AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2005 > October
October 2005
Revisiting the issue: ‘Sex trade’ on Roswell Road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just spent about 20 minutes re-reading the comments posted on Mike King’s take on cleaning up the “sex tradeâ€? on Roswell Road and I have come to only one conclusion. That’s 20 minutes of my life that I won’t ever see again.
Having been in Sandy Springs since 1962, I wasn’t aware we had a “sex trade.â€? Indeed, I got so excited reading that we had a sex trade that I jumped in my car and went cruising the streets of town, looking for the sex trade. I mean, golly, when you start throwing terms like “sex tradeâ€? around it sounds like hundreds, dare I say, thousands are earning their living by merchandising good vibrations, if you catch my breeze.
Maybe you can, after all, put a price on love, or at least a rental fee. Well, campers, after going up and down Roswell Road for many hours, as well as every side street, with eyes wide open here’s what I found:
Two naked-lady nightclubs
Two bookstores that have movies showing people’s naughty parts
One establishment that some say offers men a “happy ending� at the end of a massage
Frankly, I was thinking bigger, you should pardon the expression. I was expecting to discover an avenue that resembles the one Jimmy Stewart found toward the end of “It’s a Wonderful Lifeâ€? where Bedford Falls has turned into Pottersville, rife with businesses catering to man’s coarser nature. Or maybe a stretch like Amsterdam where there are women of commercial virtue reclining in the store windows dressed in lime-green teddies and or worse (better?). Sadly, however, I went looking for an elephant and found a mouse.
So here’s what I can confirm about the retail sex business in Sandy Springs. Two nightclubs, two bookstores and one “spaâ€? so to speak. In the interest of disclosure, I have been in one of the clubs once (12 years ago) and one of the stores twice (the last time eight years ago), but never in the spa.
But here are a few things I know about the sex business here in our corner of God’s little acre. There must be enough local customers to keep these places in business or they would have gone away a long time ago. I don’t see out-of-state tour buses parked outside these establishments and you’re never going to convince me that scores of randy males from Snellville and Jonesboro are making a cross-town drive so they won’t be caught on a jolly-hunting expedition.
And here’s something else to mull over. As a reporter I worked in cities that did not have single strip club, dirty bookstore or seedy massage establishment. In those innocent little burgs I read enough police reports and sat in enough courtrooms to tell you that the moral climate in those places was no shining example of prudence.
Sexual shenanigans do not need strippers or XXX-rated movies to thrive. If you think people lack imagination, take a peek into the dark corner of their psyche.
Do I wish these places were gone? Sure do. I believe these businesses put back absolutely nothing positive into the community. And please don’t tell me that they pay taxes, which help us all. That makes paying your taxes sound like a cause for a medal and a parade.
Let’s elect our leaders and get down to some real issues first. Are we going to get taxed and how much? Where will our municipal services come from and how will we pay for it? Can we ease traffic? How do we best manage future growth? Is the Sandy Springs sex trade a burning issue? Not unless you go unprotected.
A story of remission: 30 years later
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine you’re at the point in your life where the good stuff is just beginning. Then someone tells you you’re going to die.
It’s August of 1975 and you should be thinking about your senior year at Auburn. You should be thinking about your friends at the sorority house, dates with handsome young boys and yelling “War Eagle!â€? at football games. But something’s wrong.
You’re spending the summer working as a lifeguard in the small town in Alabama where you grew up. You’re supposed to swim 20 laps a day to stay in shape, but lately it’s getting harder and harder. During your breaks you have to lie down on the table in the break room.
One day a friend pushes you into the pool and you’re afraid you don’t have the strength to pull yourself out. If you weren’t so exhausted, you’d panic. At home you try to pack to go back to school but it’s just too much work. And then one day you can’t get out of bed.
There’s a monster lurking in the shadows. Because of your youth some suspect you have mono. Your doctor knows better. He sends you two hours away to the University of Alabama/Birmingham Medical Center. They perform a bone marrow test, a procedure you’ll have too many times in life.
It’s Sept. 9, 1975, and they tell you you’re feeling bad because you have Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). They can treat it, but you only have a 15% chance to make it. The monster is loose.
