Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2007 > April
April 2007
Great flood of ‘07 finally capped
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The call came after I’d left work.
Grant Guess, division director for Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation, called Friday to relay some good news. The fountain at Graves Park that had leaked water like the Energizer Bunny had been fixed.
Better yet, all the fountains in the Norcross park got some TLC. Those that needed it (like the one that spewed water non-stop) had their O-rings, or bearings, replaced.
Now the county must find out what’s wrong with equipment installed less than a year ago.
Guess says the fountains were either damaged during construction or damaged during their manufacture. If the latter is true, so much for the brand name — “Most Dependable Water Fountains.”
“I don’t know yet and might never know for sure,” Guess told me in an e-mail. “The fountains have given us some problems.”
Like leakage.
They’re expensive, too — “easily $2,500 retail,” said Guess, noting that it takes a mighty fountain to withstand public abuse. You know how people do stupid stuff like pour sand in the bowls. Real genius.
Guess said county staff had turned off the faulty fountain at a valve box. Park patrons would turn it back on to water their dogs. The back-and-forth apparently went on for some time.
The fountain equipment carries a one-year warranty against defects. Ditto for work performed by Gary’s Grading and Pipeline, the general contractor for phase 1 of the 70-acre complex.
Missed Sunday’s column?
It dealt with a fountain in the small-dog area that park patron Jerry Sherrill said had been running non-stop for some time. Or at least when he happened to be in the dog area with “Ande,” his female Daschund. And that was several times a week.
Sherrill tried to make the county aware of the waste, but hit dead-ends. He suggested I try, so I made a round of calls regarding the matter Thursday afternoon.
I don’t know what made the difference, but somebody lit a fire under someone.
And six-month-old Graves Park is better off for it.
On Sunday, I met the Sherrills in the small-dog area. They’d brought “Ande” and “Mimi,” one of three “granddogs” they are pet-sitting for a few days.
Ande growled at me.
“Temperamental,” explained Jerry Sherrill, a part-time county bailiff.
Besides Ande and Mimi, there were several dogs in the park. Big dogs. Small dogs. Hairy dogs. Weeny dogs. Owners chatted and talked while their canine companions stared, sniffed and sized each other up.
And the thirsty ones enjoyed nice bowls of water.
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Fountain keeps going and going and going
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My son put his plate in the sink.
It had enough ketchup on it to cover three hot dogs, a burger and an order of fries.
Huge slathers.
What a waste.
Next time, I suggested, squeeze less. You can always get more.
That same week, Jerry Sherrill sent an e-mail. Waste was on his mind, too, but it was bigger than a bottle of Hunt’s.
Sherrill walks Ande, his girl dachshund, at Graves Park in Norcross several times a week. The facility has two dog areas — one for small dogs and one for hefty ones. And each area has a water fountain with three spigots.
For some time now, the middle spigot of the fountain in the small-dog area had been running. Nonstop. At least six weeks.
“Perhaps longer,” said Sherrill, a part-time county bailiff.
Two weeks ago, Sherrill called the Gwinnett Parks and Recreation Department, trying to make someone aware. Sherrill said he was transferred to Russell Small, an independent contractor on the county payroll. Let’s just say Sherrill got nowhere and leave it at that.
Last week, when Sherrill and Ande took their walks, the spigot was still going. So he contacted me.
On Thursday, I dropped by the park right after the morning rain. Everything looked richer and greener. I hopped on the trail and walked over to the dog areas to check out the fountain. It was, indeed, running. I pressed and wiggled the handle several times to no avail.
On my way out the park, I spotted two men working on lighting from the restroom. Maybe they were going to repair the fountain, so I asked. They shook their heads, no.
Back in the office, I called Small. Maybe he’s a nice guy and I caught him at a bad time.
“I oversee construction,” he told me, gruffly.
“Well, who do I talk to?”
“Hold on,” he said. “I’m trying to decide who that would be.”
He directed me to Eric Horne, the department’s grounds maintenance manager.
Horne did what a public servant ought to do. He did his job. He looked into the situation right then and there. He got on his two-way radio and contacted a parks coordinator. I could make out a little of the conversation, and the crux of it was this. It’s Small’s job to fix the spigot.
Horne, who treated me with respect, got off the radio.
“Let me call Mr. Small,” he told me.
I forewarned him by telling him what Small had told me — that Horne was the guy.
“Oh, is that right?” said Horne, laughing as if this were a familiar situation.
I explained to Horne my involvement, how park patrons like Sherrill and those of us who make good use of every drop of ketchup we can squeeze from a bottle have a problem with a fountain that imitates the Energizer Bunny.
And though I suspect it’s not his bailiwick, Horne made a promise.
“I’ll take care of it right now,” he said.
And I bet he did.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Burden of collective guilt much too heavy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When news broke about the Virginia Tech shooting, Kay Kim hoped for one thing.
“The moment I heard about it, I said, ‘I hope he’s not Korean,’” said Kim, a prominent Realtor whose face adorns a billboard off I-85.
“That would be real bad.”
She, like us, would eventually learn the identity of the student who killed 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty members before committing suicide. Cho Seung-Hui . A Korean national.
Kim’s heart dropped.
