Echo Columns

I really hated my Shakespeare class in college. I had hoped I would gain some appreciation for the “Bard” but it was so boring! Yet, I reached for a quote to use today and, lo and behold, up pops the above phrase from Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare was asking a question that has come to haunt me in my adult years. He wanted to know does the name make the man (or woman as in my case).

Names do come with connotations for most of us. The recent phenomenon of giving boys or non-sex names to girls recognizes that Jane Doe is obviously female but Madison Doe could be a guy. Parents frequently do this to give their “girls” an edge in today’s still male-dominated world.

Here in the South we still call grown men by kid’s names, Tommy, Billy, Jimmy. Washington never got used to “our” Jimmy Carter. It was, for many, a way of subtly being able to put down a president even though this southern practice is not intended to mark an individual.

When I met my husband, Tommy, I figured I would change that cute little name to Tom or Thomas. I ran into an immediate problem. He isn’t a Tom or a Thomas to me. He is a Tommy—you know, that cute little freckle-faced kid from down the block.. Something that is an endearment for me is what everyone calls him.

Growing up as a Delia in Gainesville in the 50’s and 60’s was fraught with name problems for me. First, because there were no connotations to my name. There wasn’t anyone I ever met there who had my name. In fact, I met my first other Delia at age 20 in college. I have met very few since then.

I did occasionally see my name in print: the Irish maid in so many stories from years ago was so frequently named Delia. A maid! Not the heroine, not the story’s main character, a maid, for heaven’s sake. My family name from my Irish great-grandmother is the maid? Oh, dear. What is in a name?

Additionally, I was the subject of 2 hit songs back in the early 60’s. (Waylen Jennings sang about “my” murder in “Delia’s Gone”.) Then in the 70’s or 80’s a soap opera character was christened Delia. I didn’t even check to see what they had done to me that time.

My teachers couldn’t pronounce me name correctly (I was too shy to teach them how to pronounce it). The other kids used my name as a taunt. Perhaps my distress at the mispronunciation was more evident than I realized!

My name is always being misspelled. I get called Debra or Delilah or Julia or Belia in writing or out loud. (My handwriting probably doesn’t help this process.)

Once I started my own business back in the 80’s, I decided to use that uniqueness to my advantage and to teach the world how to pronounce and spell my name. “I will take this opportunity teach the world! I will become pronounceable, spellable!” I constantly was spelling my name anew to customers, vendors, sales people. Constantly, they were apologizing for mangling the pronunciation. I have received uncountable apologies, more than enough to make up for the teachers’ and children’s misuse of my name.

But, now, the unthinkable has happened. It started a few years ago. Somebody named a company Delia’s. This company sells clothing and such to pre-teens and others of tender age. Type “my” name in a internet search and this company hogs the scene!

Then a specific author rose to some prominence, Delia Ephron, sister of Nora Ephron, movie director. Nora brought us You’ve Got Mail and has helped to bring her sister to wider acclaim.

Now you say that’s not much. How could this be problematic for me? Well, all of a sudden every author in the world has decided to include a Delia in their opus. I do read voraciously but now I can check out 10 books and find my name in 2 or 3!

Recently while reading Augusta Trobaugh’s newest book, Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb, “my” name popped up. I thought, “How flattering! She remembered me from UGA graduate school and decided I needed immortalizing!” Oops, her Delia was some rather irritating fat woman.

Now for those of you who are accustomed to seeing “your” names in print, you cannot fathom how truly disconcerting and upsetting this is for me. For most of my life, my name virtually did not appear in print. If Delia was mentioned, it was me someone was talking about me, like in a newspaper article. I was important, unique and fortunate to have something different. My own name.

As always, I read along, enjoy my fiction, my escapism. But now, I am getting jolted out of my fantasy, my stories. Hey, my name again! Hey, what does this mean about me? I’m not the Irish maid any longer. I’m not so unique. My lifelong self-assumed identity doesn’t work anymore.

I’m just Delia, one of many fictional characters who exist only in other authors’ imaginations; for you see, I still rarely meet other Delias. People are only beginning to name their children with my name. It remains a more common name for my great-grandparents’ and my grandparents’ generations.

Well, I guess it’s a step up, from total obscurity to a type of infamy. Today I am only a figment of someone else’s imagination!

