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Washington St 71 |I . . J I Watson Blvd.
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"Houston County’s Legal Organ Since 1870 ”
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Editor and Publisher
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The Houston Home Journal
EO. Box 1910
Perry, GA 31069
The Houston Home Journal, A Periodical, Mailed (ISSN 1626-7393)
At Perry, GA. Is Published Tuesday And Thursday For $30.00 Per
Year By Evans Newspapers, Inc.
1210 Washington St. • Perry, GA 31069
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Population Props overnight
Houston County’s population dropped precipitously
yesterday. Or, at least, it seemed that way.
Houston Countians disappeared by the thousands
overnight.
Where did they go?
To Atlanta, of course.
They went by the thousands, actually, to the state
capitol to see their favorite son sworn in as governor of
the state of Georgia and to dance the light fantastic
during the evening ball celebrating the event.
There probably never will be a more significant or
important event in the lives of many Houston
Countians than yesterday’s inauguration of Gov. Sonny
Perdue. It isn’t often that someone you know so well as
a neighbor and friend becomes governor of Georgia.
And it has been about 130 years since a Republican has
assumed the reins of government in our state.
Naturally, we have high hopes for an outstanding and
successful tenure for our new governor. He is a proven
leader, a man of unquestionable character with an
opportunity to change government in our state for
decades to come.
His friends and neighbors were on hand to observe
and share in the occasion. Now they are returning
home, savoring the events of the day, and looking for
ward to big things from their new governor.
Board prisoners is costly
Sheriff Cullen Talton is concerned, and with reason.
While he is waiting for punch list items for construction
of the new jail to be completed, it is costing the county
SIOO,OOO a month to board prisoners elsewhere.
This, naturally, raises questions.
Is the construction company still within its allotted
time for completing the jail? Or is the delay beyond the
scheduled time of completion? Sheriff Talton says he
expected to be in operation a month ago.
Is the SIOO,OOO a month an expense to be expected
because completion of the jail is within its scheduled
time of completion?
Are the items that need fixing postponing the opening
beyond the time promised in the original construction
contract? If so, does the contractor have insurance that
will reimburse the county for the expensive delay?
There are questions to be answered as taxpayers ante
up to pay for the delay. We share Sheriff Talton’s
annoyance and concern.
Opinions
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Inflation: The craelest tax of all
I HAVE a cousin who lives in
Berlin. He called me during the
holidays. It was interesting
talking with him about the
world situation and Europeans’
reaction to the United States.
He is a graduate of Georgia
Tech. He is an architect and has
done some of the architectural
work involved in restoring East
Berlin. He has his feet firmly
placed on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean.
He said that Europeans are
not convinced that the determi
nation of the United States to
invade Iraq is more than a
desire to get its hands on the oil
in that country. I disagreed with
that assessment, merely for the
reason that we can buy all the
oil we want without going to
war. His analysis of the
European mind set is that they
are not worried that Iraq is a
threat to their national security,
so why should the United
States, half a world away, be so
concerned?
It is this difference in the way
we see the world and the way
Europeans see the world that is
making it difficult for the
United States to line up strong
support for an invasion of Iraq,
he told me. He predicted that
anti-war protestors will hit the
Speaking of flags and Confederate history
When it comes to apprecia
tion of the South’s Confederate
heritage, George Hooks doesn’t
take a back seat to anybody.
A state senator and history
buff whose ancestors fought on
the colonial side in the
American Revolution and on
the southern side in the Civil
War, Hooks can get nostalgic
about the days when many of
us stood to sing “Dixie.”
In college, he chose to join
Kappa Alpha Order, which back
then specialized in all things
antebellum, and held an annual
Old South Ball each year with
plenty of gray uniforms, neatly
clipped beards - and on the
ladies’ side, plenty of hoop
skirts.
Moreover, Hooks led a suc
cessful charge in 2001 to have a
historic portrait of Gen. Robert
E. Lee restored and hung in a
place of honor in the Georgia
Capitol.
Which is why his credentials
are good when he talks about
heritage and about the Georgia
flag.
Hooks doesn’t like the flag
we have flying now, but he
doesn’t think that we should go
back to flying the flag with the
St. Andrews Cross that flew
over Georgia from 1956 to 2001
either.
“It’s regrettable that it has
taken on unfortunate connota
tions,” Hooks says, putting it in
very gentlemanly terms,
indeed.
If Hooks had his druthers,
Georgia would be flying the
same flag that was flying in
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Foy Evans
Columnist
foyevans 19@cox.net
streets all over Europe when
the United States invades Iraq.
Americans who lost loved ones
or fought in World War II to
keep these countries free find it
disappointing that people in
these countries now are willing
to turn against us.
Anyway, it was interesting to
receive insight into the
Europeans’ attitude from some
one Without an axe to grind,
either way.
• • •
UNREAL: Anyone who does
not believe that inflation is the
cruelest tax of all should consid
er this fact. A gallon of gasoline
cost 45 cents in 1972. In today’s
dollars, as a result of inflation,
the same gallon of gasoline
1902 - the Confederate “Stars
and Bars” with crimson and
white bars and the Georgia
coat of arms emblazoned in
gold on a field of blue.