“Even if we didn’t do it, we feel like we did it,” she told me Wednesday as we ate at Sydney’s International Seafood and Grill in Duluth. “It’s part of our culture to feel like we’re sort of responsible.”
Korean-Americans issued apologies to society and expressed sorrow in the aftermath of the massacre. The Korean American Association of Atlanta raised money for victims’ families.
In South Korea, the office of President Roh Moo-hyun released a statement that offered condolences to the American people and expressed the president’s wish that the “enormously saddened Korean-American community, along with all American citizens, would be able to wisely cope with the staggering trauma.”
Kim told me that if the South Korean government had not reached out to the American people, Korean-American communities nationwide would have encouraged it to do so. Very noble.
Back in the day, I used to be ashamed when a black person committed a heinous crime. A TV promotion would preview the incident. Like Kim, I’d utter a similar phrase.
“Hope he’s not one of us.”
About 20 years ago, I decided this collective guilt thing was too big of a cross to bear just because of a shared skin tone. It’s demoralizing, demeaning, an insult to me, the person, the individual, and it gets me no higher rank on society’s shaky scale of acceptance, likability and tolerance.
It took a while, but I let it go.
Why should I lament any more than a nonwhite because “Tyrone” shot somebody or carjacked someone? I’m not Tyrone. I didn’t pull the trigger. Didn’t steal the car, either.
Sure, he may be one of “us,” if you want to talk color.
But he’s not me.
If someone feels compelled to treat me unfairly, to look at me askance or suspect because of what Tyrone did, because of the skin I’m in, so be it. If someone wants to put me in a box, treat me differently, less humanely, cool.
Your loss. Not mine.
Tell me if I’m wrong. My sense is that this idea of collective guilt is practiced primarily in minority cultures. I’ve never heard a white person say that they were ashamed because another white person went on a killing spree. They might express sorrow, but skin tone doesn’t enter the equation.
On the other hand, I’ve talked to many Hispanics who express sentiments of shame, regret and responsibility — oneness — when a major crime story breaks that involves a brown-skinned person. Ditto with people from India.
And now we have the Koreans.
Well, I say let it go.
The Virginia Tech shootings weren’t about Korean-Americans as a group. It wasn’t about business owners like Kim, who has specialized in the reselling of homes for two decades. It was about a sick individual who happens to be Korean-American.
And Kim and the thousands of other Korean-Americans who live and work in Gwinnett had zilch to do with it.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Grand opening of business a payoff for strong work ethic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He started out as a tire technician.
He spoke some English, though not well.
Mauricio Figueroa had other things going for him, though. Hard work. Dependability. A passion for the job, a hunger to learn, to treat customers right.
The manager of the Tires Plus auto repair shop in Hayward, Calif., saw this in the 20-something from Central America after he’d been on the job about two years.
“One day he asked if I wanted to step up and make more money, and I said, ‘yes,’ ” said Figueroa.
“He told me he could train me on the computer and stuff, the whole system. But he said, ‘Do it on your time, not our time.’ “
For nearly six months at the California shop, Figueroa showed up to learn the computer, to observe how the shop office operated. He did it on his off days, without pay. He moved his talent to Norcross four years ago.
I learn all this as we ride in Figueroa’s black truck. I had dropped my car off for an oil change at the Norcross Tires Plus on Singleton Road. Figueroa, the service manager, offered me a ride to the AJC Gwinnett News office.
Along the way, he talks about his life, where it’s been, what he wants to make of it and his plans to get there.
You gotta have a plan, man.
Figueroa started forming his as a 16-year-old living with his family in El Salvador. He told his mom and dad his plan.
“When I was little, my dream was to have money, to help my parents,” Figueroa, 28, tells me. “I said, ‘You sacrificed for us. I want to go to USA to help you more.’ “
So in the mid-1990s, he came to America, landing in Hayward, birthplace of the Rock, the professional wrestler turned actor. Figueroa never graduated from high school. He could barely string together a sentence of English. It didn’t matter. Drive and ambition overcame shortcomings.
The job mounting, rotating and patching tires with Tires Plus jump-started a career. At the Hayward repair shop, he moved from tire technician to service manager. A district manager took interest. He saw the work ethic and rewarded it with a promotion as manager of a shop in Oakland.
On his very first day, Figueroa had to fire a mechanic and two tire technicians. It was a rough shop. Some employees didn’t care. A few got high at work.
“I see customers like I see my parents,” he tells me. “I wouldn’t want someone on drugs working on their cars.”
He transferred to a company store in Lawrenceville from the Oakland shop in 2003. He worked there for a few years before he joined management at a Tires Plus off Singleton Road in Norcross.
“He’s very reliable and dependent,” says Enrique Valencia, the shop manager. “And he’s really good with customers. He needs to live his America dream.”
And for that to happen, Valencia will lose his right-hand man.
Saturday marked Figueroa’s last day at the shop. His plan is to run his own business. Ochoa Auto Repair, at 2084 Beaver Ruin Road near the Greyhound bus station, opens May 1.
He showed me the location Monday.
“I’m a little stressed,” he admits. He and Paola, his wife of five months, have prayed over the decision to start a business.
