fill. I'll mention specifics of
what to save and what not to sometime later
if interest merits or if motivation to write a
whole column on recycling hits me in the
craw. And it just might. And soon.
Speaking of craw, it’s about time for me
to craw-l off to beddy bye. Beauty sleep is
at a premium in Athens, so maybe I gotta
get some ugly eye. (I was reaching that
time, wasn’t I 9 ) ! digress like I drive, around
through Gibson to get from Athens to Macon.
Or did that whiz past everyone? Careful, or
I’ll visit there and tell you about Glascock
County’s stucco courthouse and their tiny-
but-efficient school system. Or maybe I’ll
venture to Morris. Georgia in Quitman County
to mail rubble back. It's just down from
Georgetown, which ,s across the Chattah
oochee from Eufaula, Alabama. There is a
synagogue in Eufaula with only one elderly
lady member left: another story-in-itself
See what I mean? Or I could cross the new
bridge that connects Omaha, Georgia
(Michael Stipe never sang about THAT place
— that he knows of) with Holy Trinity and
Hatcheechubbee, Alabama. I wonder if
Hatcheechubbee has a post office. I sure
hope so. Loachapoka has one; it’s over by
Tuskegee and Auburn and just down the
pike from Notasulga, where there is an old
Universalist cemetery. Another story. Down
the road is Wetumpka, where there once
was a brickyard that produced enough
brick to build half of old Montgomery, which
once was three towns, which is why the grid
system is so skewed. Hey, two more sto
ries! They show up like long-lost friends did
to me this week, don’t they? I gotta get
some sleep to incubate some more of these
column-hatchlings: I think I hear them
peeping in the henhouse of my mind just as
the sun creeps slowly skyward, pinkening
the entire world and making me mighty,
mighty glad to be alive.
See you next week. (30.)
Down the road is
Wetumpka, where
there once was a
brickyard that
produced enough
brick to build half of
old Montgomery
TCI Cablevision of Georgia, Inc.
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Call 543-6585 TODAY!
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and applies to first outlet for new customers only.
Customer must mention coupon when placing order
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* +
Atii****.
fty.l<JWrSE
Village at Cedar Shoals
Monday - Saturaday