It’s Sept. 9, 1975, and it’s a beautiful early fall day. The sky is deep blue, the clouds are white and puffy and there’s a hint of l in the air. On this most perfect day they tell you you’re probably going to die.
They send you back home for the night because they don’t have a bed for you. Your dad takes you to the beauty parlor to get your hair washed because you’re so wiped out you can’t raise your arms.
Later he has to take you to get a blood transfusion to buy you a few hours of normalcy. You tell him you’re going to be one of the 15% who make it. He’s with you.
The next day you’re back in Birmingham and they begin a 21-day protocol of drugs and radiation. Back then they didn’t know as much about ALL as they do now and they basically flood your system with everything they can think of to kill the monster. At the end of three weeks you don’t have remission, so they do it again.
You have some good days when you laugh, some not-so-good days when you feel tired and some awful days. At one point you can’t think of anything better than walking without that damn IV pole at your side. After all, you’re going to be in the 15%.
It’s Oct. 22, 1975 — your father’s birthday — and they tell you you’re in remission. You’re weak and your immune system is shot, but the monster has been staggered.
Things would be better if you had gotten remission the first time. Again you hear that 15% business, this time applied to your chances to keep remission. But you didn’t get this far to lose. There’s more chemo and radiation and your hair falls out.
The doctors tell you it’s out of their hands. The longer you stay in remission, the better your odds are. You wrap a scarf around your head, go back and finish college. You don’t know exactly what you want to do next, but if you only have months left, you’re not going to get your ticket punched sitting at a desk in some office.
You hit the road to visit friends. You find yourself in Hilton Head. It’s full of young people. It’s fun. You decide on the spot to stay. Just like that. You go home, get your stuff and move.
You work at a score of jobs. You’re a photographer, a lifeguard, a waitress, a shop girl. Your pals are waitresses, golf pros and tennis bums. Everyone seems young. Work is just a way to kill time until the next party, the next picnic, the next boat trip. If things are going to end more sooner than later, let it be like this.
You play tennis, plant a vegetable garden and ride your bike everywhere. You sit for hours on the beach. Climbing the career ladder is for other people - you just want to feel the sun on your face and smell the salt air.
Slowly it starts to sink in. You’re not dying. The monster is gone.
A few months at the beach becomes three years and suddenly you realize that a savings account might be a good thing. You eventually leave Hilton Head and begin the phase of your life without a sword over your head.
Your hair is still thin from the chemotherapy and your teeth are fragile because of the radiation treatments. Your back is dotted with scars from bone marrows and spinal taps and you remember every single one. You can’t be a blood or organ donor, and getting insurance is a pain. Small potatoes for someone who stared the monster in the eye and told it to go to hell.
If this is a lot to imagine, consider having lived it. My wife Carol did. And because she’s been there and come back, she quietly gives back.
She was there when they started Camp Sunshine for teens and kids with cancer. She did the three-day walk to fight breast cancer twice, once as a walker, once as a crew member. Once a very vocal non-runner, she’s completed two marathons with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program and helped raise thousands to fight leukemia. This winter she’s going to serve as a mentor for Team in Training.
That doesn’t count the phone calls and letters to people who have just been diagnosed. Or their families. Her message is simple - the monster doesn’t always win. There’s hope.
We’re lucky if we meet one genuine hero in our lifetime. I married one.
When did we forget our manners?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When did we forget our manners?
We seem to have crossed a line at some juncture into a place where the simple proprieties are no longer a factor. Anything resembling he most common of courtesies is now treated as a dangerous curiosity.
You wouldn’t believe the trouble I have found myself in when I used the expression “ma’am.â€? A woman from Los Angeles, who I have known professionally for several years, took great umbrage when I recently used that term while answering a question.
“Do I look like your grandmother!â€? she shrieked. “Don’t call me that!â€?
I explained that I was taught “ma’amâ€? was a term of respect, and not a sly way to infer one was in her advanced years.
I was in New York City several years ago and fell into conversation with some women in a neighborhood pub. When I referred to one of them as “ma’amâ€? they blushed and reacted like it was the greatest thing since bikini wax.
“You have to be from out of town,â€? I was told. “Men in New York never say ma’am.â€?
