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November 2005
Student answers ‘call of duty’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ed Youngblood had students sit in circles so they could talk about the literature assignment from the previous night.
And every Friday he had them write an in-class essay — practice for the AP English exam.
Marcus Nathaniel Spencer, a 2004 graduate of South Gwinnett High, remembers it well. The intellectual banter. Being pushed by a demanding, engaging teacher. Youngblood, he says, was good. The best instructor he’s ever had.
As soon as Spencer of Snellville heard about Youngblood’s resignation under pressure, Spencer got involved. He talked to friends and asked them to join him in reversing what he considers an atrocity.
“Getting involved in this was just instinct, a call of duty,” Spencer told me via e-mail. “I’m in support of my friend, but I am also acting as a member of the community. Removing Mr. Youngblood is depriving these students of, in all likelihood, their best teacher and their best preparation for college. It is a disservice to them as well as Mr. Youngblood himself.”
Spencer knows the facts:
That Youngblood showed “Elizabeth,” a movie with violence and sexuality, to students in his British literature class. That a parent complained and the matter was investigated by school district administrators. That Youngblood, a veteran educator with 37 years of experience, showed the movie without getting it approved by a board of parents, teachers and students.
But Spencer doesn’t think the punishment fit the crime. He’d prefer that school administrators give Youngblood another chance in the form of a written reprimand — anything but force him out.
He’s fighting on behalf of Youngblood because he cares, not because the teacher asked him to.
“Ed Youngblood never once asked anyone to stand up and help him,” Spencer wrote in the Badie Blog (ajc.com /gwinnett). “Not once. I, we, requested his permission to stand up for what we feel is right. He granted it mainly because he feels it is our job to do what we feel is right.”
You have to admire the young man’s spunk and spirit. It’s not everyday you see people — especially teenagers — carry the mantle for something they care about.
Truth be told, Spencer has a minute chance of getting the Gwinnett County school board to revisit the issue. They’re bullheaded when they’re wrong, so imagine their stubbornness when they’re right. The school board has historically been unaffected by its occasional controversial ruling or even the overcrowding of schools. But Gwinnett is changing in so many ways. You wonder how long the school board can remain immune, particularly if it continues to be tone deaf to criticism or change.
Even Spencer admits this is a long shot. He still plans to attend the school board’s regular meeting Dec. 8, armed with signatures from folk who think Youngblood got a raw deal.
“What reaction do I expect? Refusal or amusement,” he said.
Spencer is an astronomy major at Georgia State University. He enjoys reading, sports and history. He’s taking a break from school this semester for personal time and to save money. Good thing he did.
“I wouldn’t be able to be so active in this ‘resistance’ if I hadn’t taken off,” he said.
Spencer doesn’t know where this resistance will lead him. He’s never had any plans to become politically active.
Stranger things have happened.
It’s time for Gwinnett to build its own sense of identity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We need something, y’all.
Something big.
It has to be bigger than the arena. And it definitely must offer more appeal than the so-called “Gwinnett Village.” It has to make our two mega-malls look like guppies and attract media attention from around the globe.
Finally, it has to set us apart from Atlanta, yet be as equally enticing as the new Georgia Aquarium. It’s a hit. But how can you miss with a tank that holds more than 100,000 fish and two whales?
We need an attraction, an event — something — to ratchet up the county’s coolness and give it a sense of identity.
I wrote a piece this summer that asked readers, what, exactly, makes up Gwinnett’s identity? What signature asset (or assets) entertain the people who live here and draw tourists who stay and spend money?
I posed those questions after my family and I spent a spectacular July 4 weekend in Chattanooga, 125 miles away. We saw the Tennessee Aquarium (Is there a need to do that anymore?) and the cool places it anchored — Coolidge Park, the Bluff View Arts District and strip called Frazier Avenue that’s similar to Little Five Points. All were hip, clean and kid-friendly.