“But I am hungry to step out on my own.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour: April 25
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kimchi, anyone? Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, knows where to get some of the best. On Wednesday, the Badie Tour stops by “new Korea Town,” a host of retail shops, restaurants and services in an area of Duluth bound by Pleasant Hill Road and Satellite and Steve Reynolds boulevards. Read about it online and in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News.
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Neighbors unite to help keep their community clean
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They act as if we are invisible.
And if you’ve ever picked up garbage alongside a public road, or in your ‘hood, you know what I mean. The reactions you get.
Few smiles or nods of acknowledgement. Mostly blank stares, aloof expressions.
Some residents of the Wyntree subdivision got that treatment Saturday morning. A dozen or so volunteered to pick up discards along Medlock Bridge Road and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Their neighborhood, a 228-home swim-tennis community in Norcross, sits a few blocks from the intersection.
David Proud, the homeowners association president, had been collecting trash alone. He decided to make it a neighborhood campaign and organized Saturday’s event. The subdivision may adopt the road through Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful.
What started out as a one-man anti-litter crusade may grow into an ongoing project.
“One theory is that when people see an area that has trash, they are more likely to throw trash out,” says Proud, 29, a network administrator for Consumer Source in Norcross. “But they are less likely to throw it out in those areas that are kept clean.
“This is a high-traffic area. We’re bound to get trash.”
Before the residents started work Saturday, they were split into teams and assigned one of six zones. They trolled about a quarter-mile down each direction of Peachtree Industrial and Medlock Bridge roads, filling up bags along the way.
The bounty exemplified the usual crap motorists toss out windows rather than keep in their precious vehicles. Half-empty soda bottles. Cigarette cartons. Fast-food wrappers and bags.
Proud holds up a bag from a Popeyes Fried Chicken and Biscuits restaurant.
“I know this has been here for months,” he tells me. “We’re not going to stop it all. We just want to reduce it. If we can do this once a quarter, I definitely think it won’t get this bad. I’ve been here six years, and I’m going to stay and fight.
“I mean, how far north can people keep moving? Flowery Branch? Forsyth County?”
Rich Zelnick and his sons, Sky, 3, and Miles, 11, lent a hand. The boys had wanted to stay home and watch cartoons, but you wouldn’t know it by the fun they were having. Zelnick kept them away from the busy roads to concentrate on common areas.
“Now they’re involved,” said Zelnick, a U.S. Postal Service employee who moved to Wyntree last March.
In all, the volunteers collected about 10 garbage bags of waste, including part of a bumper.
Sanjay Patel, a 10-year resident of Wyntree, posed a question: “How often are you going to do this, David?”
“It depends on the support,” he answered.
I think he has some volunteers he can rely on.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Life coach helps dreams come true
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She made good money and traveled often.
But corporate America wore on her, and after years as an IT software contractor, Retha Logan had had enough.
“I would go to the bathroom and cry,” said Logan, who lives on the DeKalb side of Snellville.
“I was miserable.”
Nearly four years ago, misery compelled her to take a six-week course on career changes. The facilitator took a special interest in Logan and, seeing her personality, suggested she become a life coach.
At the time, “Starting Over,” the reality TV show in which life coaches help a group of women change their lives, was hot.
But TV didn’t inspire Logan to enroll in the Life Purpose Institute near La Jolla, Calif., and get certified in life coaching and career coaching. The Harris County native said she’s been coaching all her life, offering honest, not hurtful, guidance to friends and family.
So with training and certification, a hobby simply became a full-time, flexible profession here in metro Atlanta where the idea of having a life coach is becoming more popular.
On Wednesday, the Badie Tour observed Logan at work at the Serenity Lakes Wellness Center, a facility off Club Drive in Lawrenceville. It offers alternative programs, practices and classes to improve health and well being.
Logan conducts workshops and sees clients there, though most of her coaching sessions take place over the phone. She has clients in cities across the country. With a typical three-month contract, you converse 12 times for an hour each. If you do it in person, it’s $400 a month; by telephone, it’s $300.
What kind of person employs a life coach?
Well, they typically are ambitious, spiritual, creative, entrepreneurial folk. They are bent on moving forward, not looking back, but don’t know how to get there. That’s why they hire life coaches, not psychologists and psychiatrists, said Logan, a Western Michigan University grad.
“They want more out of life than the average person. Some are just starting out. Some are trying to find out what their life purpose is. They are geniuses. They just don’t know it.”
Meet Kimberly Watson, 24.
She owns Studio 23, a salon off U.S. 78 in Snellville. The number “23” represents her age when she started the year-old business. Now, she wants to take it to the next level, grow it.
And for that, she has turned to Logan.
Stylist and coach talk in a room with tempered lighting and tonal colors. Logan helps Watson define what it is she does and why she does it, by asking lots of questions.
Why are you passionate about hair? What can your salon offer that others can’t?
“I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how to put it into words,” Watson said.
Finally, after more talking, Watson gives suitable responses, clarity, to help grow Studio 23.
This exchange lasts for an hour, and when Watson leaves, she has homework. Draft a catchy slogan that defines her business, and research professional organizations and databases representative of the clientele she wants to serve.