I, like so many others, kept saying I would be glad when the election was over and things could get back to normal. Oops.

Normal, you know, like no more election news? In the middle of all this weirdness (electile dysfunction and no, I didn’t make that up), my life has suddenly ratcheted up into high gear.

Before the election I would decide the night before what I would be doing the next day. I did start using Microsoft Outlook as an organizer and appointment notifier so I would remember my once or twice a week duties, appointments and bill due dates. Without the structure of a full time job, I find I forget what day it is on a regular basis.

But, now! Some pending things have moved to the “got to do” column, other things have gotten busier, meetings are turning up more regularly and life is so much more full than before the election.

Such as appointments: The medical stuff has taken on a faster pace now. After bouncing from let’s try this, to no diagnosis, to medical test, to no diagnosis, to possible diagnosis, to wrong diagnosis, to wait maybe we were right the first time diagnosis and now to let me find someone for you and to my PCP (principal care provider for you non-HMO folks) saying he’ll give me a referral to whomever and wherever I want to go, I’ve now added whiplash to my list of complaints! When somebody finally stops calling me Miss MM (medical mystery), I will have plenty of background for an in-depth look at the state of our medical system. I promise it will be hysterically funny.

In the meantime, appointments, questions to the HMO about appointments and doctors, and calling the HMO to get them to pay whomever for whatever is a time-consuming and frustrating set of vignettes that occur and reoccur.

Add in the part time jobs; the printer, the paper, the planning commission and my so-far failed attempt at substitute teaching (I’m always busy!) takes up another chunk of time.

And I’m trying to weatherproof the house before it gets really cold—I’m never going to finish painting the last window I re-glazed some weeks ago.

Pending became reality with our karate school move now in motion. New digs are found because the old building will become just as much dust as the Waffle House next door that’s already been gone for several weeks. Don’t believe every thing you read, guys; the Waffle House claimed to be closing the Broad St. restaurant due to low sales. St. Mary’s offered them, and our landlord, enough money to shut down. Here comes a new nursing home entrance; bye-bye buildings.

So now I’m renovating new commercial space—actually, mainly planning renovation of new space so that volunteers can easily find tasks to complete when they have time. Planning is much harder than doing it.

Bits and pieces of web design work for several sites, housework (who me?), care and feeding of three attention-starved dogs, designing a t-shirt for screen printing involving copyright decisions, and ------ the holidays.

At least the organizer software is keeping me paying the bills on time, though being notified in a timely manner does require one to actually input the correct info into the computer first. (So I’m a little distracted—at least I did realize the Crawford City Council meeting was last week even though my organizer let me know yesterday that it is scheduled for this Thursday. Yeah, I know that was my fault. Didn’t matter. I had a conflict that prevented me from going anyway!)

I think I’ve got the appointment thing organized now. I don’t know how to avoid ending up at the wrong address though. Perhaps if I was to actually ask someone where their office actually is I wouldn’t have ended up sitting in an empty parking lot last Friday for 20 minutes before realizing I was at the wrong building Perhaps..

OK, there’s got to be a point to this discourse. I like to try to make at least one valid point if someone is going to take the time to read this. Then again since I woke at 6:00 am again this morning (I hate the time change), maybe I shouldn’t be required to be so purposeful. Maybe I should just go “catnap” with my willing canine partners or maybe I should finish at least one of the brochures sitting in front of me.

And then again, maybe I should schedule entire weeks at a time in my organizer….Oh, well, the couch and doggies await!

This has been the strangest Christmas season ever for me. I’ve just spent the last 6 weeks immersed in a commercial renovation for our karate school. When I wasn’t working there, I’ve spent my “free” time either sleeping or working for Greater Georgia Printers.

Yesterday was my first real day of leisure since early November—a brief hiatus in a now very busy Christmas schedule.

There’s been many a year when this wouldn’t be a problem and even would have been a major blessing because such activity helps to remove me from the Christmas scene and all its ramifications. I’ve spent so many Christmases in the past mired in depression (a result of growing up in an alcoholic home) that this year’s activity has really brought home how my life has changed.