Chattanooga made me think about the image of Gwinnett, my home. The Georgia Aquarium, which opened last week to rave reviews, has done the same thing.
This is a topic with no easy answers. It’s worth weighing, though. Just what are we going to be when we grow up? And if we are already an adult county, are we happy?
Can we rest our laurels on being a bustling suburban magnet, a part of greater Atlanta and all it offers — the zoo, professional sports teams, Stone Mountain Park, Six Flags and now the Georgia Aquarium?
There’s nothing wrong with being a bedroom community or patronizing the attractions in the metropolis. Be honest, though. Gwinnettians visit them by default. We have nothing to compare to them, or to pound our chests about.
We just make do.
If Gwinnett is your home, and if this is as good as it gets, I doubt you’re satisfied. If you’re like me and care about where you live, you want something else, and not necessarily more of what we’ve already got.
And whatever that definitive place, event or attraction may be, you want it close to your backyard and within the county you call home.
The last time I broached this subject, lots of readers wrote to either defend what exists (county parks) or to lament what’s missing (a natural attraction).
The comments of Glenn Stevens, a Lilburn resident, ran as a letter in AJC Gwinnett News. They are worth repeating.
“I have traveled to other cities, states and countries and I am appalled that we pride ourselves as having the best quality of life, but there is nowhere for my teenagers to go safely,” he wrote.
“Now that we have a new commission chairman who was voted in to get rid of Wayne Hill, maybe he can create a legacy by making Gwinnett a place where families want to live and be entertained. ? Without a vision, the people perish.”
That new chairman would be Charles Bannister.
Are you ready to create a legacy, Mr. Bannister?
Should popular teachers operate outside the rules?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m a wuss.
At least one reader thought so after Sunday’s column on Ed Youngblood. He’s the popular South Gwinnett High teacher who resigned because he showed “Elizabeth,” an R-rated movie with violence and sexuality, to students. He didn’t follow procedure for getting the movie approved. School system brass decided he had to go.
No teacher, I wrote, is above rules and regulations. No matter how much he or she is respected by peers or revered by students.
Many readers who e-mailed me or posted comments on the Badie Blog (60 as of late Monday) didn’t see it my way. Others did. Read on.
Sally D. Ellis of Loganville suggested I slip on Youngblood’s shoes.
“You would want a chance to apologize, learn from your error, and continue your career,” she wrote. “It’s the Gwinnett students who lose on this one.”
Phil McIntosh of Grayson compared the test-crazy state of public schools to a brainwashing.
“The current micromanaged curriculum and several weeks of standardized testing per year smack of brainwashing, not education. The ridiculous policy of firing successful teaches for trying to keep something of themselves in the classroom sends our kids further down that road.” In the Badie Blog, Marcus Spencer, a former student of Youngblood’s, posted several entries, the first of which defended the right of him and others to support the instructor.
“You’re damn right parents and students are going to rally behind him. Ed Youngblood never once asked anyone to stand up and help him. Not once. I, we, requested his permission to stand up for what we feel is right. He granted it mainly because he feels it is our job to do what we feel is right. Gwinnett County stepped on the wrong David this time. If you look around him, you’ll notice a few thousand people armed with knowledge and democracy preparing to swarm Goliath.”
Daniel Sobczak of Snellville wrote that we can’t afford to lose good teachers like Youngblood and Doc Neace.
“Both could have been suspended without pay and let well enough alone. Neither should have been a terminable offense.”
Denise Benshoof of Snellville majored in British history.
“You are absolutely correct to focus on the organization and its need to meet its own rules in the issue of Ed Youngblood. Tudor images are all over my house, and I applaud any film with historic accuracy. For me, though, I would equate images in “Elizabeth” with soft-core porn and would suggest it as a college-age film.”
On the blog, Dave Oliver of Lawrenceville said Youngblood got his just deserts.