And when she does that, she’ll take one more step to her dreams and desires.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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How soon we forget after tragedies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The West Ambler-Johnston Hall was an all-girls dorm when Lee Loving attended Virginia Tech.
Now it’s coed.
Loving found that out Monday as he watched TV coverage of the massacre at his alma mater. He didn’t know what had happened until a co-worker shipped him an e-mail around 1 p.m.
“I didn’t have the TV on,” said Loving, a 1977 Tech grad who majored in finance and insurance.
Now, it’s hard to turn it off. For Loving, and many of us.
This is a familiar script. We know our cues, what roles to play. And we play them well, on autopilot.
A tragedy — and in the case of Virginia Tech, the word is apropos — takes place. The media exhaust nearly every obvious angle then create a few. This tragedy carries an irresistible headline: “Deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.”
Tech-savvy college students post comments on blogs, Web sites and Face book. Those who were caught in the midst of the chaos send text messages or call news outlets to share stories. Talking heads and experts offer up instant political and personal analyses.
Elected officials (President Bush) and aspiring politicians (U.S. Sen. Barack Obama) send their condolences. Vigils, memorial services and convocations take place. Thousands attend. They light candles, sign sympathy boards, cry, pray, stare silently. Wonder.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this. My question, though, is this:
What do we change, collectively and individually, in the weeks, months and years after the credits run for this two-hour rampage?
What do we do to help erase, even remotely, the chance of something like this happening again?
“We get back to life too soon,” said Robert Pulley, a Norcross waiter who graduated with a psychology degree from Virginia Tech in 1995. “For the families of the victims, it will be with them forever. For the rest of us, we respect their mourning and loss, but we get back to life very soon.
“You take five minutes out, catch your breath and move on. I know I have to work tomorrow.”
Pulley doesn’t mean to be callous. He’s just calling it like he sees it, the way we are.
After Sept. 11, displaying a U.S. flag became the “in thing.” You couldn’t drive down a road in Gwinnett without seeing them pasted on vehicles. I often wondered whether the drivers lived a life that embodied the spirit of the Stars and Stripes.
Look at cars on the road today. Those flags, generally, have long lost their luster. And they haven’t been replaced. Symbolic outrage one minute. Indifference the next.
Ultimately, Cho Seung-Hui, the alleged gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre, is responsible for his actions. Nobody else is.
But disturbed individuals like him are still our problem, and we ought to reach out. Talk to them, or at least talk to somebody who can help. Exhibit goodwill.
That’s not us, though. Seldom do we get involved. We shy away from troubled people, even when we live among them.
Not all snap, arm themselves with weaponry and go hunting for humans.
It can happen, though.
We saw it at Columbine High. We saw it at the University of Texas at Austin.
And we saw it Monday.
“If there is ever a time that the school will pull together, it’s now,” Loving, the Virginia Tech grad who lives in Snellville, told me.
“Hopefully, students will reach out even more to those who they see shunning themselves from others. Maybe they will be more sensitive.”
We all should be.
Rick Badie’s column usually appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Subtle signs may point to autism in child
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He didn’t play with the other kids in preschool.
He only drinks milk, and doesn’t eat any meat or vegetables.
Initially, friends and family told Laura Jaynes not to worry about Kyle, her 4-year-old.
They’d explain away his atypical behavior and delayed developmental milestones.
He’s just a picky eater, they’d say. He probably has sensory issues that will work themselves out with time, they’d reason. He’s just a boy — slower at developing than girls, they’d suggest.
But in her heart, like most moms, Laura Jaynes knew something wasn’t right, that there was an abnormality to the way he played, learned, spoke and acted.
Last year, a clearer picture emerged. Kyle attended a two-day preschool program at McKendree United Methodist Church. His teacher told Jaynes that he was withdrawn and didn’t play with others. And he was enamored by a stained-glass window.
A school specialist observed Kyle in class. That led to further testing at the T. Carl Buice Center, a pre-k center in Sugar Hill. They didn’t make a medical diagnosis, but specialists at the center told the Jayneses that Kyle exhibited characteristics of a form of autism, a brain disorder.
“I look back now and, though I knew something wasn’t right, I never thought autism,” said Jaynes, a married mother of two in Lawrenceville.
“My only point of reference was ‘Rainman.’ “
Jaynes has since educated herself about the developmental disability. Now, she encourages parents to look for red flags or subtler signs that may suggest mild, moderate or severe symptoms of the disorder.
The earlier the intervention, the better, Jaynes said.
“The longer you wait, the harder it is,” she told me. “Had I not put him in preschool. …”
Autism, says the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is more common than people realize. The agency’s research has shown that about 1 in 150 children have the disorder.
April is Autism Awareness Month, but Jaynes contacted me about May. She wants Gwinnettians to take part in the Georgia Walk for Autism, set for May 19 at Atlantic Station. The event, one of 60 nationwide, will benefit efforts in research and treatment by Autism Speaks, a national organization, and the Marcus Institute, an affiliate of Emory University.
Jaynes has culled together a team called “Miles for Kyles.” Its goal: To raise $10,000 in pledge money.
You don’t have to join Jaynes’ team. Organize your own. Show up May 19 with your walking shoes on for the 3-mile trek at Atlantic Station.