It all started with a retail job. I took a minimum wage Christmas position at the Briar Patch in the mall back in the late 80’s. After I became manager some short months later, I knew that I had to work on my selling skills and overcame my reluctance to approach and/or speak to customers. Tied in with this is the fact that Christmas is the life blood of such a store. I found myself immersed in Christmas year round, planning, ordering, storing, displaying—well, it just never stopped.

And then at Christmas, for weeks I listened to Christmas music, sold Christmas items, and generally had to act like I liked it! Wow!

Soon I found that Christmas was not only tolerable but could also be fun. Once I moved to Crawford, we started a foreign (to me) tradition of having an annual Christmas party for our karate school. I found myself decorating the house on Thanksgiving to be ready for the party. I started having my family come for Christmas dinner—a new tradition to replace our family’s problem years. I found out what much of the rest of us already know—Christmas isn’t so bad!

And then this year. I’ve had no time for planning the Christmas party; my new house is too small and way to far out for a party; I have no neighbors to impress with Christmas decorations; I, in fact, still have paint cans and a messy porch as an entryway; and we don’t even have a dining room this year to have Christmas dinner in.

So I’ve worked instead. But we did have a Christmas party this year—at the new facility in town amidst the construction debris. My decorations were minimal but everyone was surprised and pleased that I managed that much.

We didn’t decide until the first week in December that we were going to have Christmas dinner here. Now I’ve got quite a few folks coming next week. I’ll have to move the living room furniture onto the back porch and set up folding tables in my living room but it’s going to happen.

I haven’t decorated yet. I haven’t cleaned yet. I haven’t even done all my Christmas shopping/gift prep yet. But there’s snow on the ground, a fire in the fireplace, and Christmas is coming. What a good feeling!

The word for 2001 is…COLD! I know that I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but we do have a little different take on that since this is our first full winter in our hundred year old house out in the middle of nowhere.

After our move during last year’s ice storm and freezing to death our first months in this old house, we have been thrilled to say that we have been warmer this year than last. We’ve caulked, hammered, reconstructed, re-glazed until the drafts have definitely become less noticeable.

We also have a working fireplace that we’ve kept going all through the holidays. I can’t say we’re warm: in fact, I’m wearing long johns and my ski boots all the time and Tommy is wearing a coat/vest and hat during his waking hours. BUT, we are definitely warmer than last year.

It has been such a relief—we’ve been dreading the cold this year. Reality set in, however, during the day on Dec. 30 when we realized the propane was running out—we may not even make it until they deliver more. It snuck up on us because it’s only been 10 days since we had the tank filled! Oh, dear!

Anyway, this cold weather has triggered some unusual instincts in me. I am not a domesticated lady. I let my husband go about cooking and cleaning while I tend to repairs and remodeling. It’s a great bargain for both of us, but in getting ready for Christmas, I kept gravitating toward the kitchen. Something told me to get cooking.

My family laughed at my apparent domesticity—homemade biscuits and bread along with the homemade pumpkin pie. It’s obviously been so long since I’ve done this kind of thing, no one remembers me cooking!

By this past weekend the call of the kitchen snared me but good. I ended up making turkey soup, pot pies and vegetable/deer soup. I got a freezer full now. (Boy, was I exhausted last night!) This morning I made whole wheat blueberry muffins and I’ve got plans to bake bread this afternoon. Eating those tasty muffins was such a gratification. Hearty food for the stomach leads to such a feeling of contentment—I made it with my own two hands, Ma!

And why was I driven to this? I’ve been wondering for days now. Could it be my experience in a 1890’s vintage house in Carlton with no heating system? It wasn’t a happy experience but I first started baking bread there. Could it be some primal urge to stock up on food since the heat is costing us every penny possible and more? Or could it be boredom, me being a housebound asthmatic? (that cold air is cruel on the lungs, folks)

Finally, this morning I made the connection. After a really cold night, the temp in the house was over 65 degrees for a change. (It’s usually around 60 and takes 2 to 3 hours to warm up to 65.) Ah, residual heat from all that cooking.

Now I’ve got plans for some 15 bean soup—gotta use up the Christmas ham. I wonder how much bread I can bake and freeze that we’ll actually be able to eat. Hmm, maybe I should start of list of folks who might benefit from all this kitchen activity.

Life in the country has brought some interesting surprises this past year. Me, cooking again. Whatta ya know?

