AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February
February 2007
Whine and water: This is a crisis?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are times that some of my fellow Sandy Springsteens’ behavior makes my hair hurt. The recent water “crisis” was one of those times.
To briefly recap, a water main in North Fulton was damaged and some of us had to sip bottled water or boil our drinking water ahead of time — both measures to insure us against the possibility of a temporarily contaminated water supply. It sounds simple enough, but simple never is.
To hear some of the wailing and whining on the news you’d think the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had come to town and blockaded the drive-thru at the Golden Arches.
One man talked about the “hardship” of having to secure enough bottled water for a weekend. If you stay away from those brands that claim to have come from some underground spring in a faraway land you can get a gallon of water for 97 cents. I’ll bet that poor chap must have had to lay out a fiver for his weekend supply.
Another woman complained about how the water department let the main get damaged, making it sound like a fraternity prank. I don’t think they planned this, if for no other reason that having to dig a hole in the dirt this time of year can be a rather chilly undertaking.
Folks, three to five days of bottled water does not constitute a hardship. Less than a week of having to boil water for home use does not make you a martyr.
There are people living on the Gulf Coast of this great nation that still do not have homes more than a year after Hurricane Katrina. There are people in rural parts of this country that have never had running water. These people would sell a kidney if their biggest problem were a weekly trip to the grocery for some Evian.
Remember when you were growing up and your parents told you to stop whining and realize the world does not revolve around you? I think they meant for you to have cleared that hurdle by now. Or as a friend puts it: “You can climb down off the cross now. Someone else needs the wood.”
Remembering the American soldier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By chance I got to spend a couple of hours recently with a medical specialist in the United States Army. It reminded me that, in the middle of the heated debate over this country’s role in Iraq, there are some quietly dedicated men and women serving our country.
His name is not important, because he’s just like one of thousands in uniform. He’s served four tours in the Middle East. With a wife and two kids at home he’s not anxious to go back for a fifth time. But he would.
“It’s the job,” he said. “I don’t understand people who enlist and then are surprised when they get sent over there.”
Most of the time we hear about the soldiers who do the killing, but it’s important to remember that many of our military have other jobs. They build schools and clinics. They offer free medical care to people in other countries who have never seen a doctor. They are flesh-and-blood reminders that there is much good to come from being a super power.
When asked about his opinion of the president’s handling of our armed services in the Middle East, he was pragmatic.
“Maybe in seven years when I’m retired I can answer that question,” he said. “Right now [President Bush] is my commander-in-chief. I knew when I enlisted I might not agree with everything my president did, but right now my job is to serve the person in office.”
This is a point that has been made many times before, but much of the job our armed forces performs insures that those of us back home have the freedom to sit back in the cheap seats and freely express our opinions. It is something we all take for granted on a daily basis — I’d wager few people reading this have ever been dragged from their homes because they expressed an unpopular view or disagreed with the government.
Serving one’s country can be a job filled with personal sacrifice, but thank goodness many choose to do it. There are some lines from Toby Keith’s “American Solider” that comes to mind:
“When liberty’s in jeopardy I will always do what’s right,
I’m out here on the front lines. Sleep in peace tonight.
American soldier, I’m an American,
An American,
An American soldier.”
American soldiers. May God bless them all.
February — time to imagine some tabloid stories
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is it getting a little dull around here, or is it me?
It’s February, it’s cold, the trees are bare (those that haven’t been clear cut) and there’s just not much to get the blood pumping. I only bring this up because I’ve noticed the tabloids in the grocery check-out lanes are reproducing faster than a bunny on fertility drugs.