“Mr. Wilbanks was hired to enforce the rules, along with making sure the children of Gwinnett County receive an excellent education. He is enforcing the rules concerning R-rated movies, and as far as we all should be concerned, that’s all there is, there ain’t no more. Bye, bye, Mr. Youngblood.”
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
Teachers who think they’re above rules need to rethink
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s easy to feel sorry for Ed Youngblood.
Last week, the South Gwinnett High teacher resigned because he showed an R-rated movie to students. The 1998 movie, “Elizabeth,” contains violence and sexuality, but what was equally troubling to school officials was that Youngblood failed to follow procedure.
Local teachers are supposed to submit unapproved instructional materials to a board of students, teachers and parents for review. It’s up to that board to OK or reject them. It can also require teachers to get parental permission before proceeding.
Youngblood did none of the above. He just fired up the old projector (or whatever they call them these days) and let her rip. You’d think he knew better. He’s a veteran educator who, before retiring, had taught for 37 years. He returned to campus this year on a part-time basis to teach British lit and Advanced Placement English.
Parents and students have rallied. Reinstate him, they say. It’s a scenario we’ve seen unfold before, here as well as other school districts in the metropolis. Respected teacher breaks rule. Supporters protest.
Remember Larry “Doc” Neace?
The Dacula High science teacher was fired in May because he docked a student’s grade on an assignment as a reprimand for sleeping in class. The Gwinnett County School Board has a policy that forbids instructors from lowering grades as a form of punishment. He knew about the policy; he just thought it was exempt. He was fired.
It’s easy to side with the teachers in these matters. They assume the role of David to the school administration’s Goliath. We stand up for them because they demandingly engage students and make them want to learn. We want (and desperately need) them in our classrooms. When they break rules, either ignorantly or knowingly, we want to let it slide. To look the other way.
The public can do that. Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks and his Cabinet can’t. Actually, they can, but what if they did? What if they let select employees skirt procedure while others suffer consequences? There’d be no order. Only anarchy.
I’m no teacher, but I’d imagine a basic covenant of the profession is that you ask permission before you bring outside materials into the classroom. To do otherwise is unconscionable, akin to my falsifying quotes or people in my column.
Rules and regulations serve a purpose. When they aren’t adhered to, and people are permitted to pick and choose which ones they follow, the system suffers.
Youngblood told AJC Gwinnett News that, because of his resignation, the students had been let down. Yeah, I feel sorry for them. He let them down.
Street gear ban not necessarily racist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thomas Hutton likes Kangol hats, and he likes to wear them the way they were intended: turned backward. Mack Daddy style.
One night, he threw on a Kangol and bounced over to Barnacles near Gwinnett Place mall. He got stopped at the entrance. Turn your cap around, a bouncer told him. The sports bar off Market Street prohibits patrons from wearing do-rags, and caps must be worn to the front.
Begrudgingly, Hutton obliged. As soon as he got inside, though, he flipped his cap backward again. Two hours later, a bouncer busted him. Hutton was given an ultimatum: Turn the hat around or leave.
He left.
Hutton of Lawrenceville told me about the incident in an e-mail.
“Rick, does this sound like racism to you?” he asked. “Or am I just overreacting?”
Certain fashion styles conjure up images that aren’t altogether positive. All too often, do-rags, flipped lids, baggy sweats and chains get aligned with thuggery, violence and malice. They send the wrong message.
This season, the NBA adopted a minimum dress code that requires players to wear casual business attire when they participate in league or team activities. Out with the do-rags and gold chains. In with the sport coats and dress slacks.
The NBA is trying to clean up its image and the message it puts forth. Just because a majority of the players happen to be black doesn’t make its actions racist. It’s smart business sense.
Which brings me to Barnacles. It has a dance floor that cranks up at 10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Because of that, you must be 21 to get in after 9 p.m.
Until then, though, this is a family-friendly joint. A place where Mom, Dad and the brood can eat and play a few games.