In all of the adaptations we’ve had to make here in our country home, the most subtle one has affected our dogs. It’s subtle because its full import has taken this entire year to become obvious.

We have three dogs-city dogs, of course. The most citified is the little one, a six-pound toy with long hair. When we gained her from my son in late 1999, she wasn’t fond of investigating the back yard and her coat dictated frequent grooming. The other 2 dogs are actually hunting breeds, one, a beagle mix and the other, a golden retriever-basset hound mix (yes, I know that’s weird).

Once we moved out to the back of nowhere, the silence was wonderfully deafening at first. The dogs were quieter—there was less to bark at. No passing folks on foot, little motor traffic, no other dogs close by, no visitors to the door. I was thrilled but as time has gone on, they have adjusted and now find barking to be a great activity. Let one of us slam a door in the house or let the wind blow and all three dogs jump up ready to fend off intruders!

Other long dormant traits have made themselves known in the months since our move. One of the most shocking was what I call “the murder.” I had actually planned on writing a column about the incident without mentioning until the end that the perpetrator was a female dog, but along came the discovery of a body in the area and the subsequent arrest of a female suspect. Oh, well.

The tale involves an early morning altercation in the yard just after I let the dogs out. The noise was at first raucous and then I heard the high pitched shriek of what I thought might be one the hawks that dive bomb our yard rabbits. I looked outside and saw the big dog, the basset mix, hovering over something. Now you have to understand, Micky has the smallest brain and the largest heart of any dog either of us have ever owned. She hasn’t a mean bone in her body—she just wants to be loved

Well, my sweet, lovably dumb animal had a rabbit. It wasn’t dead so I removed it out of the pen in hopes it would hop away. It died.

I went back inside and immediately heard another outcry. Looking out again, I saw nothing. Later we found dead rabbit number 2, now sporting only 3 legs. I was astonished and slightly appalled.

My reaction was that of the usual response on TV to discovering one’s neighbor has been arrested: “She just couldn’t have done it, Mr. Reporter; she’s seemed to be such a nice person.” Micky has continued on being her sweet self and has never repeated her crime.

Just recently I discovered one of the reasons for the barking. I caught sight of a domesticated animal taunting our animals—my closest neighbor’s Maine coon cat. He was haughtily pacing in front of the pen. He must have been laughing at the foolishness of the idiot dogs barking away. He also sprayed my porch that week just under my living room windows. Whew! I like cats, but he better look out; I own a killer basset hound I could turn loose.

Our latest dog escapade has kept us amused and bemused for weeks now. The former owner of this house kept Labradors who have left us with man-sized holes. Our dogs, however, have never been diggers before now, so we have watched with great interest the sudden excavations taking place in our back yard.

Both the beagle and basset have dedicated much time and effort to tracking down whatever they thought was underneath the ground. We figured there was probably a mole or they were just bored and getting dumber. We’ve had to endure dirty noses, dirt clods between doggie toes and all the accompanying ick and litter involved. The beagle (smart alpha dog named Dusty) has been insisting on staying outside in all sorts of weather and she does like her creature comforts due to her arthritis.

Finally, she showed up at the door with a prize. We’ve had her bring in pecans and bury them and bones in the sofa or chair. This time she was waiting patiently to “bury” that which she would not eat—a mole! A very dead, cold, frozen mole. We relieved her of her prize immediately. The vet’s office tells me dogs and cats refuse to eat moles, that they aren’t considered palatable. Is that a relief? Danged if I know.

Hopefully, that is the end of the digging for this year. Hopefully, the crime level will remain low. Now, I just gotta figure out what to do about the little one, the princess, who has decided that the call of the wild (backyard) is the ultimate thrill and who keeps returning to the warmth and comfort of house and (our) bed, dragging smelly dirt and straw.

Oh, yes, we’re all adapting quite nicely to our country home. Does that mean I can revert to a simpler rusticity and quit housecleaning?

The good news is the medical establishment has come up with some answers for me and my neck/shoulder problem. One of the answers - steroid injections. And, yes, I am, at least for the moment, relatively pain free. The bad news is - the steroid injections.