And that’s just the tip of the ill-mannered iceberg.
When did men stop standing when a woman approached or left the table in a restaurant? We might remember to open the door to the restaurant, but do we remember to open the car door for her?
When did men and women decide it was acceptable to dine in a fine restaurant in jeans, t-shirts and other casual attire? And by “fineâ€? I mean any establishment that requires reservations, has a maitre d’, a wine list that is more than half a page, pressed linen napkins and doesn’t offer drinks named after acts of sexual congress.
When did we forget that in a social setting, no one begins to eat until everyone at the table has been served?
Napkins go in the lap?
Elbows stay off the table?
No talking with food in our mouths?
I don’t care if you have to take a mobile phone call during dinner, but would you please find a quiet place to have the conversation? Or if you insist on having it loud enough for all nearby to hear it, not wonder why it might draw the attention of all in earshot?
And, please, take the wireless earpiece off before you sit down at the table. It makes you look like a Star Trek wannabe with that thing protruding from the side of your head.
One other word about mobile phones, specifically those that have the PDA capability. I know you may get a text message while we’re talking face to face. Please don’t break eye contact with me to read your messages. If you’re that in demand, let’s re-schedule.
When did we decide a written dinner-party invitation with a RSVP request could be ignored? Are we so busy we can’t pick up the phone and make a two-minute call to offer confirmation or regrets?
I was pleasantly surprised a few years back when my wife and I sent out invitations on a Friday for a party. The following Monday one recipient called to say they were sorry but they would be out of town. A day later there was a note — handwritten on embossed stationary — thanking us for the consideration and again, expressing regret. I considered offering it to the Smithsonian.
I could on with other examples but how do we get to a place where we’ve forgotten how to be nice to each other? Did we stop caring? Did we get too busy? Or did we merely think we’re too busy?
And I guess the most important question is, how do we find our way back?
Dear daughter, As you start to drive…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Amelia:
Later this month you will be getting your driver’s license, so I wanted to share some thoughts with you. Sorry for doing it publicly, but there may come a time when I need witnesses that I actually mentioned some of these things.
If it helps, this is also meant for your friends who are getting their licenses. And those that already have them. And those yet to get a learner’s permit. OK. This is aimed at pretty much every person in middle school or high school in Sandy Springs.
And your brother got this same lecture two years ago.
First, I’m going to be gruff dad. I have been to Washington, D.C., and read an original copy of the Bill of Rights. Teen driving was not listed. Having your license is a privilege. Getting access to a car is a privilege. We parents grant those things and we can take them away. And we get to decide what’s fair.
You have a mobile phone. When you get into the car to drive, turn it off. And put it in your purse. And put your purse in the back seat out of reach. If you feel you just have to make or receive a call, pull over, park and turn the engine off. Then reach for the phone.
Until you get many miles under your belt (100,000 is a good start), no eating or drinking while driving. No messing with makeup or hair. No eyeballing cute boys.
Please keep the radio turned off the first few months you are out there by yourself. It’s a distraction. This applies to cassettes, CDs, MP3 players, etc. You have a lovely voice. Sing.
You may have noticed your mom and I do not always allow what other parents let their offspring get away with. That will not change. We might become stricter.
There are laws about what beginning drivers can and can’t do. It is your job to know them. Especially the ones governing the number of passengers and the hours you can be behind the wheel. Your mom and I may also be stricter here, as well.
I know I do not always use my turn signal. Or obey posted speed limits. I know sometimes my language - especially on Roswell Road of 285 during rush hour - is inappropriate. Do as I say, not as I do. Help me to be the driver I ask you to be.
By the way, keep your middle finger wrapped around the steering wheel. It changes nothing. I know this from experience.
No speeding.
If you want these rules relaxed, do five simple things:
Get and keep a job.
Buy your own car.
Make all payments.
Pay all insurance fees.
Pay for all fuel and repairs.
Then you get a vote. Sorry.
Do you know how to check the air pressure in the tires? The oil? The power steering fluid? The transmission fluid? How to operate the jack and change a tire? If not, ask me.
