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PAGE 6A | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011
Remember that kind of September September used to mean something. Now, it seems relegated to being just another month on the calendar. September used to be the month when school started. In our region, school has been under way for nearly a month, longer in some places. For us, it meant Mama had a month longer to look for bargains for backto-school clothes. There would be bags or boxes that we would open up and get ready for the first day of school. There was always a new pair of sneakers, usually PF Flyers. The vinyl trim around the bottom was super shiny and the canvas was fresh and new. Three weeks from now, they would look like they had been through a war zone and Mama would toss them in the washer. Also in the haul were new jeans with double knees. They were deep blue and stiff, but I was ready to put them on for that first day. In another bag was a new tablet for the early years. It was always the Blue Horse brand. You could save up a bunch of Blue Horse heads and get cool prizes, like a bike. I think you had to have about a thousand of them to get one and I never did. I also miss those fat pencils. Schools used to smell like chalk and pencils. I was in a school recently and little girls were wearing something identified to me as Justin Bieber cologne. Oh my. The Blue Horse thing was sort of like another saving venture, S&H Green Stamps. We had a drawer in the good china cabinet where we stored loose Green Stamps. I remember a picture of a car on the back cover of a Green Stamp catalog. I never knew anyone who had enough stamps to get a car. We did get a lamp once. September was also the month of new TV programs. There was a premiere week
Harris Blackwood on all three channels. That’s all we had. CBS, ABC and NBC would launch their new programs. We would pick up a copy of TV Guide for the start of the new season and plan our viewing to see the new offerings. September also meant fresh new cartoons on Saturday morning. Occasionally, a new cartoon would be added to the lineup. Sure, the Road Runner was always going to outsmart Wyle E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny would drive either Daffy Duck or Elmer Fudd crazy, but there were new storylines and we couldn’t wait. September was also new car month. I can remember when dealership would hide the new editions around back and cover them up, as if seeing them would be like giving out a government secret. I remember a dealership that would cover the car in the showroom and reveal a wheel or a headlight as the debut week neared. September remains the start of football season, but it seems like now folks start demanding the coach’s head on a platter before the month ends. Televised games were fewer and we relied on newspapers for our in-depth coverage. Now, folks at college games leave at halftime and watch the rest on a big screen TV at their tailgate. I am not suggesting we go back, but I wish September had a little bit of that old magic of yesteryear. I think it gave kids and grown-ups something to get excited about. Harris Blackwood is a Gainesville resident whose columns appear weekly.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Not supportive of store ‘move’ment I read the plea from Hoschton City Councilman Scott Butler encouraging Hoschtonians to join the “Move’ment” with slight amusement and pronounced disgust. What they are asking for is for us to get behind their plan to spend $50,000 to move an old building to the park, and move the playground across the street, as part of our civic obligation to a vague and sentimental concept he calls “heritage.” It’s not an accident Braselton is thriving and Hoschton is gradually becoming a ghost town. The reason is that Hoschton is run by fools. That $50,000 could be better spent on a lawn mower for the city and maybe some trash cans. The majority of Hoschtonians are not history or antiques enthusiasts. We are young people with children and we want them to grow up in a safe, clean town they can be proud of, maybe ride their bikes to the library without fear of get-
ting mowed down by a truck. We don’t care one lick about an old building that isn’t even pretty. Don’t believe me? Put it to a vote. I don’t mean a vote where we have to take time off work to go somewhere and sign a ballot; we’re too busy trying to feed our kids and pay our mortgage for that. Put a box on the water bill for city residents: “Do you want to spend $50,000 to move an old building to the park? It’s ‘historic’. Check yes or no. “
Claire Winkler Hoschton
Ready to plan for ’13 Relay For Life With Victoria Patrick’s retirement in June, I have stepped into her role as new ACS staff partner for the Braselton-Hoschton Relay For Life. I am very excited to be a part of your team and I look
See LETTERS, page 7A
The First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Steve Kelley Creators Syndicate
Bookcases hold home’s treasures In this house of wood and stones that I call home, there are books scattered and stacked hither and yon. Some might say this house is cluttered with books but I would never be that irreverent for cluttered seems to mean “unnecessary” or “junk.” Not one book I own would be categorized as either. Books spill through the rooms, starting on my nightstand, where Bibles and reference guides reside. On a leopard print footstool by the door, there are two dozen books, all I have purchased but have yet to get around to reading. But I live in hope. It’s this way throughout the entire house, including the kitchen where you’re likely to find at least a dozen tucked here and there. The trail of words continue up the stairs where there, at the head of the staircase, is the one fixture that brought the soul to this house. It is a built-in bookcase that can be viewed from the den below and what, once it was stacked with books I loved and had long cherished, gave my true personality to