“Latinos, blacks, Asians, whites — we get it all,” Ed Subko, the day manager, told me at lunchtime. “We don’t want families to come in here and see people all gangstered up. If they do, they aren’t going to come back. If you walk in here with your family, and everybody’s got their hats turned backwards and do-rags on, would you come back?”
Probably not. Street gear conjures up images of lots of things. Family isn’t one of them. You can call it a style, but it’s still thuggish. Nobody wants to be around it. It gives the impression something unpleasant could jump off at any time, and in any place. Something you don’t want to witness or be a part of.
Like the NBA, the policy at Barnacles definitely targets a fashion that’s been cultivated and embraced by a particular group of people — blacks. But there still appears to be even-handedness. The staff apparently knows not to discriminate, to apply the policy to everyone.
How else could you explain Hutton’s experience? He got stopped twice — at the door and in the establishment. And he’s a white man.
At Barnacles, you either adhere to the rules. Or stay away.
Which, by the way, is exactly what Hutton plans to do.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Reach him at 770-263-3875 or by e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
Why MARTA fails
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The news promo implored viewers to stay tuned Sunday night for a story on how MARTA was training to protect its riders from terrorist attacks.
Well, if there’s ever an actual attack on this region’s mass transit system, take this advice: Fend for yourself. Run. Do something. Just don’t count on MARTA employees to save your behind.
Last Thursday, my son and I had tickets to the Hawks-Clippers game. We made it to the MARTA Chamblee station in plenty of time to make it to Philips Arena. Parking was a nonissue, and even though it was rush hour, few people were arriving or leaving the station.
I slipped a $5 bill into one of three token dispensers. It spit it back at me. Ditto for the other two machines. I had three more $5 bills in my pocket. I inserted each of them as the diagram instructs — with Abe facing up. All three machines rejected all three bills.
We looked around for other dispensers. They were boarded up with plywood.
Finally, we spotted what appeared to be a MARTA employee. It was hard to tell. He was yucking it up with another young man. His hair was braided. He had a skull cap pulled over his ears. The only thing that hinted at MARTA was a walkie-talkie strapped to his leg, of all places.
I hopped over the turnstile. So did Miles. Wrong move.
Before I could speak, the employee admonished me for breaking the law. We weren’t sneaking in, I assured him. We were having a hard time buying tokens and needed help.
He said there was nothing he could do to help me. I told him he must be kidding. He reached in his pocket and gave me a $5 — in exchange for one of mine, of course.
“Try this,” he said.
We did. Three times. No dice. We hopped over the turnstile for a second time, and approached the same dude. He and his friend were still chatting. I asked if there was a change machine in the complex.
“Nope.”
I asked if there was an office or a supervisor where we could buy tokens and forego trying to use the dispensers.
“Nope.”
He pointed to the taxi cabs parked out front. “Go get change from them,” he said.
A woman who was waiting for someone to pick her up had seen the exchange. “It’s like this all the time,” she said, shaking her head.
And if it is, that explains a lot.
It’s part of the reason Gwinnett commuters don’t ride transit, at least the regional system. It’s not worth the personal hardship to patronage a system that takes you so few places and does it hit or miss.
Maybe MARTA ought to train its employees in customer service. To say, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am.” To dress in a way that’s presentable when on the clock. To treat people like the paying customers that they are.
We read too many stories about MARTA’s bigger problems — financial, ridership, cutbacks and scheduling. But until the folks who run the mass transit understand the importance of little things, all those larger issues really won’t matter.
Duty to drive like grown-ups is message lost on many teens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
His teenage son got busted driving 71 in a 45-mph speed zone.
Jack Turner didn’t get a chance to bless him out. “His mom got onto him first,” he said. “Now, my insurance is going to go up.”
Turner puffed on a cigarette as he stood outside the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville. He would have preferred riding his Harley on this beautiful fall morning, maybe winding through the North Georgia mountains. But this is how he spent part of Saturday — accompanying Harrison, his 16-year-old son, to a three-hour traffic safety course.