The steroid side effects are many and have made my life very exciting recently…

So you know you're on steroids (and, therefore, no longer have use of your brain):

When physical labor for 12 hours straight is the only way to avoid a panic attack;

When that physical labor includes gardening without brains, gloves or skin protection (I don't see any poison ivy, do you?);

When the resulting case of poison ivy ends up requiring more steroids (oral) to prevent a full body breakout;

When the need to itch and the need to keep moving result in many weird, private gyrations;

When any waiting at a retail store is too much, leading to leaving and never accomplishing anything;

When you fall (literally) into the Chamber of Commerce meeting as if you were drunk;

And when time spent with a 13 year old and a 3 year old is absolutely the most fun you've had in months.

Once I get back to normal in a couple of weeks or so, then maybe Oglethorpe County will find out who I really am. I mean, I will get back to normal, won't I? Oh, dear, but what is the definition of normal any way?

The past 18 months have been a time for learning for me between my work with the newspaper, the planning commission, no full time job and living in the country. All of a sudden I've had enough revelations about living and life to write many columns!

First, I have to return to my recurrent theme-living in the country. Spring has sprung and the birds and bees (and all sorts of other beasties) have returned.

What I have realized recently is the inevitability of nature. I'm still fighting the weeds, honeysuckle, privet and poison ivy out in the yard. I am taming some of it but my last bout of poison ivy on my face and subsequent emergency use of oral steroids once again has definitely affected my approach to the yard. At this rate, I'll spend the next 40 years just trying to beat back the unwanted growth! So much for my idea of 2 acres of decorative garden.

The difference between city life and country life that truly has surprised me and upset some of my long-standing assumptions. For instance, one can get rid of mice and insects inside of a home.

Well, the mud daubers really enjoy our attic space and the outside eaves and crevices. They are too many to conquer. Removing the ceiling to the front porch only revealed the dozens of nests that I couldn't see before. Maybe by being able to see them, we can keep the numbers down. Yeah, right.

We've also gained some new flying pests on the back porch. Don't know what they are. They look kind of like wasps and they gather around a particular knot in the ceiling wood but don't seem to be building a nest. Wasp and hornet spray didn't seem to diminish their numbers or drive them away.

The carpenter bees have literally been driving me crazy. (Dumb me thought they were bumble bees and wasn't worrying about them.) The incessant drone from these creatures was getting on my nerves but the killing didn't start until I found holes in my front porch furniture. They haven't all gone away but at least the noise level has diminished.

We've got many mice. My beagle dog is a good ratter-she's quick to let me know when she's spotted one. One that we caught inside got loose and hid under the cedar wardrobe. My husband's effort to remove it put it within reach of the basset/golden retriever who had a blast playing with it - inside the house of course.

My husband's making a study of mouse trap improvement at this point. A truly macabre occupation I must say.

Occasionally even the birds can become somewhat of an irritation. Between the whippoorwill and the bobwhite it just plain gets noisy around here!!! I can't believe how loud they are. But it is nice to hear birdsong even if closing the window to hear the TV is sometimes necessary!

Another inevitable face of nature was the bird nest on the side porch. We tore down the old next when we moved in last winter. It was rebuilt.

We tore it down again. It was rebuilt. We tore it down again. Not only was it rebuilt this spring but this weekend my husband discovered several sets of eyes peering down at him. We initially counted 4 babies crowded into a tiny nest, but realized the next day there were actually 5 piled into the space. I took pictures of the totally immobile birdies and commented that they looked full grown. They didn't flinch through all the picture taking and our discussion. We literally got within a foot or so of them.

Today when he returned from an errand, my husband approached the porch to check on them and they all flew away.

I can't decide whether to leave the nest this year or not. We just keep making work for the mama bird when all she's trying to do is give us some more birdsong out here. I won't quit trying to protect that which is mine: nibbling rodents and dive bombing stingers just have to be controlled. Otherwise, I guess, we had just better relax and learn to live with our country neighbors!

Aaaah, nuts! Let's see: that could be an exclamation of disgust akin to "Rats!" or "Darn!" or it could be lovingly moaned upon receiving a gift of the same. Which one is it, you ask?

Well, at this point in the year I'm not sure which way I mean it! Even though this is the second fall for us out here on our 2 acre "homestead", it was the first for the pecans. We had noticed a slew of them on the ground when we moved in January of 2000 but they were small and we had better things to do that month getting settled in.