Since August, Kyle has attended a special-needs preschool program at Walnut Grove Elementary in Lawrenceville. Changes, though subtle, have been for the better. He may stay in the program one more year, then move to a regular kindergarten classroom.
“He’s got autism,” Jaynes told me.
“But he’s smart.”
For more information about the Georgia Walk for Autism, visit www.autismwalk.org.
— Rick Badie’s column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Honoring Erica with Locks of Love event
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I wish I had hair.
Enough to whip into, say, a 10-inch braid.
Just wishful thinking on my part.
But if you’re unlike me and can grow hair, you can also help kids.
Remember Erica Paige Whitney?
She was the rising fifth-grader at Mountain Park Elementary who was killed in a car wreck last summer just south of Augusta. She and her family were returning home to Lilburn from Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Her favorite charity was Locks of Love, a nonprofit that provides wigs and hairpieces to kids who lose hair due to medical conditions. The A-B student was preparing to donate locks to the charity for the second time when she died.
In her honor, family and friends are hosting “Chops for Locks — Remembering Erica 2007.” The hair-cutting affair takes place from 1 to 7 p.m. May 14 at Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville. The individually packed bundles and donations will be sent to Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla.
Your trim won’t cost a dime. Stylists from the Taylor Brooks Salon & Spa in Alpharetta have donated their services.
Erica’s family — mom Wendy Stoner and sisters, Emma Stoner, 3, and Gracie Whitney, 7 — plan to have their hair snipped. They hope you join them.
“Doing this has been in the back of our minds since the accident,” Wendy Stoner told me.
“We’re really excited.”
Erica’s family has been given permission to use the name and logo of Locks of Love. The 10-year-old organization, which provides the $3,500 to $6,000 pieces on a sliding scale, has helped more than 2,000 children obtain the custom-fitted hair prosthetics.
“It’s a beautiful way to remember Erica,” said Pia McCarthy, the nonprofit’s volunteer coordinator.
Here’s the skinny on donating. Hair clippings must be a minimum of 10 inches. Tresses can’t be bleached or permed. Colored locks are fine. Men and women may donate. Hair that can’t be blended into a wig will be sold on the market, a standard practice of the nonprofit.
Erica’s mom hopes to keep the stylists busy, and asks that participants preregister.
“We hope to do about 28 to 40 haircuts an hour,” she said.
It’s been tough going for Wendy Stoner and the kids since Erica’s death. She praises the church, relatives and friends for being a rock to lean on.
“It’s been hard,” she said. “but we’ve done good, and May is going to be great.”
Besides the hair-cutting celebration, other events to honor Erica include: A brick dedication May 12 at Mountain Park Park, where she played sports and a Girl Scouts’ fashion show on May 5 at Mountain Park United Methodist Church.
And May 10 is Erica’s birthday. She would have turned 11.
Help children. It’s what Erica would have wanted.
For more information or to assist with “Chops For Locks,” contact Wendy Stoner at 770-978-1449 or visit www.rememberingerica.homestead.com/; www.locksoflove.org.
• Rick Badie’s column runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Getting to the root of the “nappy-headed” issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It seems as if everybody’s talking again about racism and sexism.
Thank Don Imus.
I won’t repeat what the shock jock said about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University. Surely, you know.
But today’s column will touch on a term he used in an errant attempt at humor.
“Nappy-headed,” is how Imus described the athletes. I don’t know how much Imus knows about black hair, its history. I’ll assume very little. His intent wasn’t to uplift.
To get to the root of the hair issue, the Badie Tour stopped by the Heavenly Touch Beauty Hut in Lawrenceville. It’s a boutique that caters to black women, but can style all types of hair.
Behind the receptionist’s station hangs a framed print of four black women modeling different hairstyles. Cornrows. Braids. A short, crimp cut with highlights; and a curly texturized style.
Not a “nappy” head in the bunch.
“Our hair isn’t ‘nappy,’ ” said Marcelle Johnson, a hair stylist with years of experience. “It’s tight, natural curls. When we get the curls out we can go straight, long, spiky, colored or wear it pinned up.
“We wear our hair as art.”
It’s taken generations to get to this point, though. And some still fight the hair battle, beat themselves up, weigh what’s deemed a good, bad or medium grade of hair.
Blacks and hair have endured a love-hate relationship, one steeped with history, identity and race. It’s damaged self-esteem and led to drastic measures to acquire a more “mainstream” European look. Back in the day, a harsh lye was used to unkink the curls, straighten out the locks.
Hair is such a defining issue among blacks that numerous books and articles are devoted to it. Some focus on proper care and treatment. Others turn what’s mostly thought of as a negative term into something culturally positive.
For example, there are several books that teach black kids to love their various hair types, to understand where beauty comes from. Within.
For the record, I shave my head. I like the look, the way it feels.
Hair, in many ways, defines women.
Halle Berry, the black actress, is set to play a role in a romantic comedy tentatively set to come out next year. Her character shaves her hair because it’s falling out. Berry plans to shave her real hair in the film. In an interview with Reuters, she admitted that she still struggles with the hair issue.
“I’m going to get the lesson on film, and hopefully other women will get it, too.”
