My opinion: Craig Allen

It’s going to be hard to leave Cobb County, but the time is near. The pluses outweigh the minuses here. Travel to any part of the county and you’ll find people who are trying to better their community.

This place is not defined by one idea or thought. Residents are generally conservative but believe in local government – as long as that government is operating well.

Some criticize, as I have on occasion, that our green space is disappearing in Cobb. But, add up the acreage we have in the parks system, and that amount of land exceeds New York’s Central Park.

We have too much traffic, but we are building better roads, wider roads, turn lanes, smarter signaling. It’s happening, if you believe the signs along the road, with our SPLOST dollars at work.

Schools are trying to get better. Lord knows we have had a recession the last few years where everyone has felt the pain. There is not enough money to go around. Someone’s working on it. Those someones are hardworking elected officials and non-elected officials.

Our kids – across the county – still try and get into the best colleges, if that’s what they want. The parents see to it that extracurricular activities are adequately taken care of, that their child is well-rounded, fits in, is even talked about among their friends as up and coming, as standouts, or not.

We can hope that the kids will always consider Cobb their home, as I do. It will be difficult to leave.

I didn’t start out wanting to write occasional columns for a newspaper. I started out, really, as an Army draftee, then a college student on the GI Bill at the University of Alabama, then in the Army again, and then out. Federal service, like my dad who was a photojournalist with NASA, is where I ended up.

Cobb County has more stories than a community columnist could ever write about. That’s okay, because this paper covers community news well, and not just Cobb of course. I read all about it, you read all about it. Open up the paper each day, or pull it up online, and you’ll find out what’s going on.

For me, that happens anywhere I’m at, and you probably do it too. You’re in a strange town on travel. You spend the night and what do you buy? The local paper. There you’ll find all you need to know about what’s going on that day or week. It’s community news you can use, right?

It’s no different where I’m going when I retire, and that will be soon. The big news in Cherokee County, N.C., is that a new casino is being built. Cobb residents who want to have the casino experience will soon be able to drive just a couple of hours north to Murphy.

It’s where our home is. The only property we own now. It’s quiet, we’re ready, and we will miss you.