Last year we didn't see any which didn't seem unusual to this city girl. I've had pecan trees before but had never seen any nuts. I always figured they must need special spraying or city pollution was a killer.

Boy, was I wrong! I just counted recently and discovered we actually have 15 pecans of varying ages on our small plot and guess what? They all produced some nuts this year!

Now when I realized we were going to have a crop, I got really excited. I thought "Hey, why don't I put some easy effort into gathering nuts to give for Christmas presents? I got the time to fool with it."

I started taking long lunch breaks that accomplished 2 purposes: first, it got me outside and physically moving around (a good thing for this computer worker) and second, I could harvest "my crop".

Now, of course, I had more questions than answers when I first started this "harvesting". Like, how do I store them until I sell or crack them? And do I separate out the smaller ones? And do I need to clean off the hulls? And, and, and…

In a daze, I would daily search out those boogers. There's one there and there and there, oh, and under that bush and in that hollow. It was like a treasure hunt, a mesmerizing, captivating treasure hunt.

I started cleaning up the nuts, removing hulls and eventually separating sizes. As usual I didn't use gloves. I hate gloves because I always prefer actually touching in anything. I even stain wood without them.

Let me say that I will never clean pecans without gloves. My hands turned black and it didn't wash. Wood stain will at least wear off pretty quickly. I resorted to sticking my dark thumbs in bleach in order to lighten the color.

Gathering became a challenge. I would show those trees how smart, how industrious I was. THEY weren't going to allowed to keep those nuts. They were mine.

Days went by and less nuts were dropping every time I went out. But I could see the trees had plenty up there. Okay, now of course I know that commercial orchards shake the trees. So we got out there with implements: a hoe to catch the limb and shake it (exhausting and only works on the very low limbs), a hoe or pole to throw into the trees (getting the hoe stuck way above our heads was very irritating), the truck and ladder to raise us up to get to another 3 more limbs (not enough).

Not only that but the leaves fell, too. I swear to you I think mother nature plans such things to keep her own. Those dang nuts would invariably roll underneath the leaves even when there was a 4 foot square clean spot next to it!

So, I raked. I raked before the next shaking session. That helped. It was amazing how many nuts were hiding.

Then I realized that I should rake underneath the bushes as well. Yup, there were quite a few hiding where I hadn't even looked.
That led to another Aha! I had been planning to clear out those flower beds and prune those bushes anyway. I dug in. With gloves. In shorts.

Poison ivy. The third time this year. The good news is that I didn't have to resort to steroids like the first 2 times. I weathered it for three weeks and still show red marks over 6 weeks later. As boss Ralph said, you would think I would learn.
120 pounds of pecans and I was off to get them cracked. Actually, I was gonna have half cracked and sell half to pay for the cracking.

120 pounds cracked pecans later I found myself watching tv and cleaning up pecans. The dust was so bad that it aggravated my asthma and stopped up my nose badly. But I had an awful lot of pretty pecans. But way too much to give away as presents.

I bagged them. Immediately I sold $10 worth. I said, aha, I'll put an ad in the paper.

Well, since then I have weathered the weather. Glad to see more rain this week and excited to find the ground littered with pecans. I've sold more pecans. I've paid for the cracking finally and made a smidge of profit. Even if I had sold them all, I would only be making about 50 cents an hour.

I stand in silent salute to our farmers. Depending on the weather is chancy, stressful and ain't the way I want to spend my life.

I've got another 50 or so pounds gathered and was going to sell them instead of having them cracked. I'm seriously considering not even fooling with pecans the next time.

I think I sold too many. I may not have enough left for presents and for me. Aaaah, nuts!

Have you noticed? Coverage of Oglethorpe County's news and events has been pretty heavy recently in the Athens Banner Herald and they've even assigned us our own reporter!

Along with the news we also made their editorial page last Friday after our county commissioners agreed to spend the money to take our zoning process to the next level.

The editorial said "Oglethorpe County may be as close to a clean slate as there is in Northeast Georgia…" that we "don't have to deal with fixing a host of earlier planning mistakes".