Today’s black women, notes Johnson, are beginning to. While they have a variety of hairstyles to choose from, more wear their tresses naturally.
Black hair care products is a billion-dollar industry. The quality of the products has drastically improved over the years.
“There is a greater variety of products on the market that carry the ingredients our hair needs, like shea butter,” Johnson said. “Our hair has a tendency to be dry, so we need to add moisturizers and oils.”
Joyce Mtabo of Lawrenceville has been a customer of Johnson’s for four years, back when the Grenada native had her shop off Satellite Boulevard.
She’s good,” Mtabo told me Wednesday. “It’s money well spent.”
When Mtabo leaves, I notice a sign on Johnson’s door.
“Have a blessed day.”
And to all, a good hair day.
Imus too.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Book club has become a fantastic adventure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He needed to write a book report for class.
Selecting the book was the easy part. After all, Cayman Walter Howard, 12, had just completed “The Sea of Trolls,” the national acclaimed best-seller by Nancy Farmer.
And that makes me feel good.
Howard is a sixth-grader at Berean Christian Academy in Atlanta. He’s also a member of a boys book club that I started late last year.
The young men recently completed “The Sea of Trolls,” their follow-up to “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” the first book the club read. The book’s a textured, but fun, Harry Potterish fantasy that clocks in at more than 200 pages.
They started reading it about three months ago. With school, sports, church and all the other activities the gang’s involved in, we set a flexible deadline.
No rush. No worries. More fun.
Community interest in the club continues. A reader whom I only know as “Diane” has dropped off two bags of Webster’s New World dictionaries. She and some friends like the idea of a club so much that they ponied up the cash for them. How inspiring.
Rae Mason of Norcross has knitted bookmarks for each of the club members. She also has made a standing offer to craft more if needed, and I might have to take her up on that.
Right now, we have 14 members and have had as many as 15. One of the kids, Courtney Pouncy, a sixth-grader at Trickum Middle School, moved with his parents to Ohio. His mom got a job transfer.
The remaining kids, who range in age from 9 to 14, represent different areas of metro Atlanta. Most are Gwinnettians, but some boys are from Atlanta, Douglasville and Decatur.
Membership can’t help but climb. Parents are always asking about the club. Shannette Dennis, has kept in touch via e-mail to make sure I didn’t forget to tell her the title of the third book that the boys will read. She wants her son, Samiy McCuff, an eighth-grader at McConnell Middle School in Loganville, to join us.
And of course, he can.
We took our sweet time reading “The Sea of Trolls,” a Scandinavian folkloric tale with dragons, trolls, spiders and beasts. It’s a novel about Jack, an 11-year-old farm boy who gets rebuked by his religious father. The village bard asks if Jack can be his apprentice. Jack barely starts his apprenticeship when he and his sister, Lucy, are captured by a ship of marauders.
A perfect story, Howard said, for a one-page book report.
“I just liked the adventure that Jack, the boy, had,” he told me.
“And the monsters.”
What started out as a club about reading has grown into something grander than literacy. We’ve only met a few times, but some of the boys have formed a camaraderie that’s hard to mistake. My son, Miles, and I played hoops one weekend with Chris Gordon, who lives in Lawrenceville. Several readers have offered to help in any way possible.
This weekend, if the weather permits, the club plans to hook up for burgers, franks and discussion Saturday afternoon in Lilburn Park. We’ll talk about “The Sea of Trolls” for a spell, eat, and maybe toss a football or Frisbee around. We’ll also decide what book to read next.
See, our adventure as a club is just beginning.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour: March 11
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Nappy-headed hos.” That’s the term national radio host Don Imus used on air last week to describe the mostly black Rutgers University women’s basketball team. On Wednesday, Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, gets to the root of the remark by hanging out at Heavenly Touch Beauty Hut, a salon in Lawrenceville that caters to black women. Read about the Badie Tour, in print and online, in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News.