“A lot of kids are in there,” said Turner, motioning to the administration building. “The instructor told some of the kids they’d be out of here at 12 because there’s going to be a big crowd here. Do you know anything about it?”
I told him about the SCLC’s “national march” to protest the use of Taser stun guns. The Atlanta-based civil rights group wants Gwinnett County police and other law enforcement agencies to stop using the devices until further research.
The SCLC thinks it’s lethal. Proponents say the weapon saves the lives of people who could have been justifiably shot by the cops.
The protesters were to march from a local park to the county government complex, then hold a rally. The march started a little late, so with time to kill, I poked my head inside the traffic safety class.
Turner was right. About 100 teens were taking the course. How many took it serious was anyone’s guess. It’s hard to gauge young people — what sticks with them and what passes in one ear and out the other.
One boy dozed. A lot of them giggled at things the instructor said. Two girls high-fived each other after one of them told the class she’d accumulated four points against her driving record.
But there was nothing funny about the video. Bloody lifeless bodies. Cars crushed beyond recognition. Frame after frame of roadside memorials to young people who had tested their mortality and lost.
Pacing back and forth, microphone in hand, Sgt. Bill Blodgett of the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department strove to connect.
He laid out the pitfalls of amassing a bad driving record even if you cheat death. High insurance. Revoked licenses. Parental civil liability.
“Am I saying all this to scare you? Yes I am,” Blodgett said.
The Taser protest rally was under way when the teens poured out of the administration building. Size doesn’t equate to importance, but there’d been more teens in the traffic safety course than at the protest.
Jack Turner and his son made a beeline for the parking lot.
Harrison drives a King Cab pickup. He’s a junior at Brookwood High and works part-time at a local Publix. His speeding ticket cost him $233, plus the $5 he had to pay for the traffic safety class.
“I need to drive slower,” said Harrison, who looks just like his father. “But a lot of the kids in there didn’t even have licenses. I would never drive without my driver’s license.
“That’s just stupid.”
Turner said he told his son over and over not to speed.
“Luckily, he didn’t kill anybody,” dad said.
Amen.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach him at 770-263-3875 or by e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com
Can just 2 tablets heal ailing society?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Her mom was a churchgoing lady.
When the doors of New Hope Freewill Baptist Church were open, she’d be there. With her children in tow.
Back then, a young Pat Stone sang in the choir and attended Sunday school. She liked the old-time gospel music and the social simplicity offered at the country church in Plant City, Fla.
RICK BADIE / Staff
Pat Stone doesn’t make it to church much, but she makes no bones about her feelings on the Ten Commandments.
“I always left that church with a good feeling,” she said. “You left with a lift in your walk.”
Today, Stone and her husband of 28 years live on Patterson Road, a road I’d never been on till Tuesday. I had a sudden urge to take an excursion. A blue-and-white placard shaped like a Bible and posted in the flower bed caught my eye. I pulled into the Stones’ driveway.
“1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother ?”
It was the King James version of the Ten Commandments. Right next to a Mickey Mouse figure.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Stone’s a Bible-thumper. A Christian zealot. She struck me as neither. She didn’t pepper me with questions about my church attendance or whether I was “right” with God. You know how Southern Baptists are wont to do. (I can say that because I was raised a Southern Baptist.)
Stone doesn’t even attend church that much. “I can have church right here in my home,” she told me.
But the Ten Commandments, now that’s another matter. They give Stone her moral fiber, a foundation to live by. It’s a fearful respect for her God, something she learned growing up.
“Look at where the world is now compared to where it was 30 years ago,” Stone said. “We took prayer out of school. Teachers don’t have no control, and the kids don’t care. We had the fear of God instilled in us, but a lot of the kids these days are not brought up with that. I am a firm believer that we should go back to it. We shouldn’t have these street gangs, and these kids in school shooting other kids. If we live by the Ten Commandments, I believe our world would be a better place. “
“6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shall not bear false witness ?