You have probably rolled your eyes a dozen times while reading this, but I have a very selfish reason for being such a curmudgeon. You came into my life 11 years ago when I started dating your mother. I considered myself very lucky four years later when I married your mom, because I got a beautiful daughter that day as well.
As you know, several kids around Sandy Springs have died in the past few years in automobile accidents. Kids your age sometimes think they will live forever. Not all of you will. Kids your age still have some maturing to do in terms of good sense. Some never get the chance. You and your peers need to remember this:
There is nothing like the pain in the eyes of a parent who has lost a child, and no sound as anguished as their cries. I have stood at gravesides with parents, at the funerals of their children, and held them. Their grief is so deep I have felt it in my own heart. If you think the earth and sky are limitless in capacity, let me assure neither can begin to contain that amount of hurt.
When a child dies, they take some of the parent with them. I pray no parent ever has to feel that loss. I pray this most of all for your mom and me.
So if only for our sake, please be careful. OK?
I love you so much….
Dad
Dog daze raises cosmic questions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My wife Carol, who is very wise when it comes to the universe, says there are no coincidences, that everything happens for a reason. Everything.
Which is why I’m bumfuzzled over an event that took place last week. But to tell that story, I have to tell this story.
When I was growing up, cats and dogs had free run of our neighborhood. The cats lolled in the sun and chased birds. The dogs chased cars and left surprises in the tall grass.
In my house we were cat people. My mother wasn’t wild about animals and cats were deemed to be the lesser of two evils.
So 10 years ago when I bought my house at the age of 37, I had the backyard fenced and my son Zach and I went to the animal shelter to rescue a dog. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Perhaps a regal-looking Golden, the kind that would lay by my feet in the evening while I wore a satin smoking jacket and read Dickens or Thoreau by a roaring fire. A handsome animal that would look good as I walked, thoughtfully puffing on a pipe, in the early chill of autumn. I should have told me son what was on my agenda before he found Jake.
Jake is a dog of dubious parentage. He was listed as a Basset-Shepherd mix, but since then we’ve had another half-dozen breeds suggested. Suffice it to say, at the end of the day in the celestial dog factory they took all the leftover parts and the result was Jake. He is short and stumpy. His history reads like a rap sheet and the furry little thug would later require a week at doggy boot camp before he was officially part of the family.
Two months after Jake was adopted, Carol became my fiance, and three months later Jake was joined by her dog Molly when we (Carol and I, for those trying to keep track) got married. Molly is a black Lab mix, and like Jake, she will never be considered a candidate for Mensa. We don’t refer to them as the dogs, we call them “the morons.â€?
Now begins our other story. Three weeks ago, Carol and I found ourselves hooked into one of those pet adoption events they hold at shopping malls. They do this because they know that people like me have a hard time walking past sad-eyed dogs.
The dog we were interested in was not interested in us and it should have ended there until we met Sydney, an Australian Shepherd mix. Unlike the morons, this was a very sweet animal with a past that read like a Dickens novel. How could we pass this up?
We walked down the mall and sat and thought about it. A third dog. A third set of shots. A third dog that would need boarding when we travel. More dog food. More dog maintenance. It made absolutely no sense. But good sense doesn’t stand a chance against a pair of big brown doggy eyes, and two days later Sydney came to live with us.
It’s been an adjustment. The morons have been together for seven years and they are set in their ways (read: they take nine naps between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.). Sydney has all the energy of a young dog and neither side is sure what’s going on. Which may be why Molly snapped at Sydney and took a pretty good hunk out of her nose. And that brought us to the vet Tuesday last, which is where I’m having trouble reading the cosmic tea leaves.
The building that houses the after-hours veterinary practice is the same that housed my first pediatrician when we moved to Sandy Springs. The examination room I had Sydney in was the same I used to sit in with a fever, cough, runny nose, etc.
Coincidence? Not according to my wife. The meaning? She doesn’t have an answer to that one, at least not one that doesn’t impugn my spotless character.
What is the circle of life that brings a man back to his medical roots 43 years later, only to find the space is now for those using four feet? When did curing acne give way to stopping fleas and ticks? When did “turn your head and cough” get replaced by a discussion on the merits of getting neutered?
Questions, I have. Answers, I need.
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