Newspaper Page Text
SUMMER JOBS
Passing City Hall the other morning I noticed a kid wheeling
a hand-truck stacked with file-storage boxes, and I thought,
"summer job." I immediately began cataloging the work that
occupied my own vacations between those halcyon sum
mers of doing nothing and the workaday world that strictly
rations vacations—unless you had the good sense to become
a teacher.
In more or less chronological order, let's see: grave dig
ging, though to tell the truth that could have been part of my
Saturday job at the family store/ funeral home—"Everything
from the cradle to the grave." Word. Then came cutting pulp-
wood with my hardworking friends Bobby and Sam Roper,
laboring for their father, the affable Allen Roper, under the
watchful eye of his professional crew led by William West, who
taught me how to stay cool working in the hot Georgia woods
by wearing more clothes rather than fewer. The Roper brothers
and I had heard a rumor that fire ants were coming to Georgia,
and we were terrified that they would be hiding under every
log we picked up. We were a decade or so ahead of our time,
but now fire ants own Georgia.
Next, I graduated to hauling pulpwood, which included
loading the truck by throwing the four-foot pine logs up onto
the truck to a height well above our heads. My older cousin
Deeda McCommons, a rural mail carrier, moonlighted as a
pulpwood hauler, and he and I had many adventures with his
old trucks—including the time a front wheel came off while
I was driving a loaded
truck. Deeda had the
good sense to be riding
behind me in a car.
I spent another sum
mer in the woods with
the irrepressible E.H.
Armor, who lived as
free a life as anybody
I have known, never
getting tied down by a
regular job or by mar
riage, heading for the river whenever the urge struck, that is,
frequently. E.H. hired me to help him clean the scrub growth
off some land. He helped himself to the big lunches my Mama
packed for me, and we knocked off early every afternoon to go
down to the Oconee to check E.H.'s fish baskets and any others
he could spot.
The next summer, I had a state job, arranged by Hunter
Bell, the local state highway engineer. Cutting brush again and
helping survey rural roads, I worked alongside my friend and
football teammate Lewis Brown, under the direction of Horace
Harwell and Hamp McWhorter, who made work fun with their
hijinks.
I finally made it out of the woods to work as a camp coun
selor for a couple of summers at Camp Glisson, the Methodist
camp in the north Georgia mountains, with work in a state
wide political campaign thrown in at the end of one of those
camp seasons. And then came a couple of summers during
college working in the personnel department of the Lakewood
Chevrolet assembly plant in Atlanta. Talk about making work
fun with humor—a pair named Cliff and Johnny were unending
in their high-spirited joking, and the office—the whole plant,
really—was run in a perpetual state of chaos that belied the
prevailing image of General Motors as the model of corporate
efficiency.
I had a summer teaching political science at the university,
arranged by my mentor George Parthertios and another doing
background research on city-county government consolida
tion in Augusta and Richmond County for UGA's Institute of
Government.
I spent my last summer hauling furniture in and out of
apartments in Greenwich Village and shoveling sand on Far
Rockaway Beach, and then I was more or less ready for full
time, year-'round jobs that might allow a couple of weeks in
the summer just to remind you what it would be like if you
didn't have to punch a clock the other 50 weeks.
I doubt if summer jobs are as plentiful now, but I'm here
to tell you that they can be mighty valuable educationally,
regardless of how much they pay. Thanks to my summer work, I
wasn't the least bit surprised by the arrival of the fire ants.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com
The Roper brothers and I
had heard a rumor that fire
ants were coming to Georgia,
and we were terrified that
they would be hiding under
every log we picked up.
THIS WEEK’S ISSUE:
!MEWS <§2 FEATURES
City Dope .'. 5
Athens News and Views
Still assessing the Mayor and Commission action on Community Development Block Grants.
The Athens Farmers’ Market 9
Country Comes to Town
The grand opening for the new market is on Saturday at Bishop Park.
Sign of the Times 11
Athens’ Only Independent Newsstand Closes Its Doors
Barnett’s News Stand shuts after 30 years of business.
The Reader 10
From Point A to Point B, with Lots of Stops
New collections of Kurt Vonnegut and Michael Chabon, plus the latest news in plagiarism.
COVER DESIGN by Kelly Ruberto
featuring a drawing by
Karen S. Campbell on display at OCAF
Doin’ the Olde Curley Maple Shuffle 25
David Blackmon Does Double Duty
Renowned fiddler's new project reaches back to the folk songs of centuries past.
Striking Mechanism 26
New Experimental Label Debuts in Athens
Don't expect to hear Mozart or Brahms from this classically trained quartet.
LETTERS
CITY DOPE
CITY PAGES
CAPITOL IMPACT
JUBILEE PARTNERS, PT. 2
FARMER’S MARKET
THE READER
BARNETT’S NEWS STAND
THE CALENDAR!
ART AROUND TOWN ....
BULLETIN BOARD
MOVIE DOPE
MOVIE PICK
CURELY MAPLE
STRIKING MECHANISM
REDUX NATION
RECORD REVIEWS ...
THREATS & PROMISES
COMICS
REALITY CHECK
CLASSIFIEDS
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Alicia Nickles
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Larry Tenner
MANAGING EDITOR Christina Cotter
ADVERTISING SALES Anita Aubrey, Melinda Edwards. Jessica Pritchard
MUSIC EDITOR Michelle Gilzenrat
CITY EDITOR Ben Emanuel
CLASSIFIEDS. DISTRIBUTION & OFFICE MANAGER Paul Karjian
AD DESIGNERS Ian Rickert, Kelly Ruberto
CARTOONISTS James Allen, Ruth Allen. Cameron Bogue, Joe Havasy, Missy Kulik, Jeremy long, David Mack,
Clint McElroy
ADOPT ME Special Agent Cindy Jerrell
CONTRIBUTORS Michael Andrews. Hillary Brown, Jason Bugg, Tom Crawford, Chris Hassiotis, John Huie,
Gordon Lamb. Charley Lee. Ryan Monahan, John G. Nettles, Ramsey Nix, Scott Reid, Edmund Smith,
Drew Wheeler
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleaf, Jimmy Courson. Justin Courson, Alex Moore. Lena Trotochaud, Alex White
WEB DESIGNER Ian Rickert
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Nicole Haysler
ADVERTISING INTERNS Keri Fleming. Rachel Bailey
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING INTERN Kat Morrell
CONTACT US:
STREET ADDRESS: 112 S. Foundry St., Athens, GA 30601
MAILING ADDRESS: P.0. Box 1027, Athens. GA 30603
EDITORIAL: (706) 549-9523
ADVERTISING: (706) 549-0301
FAX: (706) 548-8981
ADVERTISING: ads@flagpole.com
CALENDAR: calendar@flagpole.com
COMICS: comics@flagpole.com
EDITORIAL: editor@flagpole.com
LETTERS: letters@flagpole.com
MUSIC: music@flagpole.com
WEB SITE: web@flagpole.com
VOLUME 22
ISSUE NUMBER 19
Flagpole, Inc. publishes Flagpole Magazine weekly and distributes 17,000 copies
free at over 275 locations around Athens, Georgia. Subscriptions cost $55 a year,
$35 for six months. © 2006 Flagpole. Inc. All rights reserved.
« I U< I I A 1 ION
| VERIFICATION |
C O I .\ ( II
@00
Allocution of Alternative Mewiweeklrei
NEWS & FEATURES I CALENDAR I MOVIES I A&E I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS
MAY 14, 2008 • FLAGP0LE.COM
3