Leaving off the Georgia
insignia, he explains, this is the
national flag of the
Confederacy, and the flag that
Georgia legislators chose for
the state at a time that the
heroism and losses of The Civil
War were still well within living
memory.
“The General Assembly of
1879 passed it,” Hooks said. “It
had three bars - crimson, white
and crimson, and a blue field. It
was the flag that had flown
over the capitals in Atlanta and
Richmond, as well as seeing
some service in battle. At that
time 27 out of the 40 members
of the Senate were Confederate
veterans and others had
fathers, brothers and relatives
in the war. It was just 14 years
after the surrender and there
was a high degree of
Confederate patriotism.”
The Georgia coat of arms,
the temple with the soldier, was
placed on the flag by legislative
act in 1902. The incorporation
of the coat of arms into the cir
cular seal came still later, but
without any apparent legisla
tion.
So here’s the question all of
us might ask ourselves. Why, if
the flag we were flying in 1956
was derived from the
Confederate Stars and Bars and
was chosen by those who actu
ally fought or lost immediate
family in the Civil War, did the
would cost $1.90 a gallon—
which reflects the fact that
inflation makes things, on aver
age, cost four times as much as
they did 30 years ago... People
on fixed incomes are the ones
who really feel the pinch when
inflation is taken into account.
• • •
BY THE WAY: We complain
about the high cost of gasoline
now, but the average price of a
gallon today is only two and a
half times what it was 30 years
ago, coming in well below infla
tion.
• • •
ATLANTA looked like a sub
urb of Houston County yester
day. Hundreds from our county
were in Atlanta for the inaugu
ration of Gov. Sonny Perdue. It
was a festive occasion for people
who believed in him when he
was an unknown around the
state. They got behind him in
the beginning, stuck with him
while all the “experts” and polls
said Gov. Roy Barnes was going
to beat him badly.
Sonny Perdue’s campaign for
governor probably will change
the way statewide political cam
paigns are run in the future. It
was obvious from the outcome
of the election that voters want
to see candidates in person and,
■ %
jim
Charlotte Perkins
Staff Writer
cperkins@evansnewspapers.com
Georgia General Assembly, led
by Gov. Marvin Griffin, decide
to change it?
Did elected officials of 1956
somehow know better than the
people who lived through the
war and fought in it?
The 1956 vote wasn’t exactly
controversy-free. The decision
to change Georgia’s flag to
incorporate the St. Andrew’s
Cross - or “the battle flag,” as
many call it, only passed in the
Georgia House of
Representatives by a margin of
three votes, and a notable his
torical organization was, as
Hooks put it, “violently
opposed” to the change. That
group was the United
Daughters of (he Confederacy.
There wasn’t a referendum
in 1956 either. There never has
been a statewide vote on the
flag, because our Constitution
doesn’t allow for one
(Mississippi’s constitution
apparently does).
In his historical research,
however, Hooks did find that
JANUARY 14,2003
when given a choice between
personal contact and television
commercials, they will vote for
the person they have seen in the
flesh.
• • •
HOT SPOTS: Isn’t it inter
esting how the emphasis on
commercial hot spots shifts so
quickly. The truly hot spot in
Houston County has been along
Watson Blvd. starting at the
Home Depot location west
through the Centerville area
toward Highway 41. I can’t say
this area is cooling off, but all of
a sudden the area around the
intersection of Houston Lake
Road and Highway 96 is super
hot. A real estate agent told me
a few days ago that he sold an
acre of land out there for
$400,000! That is more, I
believe, than has ever been paid
for an acre in Houston County
in the past. Nicknamed “No
Name City” by some, it really
should be called “Bottleneck
Junction.” This clearly is the
next big commercial growth
area, with two major super mar
kets and some chain short order
restaurants on the way. And,
down the road in 2004, we can
look forward to a shift back to
the north when Russell
Parkway is opened to 1-75.
there was a statewide vote on
the state bird. In 1935 the
Georgia Federation of Garden
Clubs sponsored a statewide
vote by schoolchildren, and the
children chose the brown
thrasher as the Georgia State
Bird. Gov. Eugene Talmadge
then made it official by issuing
a proclamation in a festive cer
emony on the Capitol steps, and
still later, it was put into the
Georgia Code.
So now, George Hooks is
wondering if we can’t put our
grownup conflicts aside, and let
the schoolchildren of Georgia -
the ones who have studied
Georgia history anyway - make
the decision about our flag the
way they once made the deci
sion about the state bird, with a
gubernatorial proclamation
and legislative action to follow.
That’s a charming solution
to a difficult problem, but it
may not gain much ground,
because while a choice of birds
isn’t controversial (except
maybe to birdwatchers), the
Georgia flag choice is contro
versial to the core, and the heat
of that battle is no place for
children to be.
Still, we all might want to
take another look at the flag
Hooks is promoting, because it
does honor the Confederacy,
and it doesn’t have those
“unfortunate connotations”
that the St. Andrew’s Cross
“battle flag” does have for
many of us.
And besides that, it’s way
prettier than the one we have
flying now.