BUT…I am to here to tell you what else needs to be done. We are making a good solid start with zoning. As the secretary for the Planning Commission, I can tell you that I am pleased with the protections the proposed zoning and the new subdivision regulations will provide. (I'm not an expert though-just the lady who listens, learns and writes the stuff down.)

What I also have to tell you concerns everyone in our "clean slate" county just as much and maybe even more than the zoning. That is, we have to get our act together; we have to do a number of things that the average citizen doesn't think about at all. We have to join the rest of the modern world by instituting application forms, procedures and policies that will both adequately protect the citizen interests and rights as well as relieve our government officials of the necessity of spending meeting time hearing every case or problem that arises.

A case in point is the recent events in Maxeys. A lack of permitting applications and procedures has helped lead to misunderstandings and a situation that has upset a whole community. The new council, having inherited old procedures, scattered and possibly missing council minutes as well as the muddied legality of ordinances, has shown themselves to be dedicated to correcting these problems. Alas, but not before a disturbing crisis that threatens to destroy the community.

On the county level, the Hawkes Landing controversy has already led to a lawsuit. The outcome of this complex issue will also entail financial and human cost for Oglethorpe County residents.

It is natural for a rural, close-knit community to resist new laws and procedures. Bobby Cook said it for everyone at the Crawford City Council meeting: "that's not how we have done it out here in the past". Henry Cabaniss was also outspoken in a recent planning commission meeting saying, "we have to avoid over-regulation".

Unfortunately, the days of personal promises and the handshake to seal the deal isn't possible in today's lawsuit-happy world. It is time now to standardize and write down policies and procedures, to create the mountain of paperwork those larger governments hold so dear. And it's time now to hire on additional staff to administer that paperwork.

There is no question in my mind, if these steps aren't taken on all levels of government and taken immediately, the citizens of Oglethorpe County will find themselves paying more for lawsuits than for the paperwork and the additional employees.

But be assured this isn't just the job of your local elected officials and county employees. Every one has a stake in this and I must send you that old JFK message about asking what you can do for your country. Ask what you can do to speed up the process.

an you do some research? Do you have a computer, the time and appropriate software to help develop forms or produce quality documents? What about offering a personal service to your official so that she or he will have more time to devote to their underpaid (or unpaid) office?

What can all of us do, as the Banner Herald said, to make our "community the most desirable in Northeast Georgia" and to keep the old feelings of family and community that makes it worthwhile for us to live here?

How is it that you, as Oglethorpe County citizens, want to be known? By the outside world, that is--by our neighbors in the surrounding counties, by the rest of Georgia, by others from farther away than that?

Southerners have long been known across this nation for being friendly and polite. This I have heard often as I have traveled all over the world.

Another Oglethorpe County resident once told me that she had been informed she was an outsider. She had responded to such name-calling with the news that she had been born here. She received the response from a prominent Oglethorpe resident "Well, your grandparents weren't!" Even though those words were not delivered in anger and might even have carried some jest with them, my acquaintance was--to say the least--taken aback.

No, this isn't a response to Louise Griffith's recent letter-I know how nice she's been to me! She certainly wasn't talking about this outsider in her letter.

Okay, let's get something straight. I really am an outsider. I wasn't born here but I was born in Gainesville. (That makes me less of an outsider than some of those that come from other states or countries, doesn't it?)

Oops, but my family! Momma's side is pretty strongly Southern and have been here for generations. But Daddy! Talking about outsiders! Sheesh, the man was from New Jersey. His grandparents were from Poland and Ireland! Oh, dear, oh dear!
Not only that but Daddy's family was (and is) majorly Catholic. Gasp!

It's true that many of us can trace our American family roots back to previous centuries; it's just as true that all of us have family members that may not be that recently American or Southern. Many folks in the Athens area are also fond of talking about their Native American roots (I never heard that in Gainesville). Nope, we are all more than just Southern or even American.

I'm really, truly proud to say I come from a melting pot of people. Traveling abroad was, yes, broadening. It's a wonder to me how other countries have such personalities. The Germans were truly an engineering marvel--sticklers for rules. To live there you meet a people, not just many people. I found that to be true of other nations as well.