10. Thou shall not covet ?”
Stone’s neighbors don’t take issue with her yard sign. Neither does her husband.
“He knows that’s what I believe,” she said. “One time the stem on the sign broke, and he fixed it for me.”
She found it interesting that curiosity led me to her doorstep. She had a good feeling about it.
“I hope people can look at it and think about what they are doing,” she said. “Maybe you were meant to see it so others will.”
Maybe so.
Real need exists for House of Joy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bobigene Pack keeps trying to do the Lord’s will, but sometimes stumbling blocks get in the way.
Recently, though, everything seemed to be falling into place. She landed a financial backer who shared her dream. And she’d found a facility for sale that needed little, if any, work. It all seemed too good to be true.
Turns out, it was.
The facility was Century Gardens, a senior living center near downtown Norcross that’s shutting its doors. It has 28 rooms and is licensed for 38 beds. It has a commercial kitchen and a wraparound porch with ceiling fans. Perfect, Pack thought, for a homeless shelter, her year-old vision.
Last month, Century Gardens went on the auction block. The highest bid exceeded $1 million. Too rich for Pack and an investor who had secured a loan for up to $750,000. They didn’t make an offer. Even if they could have bought the property, zoning may have been tricky. Unofficial inquiries at Norcross City Hall gave Pack the impression that officials may have been lukewarm to a homeless shelter.
So Pack’s dream continues to be deferred. Yet she’s unshaken. Still trusting in the Lord. Still marching on, upbeat and undeterred, harboring no malice about what could have been.
“I was closer, financially, than I’ve ever been to being able to buy a building,” said Pack, founder of Love in Action Outreach Ministries, a nonprofit in Norcross. “This would have been a great start for us.”
And Gwinnett.
In 2004, one of my early columns dealt with the county’s lack of a homeless shelter. It featured Pack, a trained minister who told me the Lord had commanded her to provide cots for those who sleep in the woods and in cars. She’s been working to make a shelter a reality every since.
Pack’s been close before. At one time, a shuttered warehouse held promise. Next it was a vacant apartment unit. She was unable to raise the money both times.
County officials and the chamber brass like to boast about “success” living here. Of course it does. But we seem incapable of generating enough interest and support to address a problem advocates say continues to grow.
“It just makes better sense to provide a safe haven where they can live and get on their feet,” said Donna Long, president of Changing Lives, a faith-based organization in Lawrenceville that supports Pack. “Why are the Christians in our community not stepping up to address these issues?”
Say we open a shelter with 25 rooms. Churches, nonprofits and businesses could adopt a room for a year and be responsible for the particular family who occupies it. Families could stay from three to six months, hoped to be time aplenty for the adults to get themselves together.
This week, Pack plans to take a look at five potential locations for a shelter.
She’s already picked out a name for the operation: “House of Joy.”
“We’re going forward, aggressively,” she told me.
And still trusting in the Lord.
• Rick Badie’s column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at rbadie@ajc.com or 263-3875.
Visions of ‘Gwinnett Village’ a dream too-long deferred
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
B.J. Van Gundy doesn’t want to be the village idiot.
In recent weeks, though, some people may have wondered. You’ve seen the signs: “Gwinnett Village.” They appear in the most unappealing part of the county — southwestern Gwinnett. Definitely more barrio than village.
There, laborers solicit work on the streets. Check-cashing stores and pawnshops are ubiquitous. Not very villagelike.
Take a drive down Jimmy Carter Boulevard like I did last week. The village moniker doesn’t fit. Too many pawnshops. Too much traffic, grime and grit.
Van Gundy’s group is trying to breathe life into Jimmy Carter and several other ugly sections of the county. The Southwest Gwinnett Village Community Improvement Association is trying to set up a community improvement district, or CID, a self-taxing entity that would raise money to pretty things up in and around Jimmy Carter, Indian Trail Lilburn Road, Beaver Ruin Road and Singleton Road.