Apparently our appetite for finding out what the rich and famous are up to is voracious - especially when we don’t feel we need to trip over a lot of factual information. So it got me thinking that maybe for the rest of February we’ll “relax” the rules a bit for this blog so we can get things to heat up a little in Sandy Springs with imagined items like the following:
“Newly separated pop tart Britney Spears was sighted last week chowing down on fish tacos at a trendy Mexican bistro near the old Kmart parking lot. According to the owner’s brother, who heard it from a reliable source on the dishwashing crew, Spears wolfed down a dozen tacos and washed them down with a pitcher of margaritas. While the lighting was bad, her tablemate was thought to be none other than Harrison Ford. Or Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning. Or maybe former Georgia Gov. Joe Frank Harris. At the end of the meal Spears left a C-note and was whisked out the side door to a waiting limo.”
See? Now suddenly things are a little more interesting around this chilly little burg. So why not:
“Concerned about the number of trees being cut down, celebrity activists Angelina Jolie and hot-hot-hot hunky boy pal Brad Pitt were reportedly seen in the local woods, discussing the situation with several area conifers. According to a source close to the pine trees the couple is planning to adopt every existing tree in Sandy Springs to keep them from being chopped down. After the close encounter of the wooden kind, sources claimed Pitt and Jolie repaired to a fashionable fast-food eatery where they were rumored to have split what they thought was an order of free-range French fries and a bottle of water. They shared the same booth that the former Mrs. Pitt, Jennifer Anniston, would have used had she been in town.”
Wow. This is so exciting I may start dragging Roswell Road at night, and I’m the one making this stuff up! But this fantasy tabloid wouldn’t be complete without: “Power party girl Paris Hilton was seen taking in the ‘sights’ at one of Sandy Springs hot strip clubs last week. She was reportedly in the VIP room with one of the Town Turtles, who took the night off from his post at the fire station. Sources say the two are ‘just friends’ but their electricity could have lit every traffic light between Dalrymple and Abernathy.”
Suddenly February seems pretty cool. But you didn’t get that from me…..
Permalink | |
When a son turns 20
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Our son Zach hits a pretty big birthday this month, at least from a parent’s perspective. This week, he turns 20.
For Zach, birthdays 19 and 20 are pretty useless on the major-event chart of life. Those two years are spent waiting to jump from semi-legal status at 18 to full-legal status as the pager turns over to 21. I think a promised 21st-father/son birthday trip to New Orleans may be affecting his judgement.
However, from my chair this one is big because it means he’s officially out of the teenage years. At 13, one is urged to put away childish things. When they get through their teens they are ordered to put away those really childish things. Whoopee cushions, bathroom humor, purloined girlie magazines and the like are the detritus of the male maturation process.
The journey from the first day of 13 to the last of 19, however, has its share of positive milestones.
The obvious one is that driving comes into play. At 15 Zach began learning to drive Sunday afternoons in the cavernous parking lots of office complexes. Eventually we had to hit the open road where straying outside the lines is more serious than doing so in a coloring book. I still have a bum knee from applying the phantom brake pedal on the passenger side back in the days when 10 mph seemed fast.
In what was a very short 14 months, he had his drivers license. It was a jarring experience to watch him drive away from the house and not be sitting in the passenger seat. I imagine he enjoyed it more than I did.
I was there for his first slow dance, by dint of the fact the middle-school administration wanted a lot of us fathers to act as chaperones-cum-bouncers. I don’t recall the song that played. I’ll never forget watching two 13-year-olds hold on to each other and sway to the music.
I was there for his first shave because that’s something fathers are supposed to pass along to their sons. He may never make a choice so carefully as he did his first razor. And hearing the phrase: “Dad, I’m out of shaving cream” took some getting used to.
High school was as big for Zach. He landed a small role in the fall play his freshman year. His junior year he played organized football for the first. He was on the varsity, but was pressed into service as a starter on the offensive line for the JV team because he was the only one who knew all the blocking schemes.
He also became quite good, I hear, at poker during these years. His best night netted a windfall of about 10 bucks. At least that’s the story I heard.
These memories could go on forever, but I should stop before I break into “Sunrise, Sunset” and start the waterworks. But suffice it to say I’m going to miss that teenage kid.
Happy No. 20, Zach. See you on Bourbon Street next year.