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Devoted mom tried to give kids a loving home of their own
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She kept bags of oats and flour at home. Sandra S. Schroeder liked to bake bread for her family. Fresh, healthy meals were her forte. “There wasn’t a can of cream of mushroom soup in the house,” said Stephanie Schroeder, a daughter-in-law who lives in Lawrenceville. Sandra Schaffer married Daniel Lynn Schroeder nearly four decades ago. He was 20. She was 19. Early on, the couple concocted a plan. They would have kids by the time they were 30 or so. They’d raise them prim and proper, and send them on their adult way. Then, the couple, empty nesters, would enjoy life. Like any good plan, though, changes arise. The couple, Indiana natives who moved to Lilburn after years of mission work, did indeed have kids. They’re grown up now — Ben, 28; Leah, 26; and Christy, 22. They didn’t stop there, though. Through the years, the Schroeders adopted six other children. Their family looks like the United Nations, a rainbow coalition. Laura, 13, hails from Ecuador. Peter, 12, is from South Korea. The other four kids, all black, came from domestic adoptions: Eli, 7; Emma, 7; Sam, 6; and Katy, 5. My wife and I have two kids. Seems like we’re always on the go, doing something domestic — laundry, sweeping, mopping and cooking. Imagine a household with six kids, all those clothes to wash and meals to prepare. And to top it all off, Sandra Schroeder home schooled all but one of the adopted brood. Peter, who’s autistic, attends school. Stephanie Schroeder is married to Ben, the oldest biological child. Their son, Scott, seven months old, is one of two grandsons that Sandra Schroeder doted over. Stephanie Schroeder visited her mother-in-law often. She saw what the woman put into the job, what it demanded. “To say that she was a full-time homemaker, mother, and wife doesn’t seem sufficient,” she told me. “The first word I think of is sheer love.” Bruce Bliss is the associate pastor at Lilburn Alliance, Daniel and Sandra Schroeder’s church. He told me about a conversation he had with Daniel. The electrical engineer told the pastor that the couple always sensed a higher power directed them with each addition to the family. “They see this as their mission, the reason God put them here,” he said. And plans were in the works to oblige once again. A week ago today, Sandra Schroeder was a passenger in a Toyota Corolla that was traveling south on Five Forks Trickum Road. Police say the driver of the Toyota ran off the road to avoid hitting another car, lost control and entered the northbound lane hitting a Dodge Caravan. Schroeder, 51, was transported to Gwinnett Medical Center. On Monday, she died from her injuries. A memorial service was held Thursday at Lilburn Alliance Church. Across the planet, thousands of kids would love to live in a home where mom bakes bread. In Lilburn, there’s a blended family that was in the process of trying to do just that for at least two more children. • Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Singing a new tune
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The car stopped several feet from the stop sign. The driver stuck her head out the window.
“Excuse me,” she yelled from across the street in downtown Lilburn.
“Y’all know who the mayor is?”
I pointed to Jack Bolton, who was standing next to me on Main Street. He, after all, is Lilburn’s mayor. And this woman could have been a nut. Things could have turned nasty real quick.
The woman, Robin Stinson, backed up and parked. She strolled over to us and asked hizzoner a question similar to several I’d asked when he and I chatted in City Hall:
“Why are you banning karaoke?”
Some deep background is in order.
Nearly 20 years ago, some officials in this former railroad town wanted residents to OK the sale of cocktails in restaurants. As a selling point, they drafted a measure that prohibits entertainment inside the city’s 6.5 square miles. It allowed liquor licenses only for businesses in which 50 percent of sales come from food.
The law’s been on the books ever since. It didn’t become a problem till February, when city officials decided to aggressively enforce it. By then, though, karaoke and other forms of entertainment had become popular at places like the Sports Fan & Grill, located off Lawrenceville Highway in a building that used to house an all-you-can-eat Chinese joint.
Of course, karaoke fans and business owners cried foul. Lilburn became the butt of jokes in Georgia and across the nation. Easy to see why.
Ban karaoke?
Nonsense.
The e-mails of outrage have ceased, but they initially poured in from Chicago, Los Angeles, Augusta and Savannah. Like Stinson, they wanted to talk to the mayor of a town that prohibits singing in bars. Lilburn became known as the town that limits fun.
“All they heard was that Lilburn banned karaoke,” said Bolton, 58, a former Lilburn councilman in his first term as mayor.
Bolton only agreed to let the Badie Tour stop by Wednesday if we didn’t poke fun. I agreed because it’s easy to make people look stupid and backward. Unfortunately, the uproar (and jokes) about a karaoke ban totally usurped the city’s original intent of having alcohol in restaurants but keeping bars out of the city limits, which would have made a lot more sense to many.
Too bad it wouldn’t have been as sexy and alarming as a karaoke ban.
Lilburn epitomizes a true bedroom community. It’s 70 percent residential and 30 percent commercial. Town leaders and apparently a majority of residents don’t want their main drag, the heartbeat of town, turned into Bar Row.
That’s their business.
If you don’t live in the city limits, pay taxes and vote, you have no dog in this fight. Be quiet. Go somewhere else and sing.
“All the market studies say we have a surplus of retail space on Lawrenceville Highway,” Bolton told me. “We have to be real careful. We don’t want bars up and down Lawrenceville Highway.”
Hindsight is like a plug nickel. But the outcry and media attention have caused Bolton to have a revelation about the handling of the situation.
The city, he acknowledged, should have been serious all along about enforcing the alcohol ordinance. He and other officials could have done a better job, too, explaining their intent before the story grew legs, before Lilburn became a news clip about small-town stupidity.
Even Bolton’s wife didn’t understand what the city was doing at first.
“It took a while,” Bolton said.
Stinson, the woman who wanted to speak to the mayor, understood the issue better after Bolton told her about the decades-old ordinance, the crackdown on violators, and that the city didn’t license bars.
She didn’t agree, though, and told Bolton so.
“That was then. This is now,” said Stinson, who recently moved into a house she owns near downtown Lilburn.
“Why not change an antiquated law?”
That might happen in some fashion. After all, there’s no law that prohibits karaoke. Only bars.
“Do we need to change our ordinance? Perhaps,” Bolton said. “Maybe we need one for restaurants and one that addresses entertainment. We’re talking to our attorney about it.
“But it won’t be done in a knee-jerk reaction.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Leadership program worth a few hectic Saturdays
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She moved here for the same reason thousands of others do: Gwinnett schools.