On Friday, Van Gundy and I toured the area. We started off in a neighborhood off Pirkle Road, then cruised parts of Jimmy Carter, Singleton and Beaver Ruin. Van Gundy is Mr. Positive.
He told me some of the houses off Pirkle Road had been a mess. One man kept two goats tied up in his front yard. Dozens of bags of trash littered a vacant duplex. And one guy was basically running a used-car lot in front of his house.
“I sicced the county on them,” Van Gundy said.
We eventually made it to Jimmy Carter Boulevard, the heart of the village. It used to be a hub for big-box retailers and mainstream businesses. Van Gundy’s wife used to manage a Bennigan’s on the strip. Now it’s called El Imperio. An old Krystal is now a Don Tacos restaurant. Laborers had taken up residence outside a Dunkin’ Donuts in the Horizons shopping center. The neon lights of a check-cashing store flickered from across the street.
Van Gundy saw everything I saw. Only he saw it differently.
He envisions Jimmy Carter as the county gateway, a destination point. He’s thinking street lamps, sidewalks and shops that attract folk from Sugarloaf Country Club and the Hamilton Mills area.
He’s a dreamer.
“Nothing will happen overnight,” he said. “This is massive. Not some itsy-bitsy project. The key is getting the CID formed, and that’s what we’re doing, signing up property owners.” If enough agree to tax themselves, then the real cleanup begins. And Van Gundy is right — it will be massive.
Maybe too big.
Too much has changed. Van Gundy is trying to take us back to something that was lost a long, long time ago. A mainstream area.
For Van Gundy’s dream to come true, you would force massive displacement of businesses and people, a way of life.
Stranger things have happened. But Gwinnett’s growth has occurred where trees and grass once stood, not where recycled strips, pawnshops and check-cashing stores cater to a new Gwinnett. Show Gwinnett a couple hundred acres of woods, and next thing you know, you’ve got a mall or a school and a thousand homes.
Show Gwinnett a run-down area and they move, and they never come back.
• Rick Badie’s column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at rbadie@263-3875.
Heeling, saving soles is his calling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sam Shlimak learned how to save soles in Russia.
And in Gwinnett, he has turned those skills into a bustling business. Just don’t call him a shoe repair man.
“I can draw a design on paper, trace the pattern to leather, make the heels and do the soles,” Shlimak said. “I have the skills of a shoemaker and a shoe designer. I’m not just a shoe repair person.”
Vino Wong/AJC
Russian immigrant Sam Shlimak, 47, was taught his craft by a family friend who was a showmaker when he was 14.
A burnt-like smell from sanded leather engulfs you as soon as you walk into Shoes by Sam. The shop in Lilburn doubles as a men’s clothing store. Sams sells urban and Italian-style gear, along with Bostonian, Georgio Brutini and other high-end shoes.
On Wednesday, several customers browsed through the merchandise. Some even bought something. Most, though, wanted their boots stretched, and their shoes resoled or reheeled.
“See that?” asked Bruce Person, showing Shlimak spots where the leather on his new dress shoes had separated from the sole.
“You don’t walk so perfect,” Shlimak said. “I can glue this, no problem, but the best thing is to solder it and add a protector to the thin sole.”
Sam keeps Person’s collection of shoes in mint condition. He owns 60 pairs. Expensive ones. He buys the best footwear because he’s diabetic, and it’s important that blood flows freely to his legs and toes. Shoes are more than leather and soles to Person.
Vino Wong/AJC
Kim Sy of Norcross brings in a pair of leather motorcycle pants to Sam Shlimak (left) for some alteration work at his store, Shoes by Sam.
“When you start doing business with him, it’s not difficult to come back,” Person, of Lawrenceville, said. “He’s good at what he does, has a fair price and always has a good story.”
Shlimak was part of the great exodus of Russian immigrants who fled the region in 1991 under Perestroika. Remember, Mikhail Gorbachev’s program of economic, political, and social restructuring which led to the end of the Soviet Union and the establishment of independent republics?
