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April 2006
Spectators settle in
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The waits get into the parking lots for the air show at Naval Air Station Atlanta were shorter than the waits to get into the portable toilets.
Traffic flowed smoothly and without backups all morning under a well-organized plan. It had people parking in three large lots nearby and riding a fleet of buses into the base.
The waits for shuttles, which moved people from the lots to the base show area, provided the only significant delays.
It took one to two hours of standing in line to catch a shuttle once the crowds began arriving in force.
People arriving early avoided those long waits.
Grant Scarborough of Porterdale, Ga., got up at 5 a.m. and arrived at the parking lot at Whitewater park about 6 a.m. He was the second person in the parking lot, he said.
“I was kind of excited about it. I was determined this year to get on the base,” he said.
Officials limit the crowd to the first 50,000 people, though thousands of others watch from nearby roads, yards and parking lots.
“From what I’ve been told, this may be the last (air show), so I want to see it all,” he said.
He stepped onto the first bus leaving the parking lot about 8:30 a.m.
Others avoided the delay of standing in a shuttle line simply by pulling out their folding chairs in the parking lot at Lockheed, which adjoins the air base.
Greg and Mary Anne Bedingfield of Marietta made the easy drive from their home in minutes, but when they saw the line for the shuttle they had second thoughts.
“I asked [one of the workers], ‘Can you see real well from the parking lot?’ And she said, ‘Oh, sure.’”
The Bedingfields settled in next to their car and enjoyed the show.
“And this is right next to the exit,” Mary Anne Bedingfield said. “This is a good place.”
Lockheed lot closing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Lockheed parking lot is about to be closed. Cars coming in on South Cobb Road/Highway 280 are being directed past Lockheed to Atlanta Road, where they’ll turn left to Generals Road. About 1,000 parking spaces are available there.
Parking lots filling up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Lockheed parking lot is expected by be filled by 11 a.m. The Whitewater parking lot was about 75 percent filled at 10:15 a.m.
Lockheed lot filling up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 9:40 a.m. the Lockheed lot was about half full. So far, there have been no backups entering the lot.
Early risers stream into air show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Early risers avoided traffic and put themselves in place to get the best seats for the air show Saturday morning.
They arrived from neighboring cities and states, some having left home shortly after 3 a.m., to assure themselves they would be one of the 50,000 let into Naval Air Station Atlanta to watch the Blue Angels perform.
Though the stream of cars into the parking lots began as early 7:45, the coordinated and well-publicized parking and shuttle bus plan was working smoothly.
Lineups of Cobb Community Transit busses began moving the arriving crowds from parking lots at Lockheed and Whitewater by or before 8:30, as promised. It was much better than last year, said Mike Bailey of Acworth. Bailey fought traffic for three hours last year to try to get into the lot at Lockheed, only to be turned away when he finally got to the gate.
“Two dollars [for the shuttle] is a lot better than sitting in traffic and burning gas,” he said.
He chose to ride in from the parking lot at Whitewater, just off I-75, figuring the traffic at the Lockheed lot would be more crowded.
At 8:40 a.m., John Quigley, a Cobb County spokesman, reported the traffic flow plan at the Lockheed lot also was working smoothly and that there were no early tie-ups in town or on the highways.
Motorist are being reminded that parking for the NAS Air Show is limited to the Lockheed parking lot on Delk Road and shuttle service is being provided from White Water on Cobb Parkway to the base. There is no public parking along Atlanta Road or Generals Way which runs off Atlanta Road.
AJC’s Luckovich wins Pulitzer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich earned journalism’s top honor Monday, winning a Pulitzer Prize.
It was the second Pulitzer for the popular but polarizing cartoonist, whose social and political commentaries regularly provoke sharp reactions from readers.
“This is just so great,” Luckovich said during a newsroom celebration after the award was announced. “I love what I do.”
The winning entry included cartoons from 2005 whose topics ranged from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to the media circus around runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks.
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• See winning cartoons | Luckovich profile | Have your say in Luckovich blog
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• Previous AJC pulitzers
In October, he used the names of all 2,000 American soldiers who died in Iraq to spell the single word: WHY? It took him twelve to thirteen hours to complete the drawing. “He thought it was important that he pay tribute to those soldiers by writing all 2,000 names,” said editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker, who was also a Pulitzer finalist.
“It was emotional writing them out,” Luckovich said. He began doing so over the weekend as the death toll approached 2,000. The cartoon ran the day after it hit the mark at the unusual size of 8.5 by 11 inches.
He said that his humor has taken a darker turn in recent years as he has grown angrier about the war. His cartoons reflect that, he said.
After it was published, readers lit up his blog at ajc.com. He received one letter from an 11th-grader at Arlington Christian School who said she spent 12 hours drawing her own cartoon. Using the same names, she spelled out “FREEDOM.”
“It bothered me that no one did a response showing how others feel,” she wrote.
The paper had finalists in three Pulitzer categories this year. In addition to Luckovich, Tucker was a finalist for commentary, and the staff was a finalist in the breaking news category for its coverage of the Fulton County courthouse shootings last March.
Luckovich has been the Journal-Constitution’s editorial cartoonist since 1989. His first Pulitzer, won in 1995, was for cartoons that included one portraying South Carolina’s Susan Smith, who accused an imaginary black man of killing her children, as “Goldilocks.”
He said at the time that adding the Pulitzer to his list of awards meant “The monkey’s off my back.”
Pete Corson, who designs the paper’s editorial page, often serves as a sounding board for Luckovich while he works on the next day’s cartoon. He said the cartoonist usually draws a handful of sketches that are little more than stick figures and concepts, then settles on one or more to develop.
“On a normal day, he could go through eight to ten, easy,” he said.
Sometimes, Luckovich will start with a simple idea: Two people watching television and a punchline, Corson said. By the time it makes the paper, the television is gone, and the punchline has morphed into a more powerful image.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and it’s two predecessors, the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution, have won a combined ten Pulitzers since 1931
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