Laura Nero has three children. Josiah Moore, the oldest at 14, enters high school this fall.
“I wanted him to be in a rigorous program,” said Nero, who moved from DeKalb County to Lawrenceville several months ago.
Nero was learning about her new community and looking for ways to get involved when she came across an ad for the Gwinnett Neighborhood Leadership Institute. The eight-month program was established by the Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services in 1994.
She called Rachael Shaikun Holder, the institute’s program coordinator, to learn more, and eventually signed up for the class of 2006-07.
“It was a smooth application process, so that grasped my interest even more so,” said Nero, an information technology professional. “It seemed like a great program.”
The training, open to anyone older than 18, includes an orientation and weekend retreat. Then, seven classes are held once a month, on Saturdays. A variety of topics are covered, including education and criminal justice.
The heart of the program revolves around community service. Participants must design and implement a project.
Nero and classmates Gladys Harris, Travis Gatson and Charles Lucas launched Gwinnett YET (Youth Empowerment Team). It helps youth in the Meadowcreek school cluster to realize their potential, to stay focused, excel.
On Jan. 27, YET held its inaugural event at Meadowcreek High. It was night hoops, but the 9- to 17-year-old teens did more than dribble and shoot. Sessions focused on computer literacy, job training, life skills. A similar event will be held sometime this summer.
“We want to keep it rolling,” Nero told me, “but right now there’s lots of recreational and youth league programs going on. A lot of people have volunteered. It’s good to know people care about our kids, and want to see something positive come out of our youth.”
Nero praises the institute for the training she and 16 other students gained for projects that dealt with everything from diversity to recognition of senior citizens. She encourages others to apply, but forewarns: It’s not a commitment to take lightly.
“Those Saturdays pop up very quickly,” she said. “Initially, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it requires dedication, especially when you’re working on a project. We scrambled a little at the end.”
They scrambled and succeeded. A March 18 graduation ceremony was held for the 17 students.
Now, applications are being accepted for the 2007-2008 class, which starts in August. Application deadline is July 15. There’s a $500 participation fee, which covers material costs, and some scholarships are available. You could get someone to sponsor you, too.
Sign up.
You may come away from the experience like Nero.
“For me, it was good,” she said. “The project gave us all an opportunity to give back.”
Learn more about the Gwinnett Neighborhood Leadership Institute at 770-995-3339. Online: www.gnli.org.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875.
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Square dancing a nicer option
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Everybody keeps talking about the Big Dance down in the Big City this weekend.
Well, just the other night, I attended a Big Dance right here in the Big Burbs. It took place Thursday night at Nesbit Elementary, the Gwinnett school with the DeKalb address. It’s in Tucker.
Kids, parents and teachers packed the gymnasium. There had to be 300 people on hand. The sound system blared no rock, rap or rhythm and blues. No deejay was mixing.
This was a square dance. Kids were decked out in Western wear. From ear to ear they grinned, even my son. Earlier, Miles had said he’d have no part of it. A young mind can change quickly. There he was, arm to arm with his partner.
Typically at dances for this age level, boys gather on one side of the room, girls camp out on the other. No interaction.
And given the pap that poses as pop culture, that could be a good thing. Raunchiness rules. Rita Buchanan, Nesbit’s music teacher, wanted her 1,400 or so students to dance, but she didn’t want them to mimic the bumping and grinding common among older teens.
So she introduced the kids to square dancing.
“I wanted them to dance in an unraunchy way,” she told me. “Square dancing teaches that. The kids were very receptive.”
How nice to see a school host an event that allows the sexes to mingle on the dance floor wholesomely, like young ladies and men.
Ashley Foster thought so, too. She’s the events coordinator for Grand Square Inc., a Charlotte nonprofit that promotes square dancing and publishes Square Dance Today magazine.
She gave me a little history lesson on the dance. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal called for square dancing programs. More than a dozen U.S. presidents were square dancers, and 21 states, including Georgia, have adopted some form of it as their state folk dance.
Back in the day, square dancing was taught in P.E. or the fine arts programs of American public schools. As those programs have practically vanished, so has the introduction of square dancing to kids.
“Square dancers are getting older, not younger,” Foster told me. “We encourage people of all ages to try it. It’s a great social activity.”
At Nesbit, there may be some converts.
“It’s fun,” said fourth-grader Siera Battiste. “I like dancing.”
Georgie Williams, Siera’s grandmother, had a blast at the dance. “She told me what she was learning, and I said, ‘Go for it,’” she said.
“The teachers here are wonderful.”
Of course, square dancing, for many of the Nesbit kids, is a work in progress. The Big Dance was noisy, chaotic, fun.
Some students swung to the left when they should have shifted to the right. A few boys neglected to bow to their honorable ladies as instructed by the caller on the recording. In class, things were a lot more orderly, Buchanan said.
“They learned a lot,” she said. “I’m sold on square dancing.”
Easy to see why.
&madash; Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour: April 4
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He’s the man who banned karaoke. It’s Lilburn Mayor Jack Bolton. On Wednesday, Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, drops by Lilburn City Hall to chat with hizzoner. Read about the Badie Tour, online and in print, in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News.
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