Shlimak resettled in El Paso, Texas, where he managed a Western Wear store for several years. He contacted compatriots in Atlanta and asked them to be on the look out for single Russian females.
Sure enough, they found someone who spoke the same language and ate the same foods. Photographs were exchanged. Shlimak paid a visit. He married after dating less than a year. Now, he and his wife have 6-year-old twins.
Shlimack would like to pass the art of shoe repair on to his kids. But he doesn’t forsee them making a career out of a craft he learned when he was 14 years old. He was taught by a family friend who happened to be a shoemaker.
“I’d like to teach people in the community what I know,” said Shlimack, 47. “But this is old-school.”
And these are disposable times. Saving soles is a dying art.
Extending the life of a favorite pair of shoes is not the specialty of the shoe repair boutiques in malls.
“I wanted the heels taken off my boots and they told me it couldn’t be done,” said Kathi Poole of Norcross, a customer of Sam’s since 2002. “Sam did it, and they are wonderful.”
I believe her. I plan to take my favorite 15-year-old burgundy Oxfords to him.
I can’t wait to get them back.
In these days of disposable everything, what do you tend to hang on to? Drop me a line.
‘Village’ moniker not fitting for strip
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ve probably seen them by now. The signs that have been erected on Jimmy Carter Boulevard.
“Gwinnett Village,” they state.
What, exactly, do you envision when you hear the term “village”? Hold that thought. Let’s ride. We’ll head east on Jimmy Carter. Our starting point will be the intersection of JCB and Brook Hollow Parkway, where one of the new signs greets motorists.
Pappadeux’s Restaurant and Global Mall, a shopping destination for people from India, sits to our left as we approach the I-85 ramps. Can’t get to the restaurant or shops from here, though. Instead, you have to drive down to the next traffic light and make a U-turn at the intersection of JCB and Live Oak Parkway.
So let’s keep cruising east and see what makes up this village. There’s plenty of places to buy gas. Two Shell Food Marts sit on both sides of Jimmy Carter. Another is under construction farther east. Need money till payday? Well, the village is your place. The strip has at least seven title loan/check-cashing businesses. It’s easy to miss some of them because they are tucked away in strips malls on side streets.
Looking for a pawn shop? The village has three of them. And if you get caught drinking and driving, you can can take classes at one of three DUI driving schools.
By now we are well beyond Rockbridge Road and fast approaching Britt Road. We’ve passed three churches, dozens of fast food joints, restaurants, and professional offices for medical doctors, accountants, insurance agents and notary publics. Quaintness doesn’t befit this village.
Besides the two signs on JCB, there’s another one on I-85. It says, “Gwinnett Village — Next three exits.” That would be Jimmy Carter, Indian Trail Road and Beaver Ruin Road. The DOT put them up last week at the request of civic leaders and property owners who support formation of a Southwest Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District.
For Jimmy Carter, the goal is noble: cut crime, improve traffic and beautify storefronts. Advocates are working to get a majority of property owners to agree to tax themselves to pay for enhancements. The money would be used for landscaping, sidewalks, marketing and other efforts to raise property values in the area.
The idea is to make JCB a destination area, one with an identity that carries cache. I’m for it. My subdivision sits off a less problematic strip of Jimmy Carter Boulevard. But it’s still Jimmy Carter Boulevard. Homeowners in my neighborhood await the transformation of the dingy shopping centers that offer zero curb appeal.
Signs point to Gwinnett Village, but what is it? A village is a place where you can walk without the possibility of getting mowed down. It’s a place with bistros and boutiques, not billiards and laundry mats. It’s hip, cool and appetizing.
It’s everything that JCB isn’t. Many of the shops and businesses need to be hosed down, painted, renovated — something. Some of them need to move on. Right now, this district needs to be prettied up.
And until it is, calling it a village is a stretch.
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