Ronda Rich these sticks and stones. There is a cabinetmaker I know, a man who is known as a bi-vocational preacher, meaning that he works for a living through the week then preaches for the Lord on Sunday, who has helped me in my quest to display these friends of mine. Allen Swafford is a fine craftsman who has followed my whims and drawings to create memorable pieces like the distressed pale olive green buffet in the dining room, the stunning red cabinet with glass doors (and a hidden compartment for cook books) in the kitchen, the carved vanity in the bathroom, the kitchen cabinets in Mama’s house and other pieces. But of all he has ever built and installed, it is the bookcases that are dearest to my heart. It began with
the one at the top of the staircase. The moment, shortly after I moved in, that it was installed, I knew I was home. I hurried to put my favorite books, mostly biographies, memoirs and literary classics, in its confines. I stood back, took a look and sighed. Home. No longer just a house. It was home. It seemed like all the space I needed at first, after all it was my first custom-built bookcase but within a couple of years, it was stuffed and, meanwhile, the books were still coming. I called Allen and commissioned an even bigger one. It was a massive piece that ran down the wall of my office. There was a bookcase, a desk with drawers above and another bookcase on the other side. When it was installed, one year just before Thanksgiving, I was so proud. “This,” I thought to myself, “will do me till I die.” Three years have now passed and the shelves are bulging. I think that perhaps I should part with a few to make room for new ones but I can’t bear the
thought of that. How does one callously give away a friend? There will be those of you who say, “Aha! That’s why I download books. So I don’t have to store them.” I download books, too, ever now and then. Sometimes when I travel, I tuck my lightweight iPad in my tote bag and enjoy the occasional read on it. But it’s not the same. I like the weight of a book in my hand. I remember the smell of the library’s book mobile that brought books to me when I was a child. I like to flip through it and preview it, to look at the photos in a biography. I suppose, too, I like how smart that holding a book in my hands makes me feel. So I’m looking around, trying to figure out where next to put another built-in unit so it looks neat. After all, this isn’t clutter. It’s my treasure. Ronda Rich is the bestselling author of several books. Sign up for her newsletter at www.rondarich.com. Her column appears weekly.
Thank God, football season is finally here When I find myself spending a half-hour of my life watching “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” on television, it means I’m having a severe jonesing for some sports action. Or that I’ve gone completely insane. Thank you, God, that football season is upon us to satiate that fix. Why do I love football season? Let me count the ways: 1. There’s only one game a week. If you’re addicted to baseball or basketball or that sport they play up north with sticks, you have three to six games a week to keep up with. That’s entirely too daunting. In football – pro, college, and high school – there is just one game a week. And if you follow all three, the games are scheduled on Friday (high school), Saturday (college) and Sunday (pro). Deviation from that schedule (i.e. Thursday night college football games) is heresy in my eyes. Thursdays during football season should be reserved for planning what games you’re going to attend or watch Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And resting appropriately.
Len Robbins 2. College football tailgating. If you’ve never been tailgating at an SEC football game, you better get to it before you die. It’s serious business. I know folks who go up to Athens for every Georgia home game – and not because they are Bulldog football fans. They don’t know Aaron Murray from Anne Murray, Jarvis Jones from George Jones or Baccari Rambo from Bacardi 151. They could care less. They go to tailgate and bask in the smells, sights, sounds and smells that accompany this fine Southern tradition. 3. Bands. A live horn section playing a school fighting song beats some piped-in music playing over a loud speaker any day. Pro football should be ashamed they don’t have team bands (except for the Baltimore Ravens).
4. Football spawns emotion. I don’t bat an eye when my shoes catch on fire, but for some reason, probably insanity, I’ll get all excited about a good football game. And that type of loyalty to one’s team runs deep and strong. I’m not a violent person, but if someone says something derogatory in front of me about Larry Munson, Erk Russell or Herschel Walker (Georgia football’s Holy Trinity), they are likely to get thrashed. Or, if they are bigger than me, be subject to a very stern stare. 5. Football is more reverent. Thanking God is big in the postgame locker room, particularly with the winning team. Don’t know why, but that type of reverence seems more abundant and accepted in football than in any other sport. Still waiting for the guy in the losing locker room to say “God made me fumble.” Haven’t heard that yet. 6. High school football in places that care about high school football. Some areas – mostly urban or suburban – don’t care much for high school
Publisher Dennis L. Stockton
P.O. Box 430 Hoschton, GA 30548 www.clickthepaper.com
General Manager Norman Baggs Editor LeAnne Akin
football. Folks don’t go to see the games. There’s no mamas selling school paraphernalia for the Booster Club. There’s no guy volunteering to cook hamburgers for the concession stand. There’s no PA announcer who bellows in a thick Southern drawl: “They’re going through our line like wat-ah through a sift-ah.” There’s no community spirit. Those places stink. High school football, when done right, isn’t about one team against another. It’s about a community coming together and putting its social and racial and economic differences aside, and for three wonderful hours, being one community. It’s about our boys versus your boys. Our band versus your band. Our concession stand versus your concession stand. Our kids and your kids and our adults and your adults — all having a grand time. Try it this football season. If you look, you’ll see what I see. Len Robbins is editor and publisher of the Clinch County News in Homerville. His column appears weekly.
Send letters to editor@ clickthepaper. com; fax, 706658-0177; or P.O. Box 430, Hoschton, GA 30548.