My son is a great example of the melting pot phenomenon. Not only is he of Southern, anglo-saxon descent; not only is he descended from those Irish-Polish Yankees but he also is Spanish in name and in blood! Ask him what he is and he'll probably tell you American.
We all come from immigrants, outsiders here in America. And our immigrant population continues to grow. We've had a large influx of Hispanic immigrants in past years and Atlanta's and Athens' intercultural influences continue to make this state's population more diversified.

It's another one of those truisms I'm fond of spouting: 'Change is constant'. I am one many 'outsiders' that change has brought here to Oglethorpe County. It was only on my husband's instigation that I even considered moving to such a rural area.
Not only that, but now I find I like it here! Why? I like the rural nature of the county and I like the people. I have found most folks to be friendly and welcoming.

But I simply want to remind you. Not everyone in Oglethorpe County is white or black-we got all shades of colors here. Not everyone is of the Christian or Jewish faiths-there are Muslims, Buddhists, and even atheists. Not everyone is heterosexual.

We are a microcosm of American society and of the American people. A little bit of everything and everyone. That's one of those things that make this county great-that's one of those things that make this country great.

How do you want to be known? As a community that recognizes our differences? Or the alternative? Outsiders beware: acceptance is only offered after 3 successive generations?

I do not glory in my 'outsider' status; in fact, I frequently forget that fact. I feel welcome here (though I'm fond of saying y'all may run me out of town when you really get to know me!)

Please extend that welcome to any of the others who may be different. Let us be known by our friendliness and by our civility. And most importantly, by our recognition of and acceptance of difference. Ah, yes, it does take all kinds…

In the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, I didn't immediately try to put words to paper because there is no way for me to put the sorrow and horror into an effective piece of descriptive writing. Simply put, I hurt.

Now that the shock is beginning to recede I find my mind going off on many tangents. I worry about what changes this will wreak on our system of government, our economy and our daily lives.

I worry about those innocent American citizens and resident aliens of Middle Eastern and Asian descent who are already suffering a backlash from the actions of a handful of fanatics. One dear friend of mine who is originally from Afghanistan left Georgia 3 years ago after years of torment created by hatred and prejudice here in Georgia. I worry about how her life has changed out there in the "freedom" of the West Coast.

I must preface all this with one piece of understanding that has allowed me to jump quicker past the shock than some others. During my years overseas I spent 7 months in Germany in the early 1980's. As military dependents we had special license plates on our car that announced to anyone in viewing range that we were American.

This made us a target then. Terrorist were placing bombs in Americans' cars then.

Terrorism is new only in that it has finally come home to us and in a bigger way than I certainly ever thought it might. We here in America have been very lucky it has taken this long to make its appearance.

One meeting I attended last Thursday and one news report last night helped my thoughts congeal into a definitive initial analysis finally last night. In that meeting of internet professionals and students the question was asked "What can we do as technology-savvy individuals and as an industry as a whole?"

One response that I seconded immediately was short and to the point-education. As a person that is coming to increasingly rely on technology for a livelihood, I have access to a wider base of technical information than the average person and, hopefully, a deeper understanding of its place and potential in modern society.

I believe I have an obligation to try to understand the complexity of all the issues before us now. I believe that I also have the obligation as an American to help educate my fellow citizens to these issues.

Number 1, these acts were perpetrated by a small group of people. These people are not easy to find. Killing untold numbers of innocents in order to "hopefully" find these people is not in any way anything less than "legalized" terrorism. Bombing the h___ out of Afghanistan is very unlikely to result in "getting" the criminals. It is likely to kill many innocent citizens who now can't even flee their homeland.

Number 2, these criminals may well look "alien" or "foreign" but most of the "foreigners" now in the US are not guilty. Any acts against these people is simply terrorism on a local scale. Getting rid of foreigners and immigrants and closing our borders will not prevent terrorism from happening. Not only that, but it is totally impractical and does not address the real issues.

Number 3, giving up any of our rights may well not result in stopping future terrorism. I for one am not willing to give up my fourth amendment (search and seizure) rights. Our system is set up to deal with these challenges. Any rights we forfeit now may well not be regained -- ever. Such is the nature of any government.

In saying that, however, I want to make note that privacy in today's world may well not exist. I never assume that my mail or email is secure. One interesting piece of news for you UGA employees-your email and your computer are not secure nor do you have any rights to privacy.

There is no firewall or protection from incursions from outside sources or hackers. Use of any state-sponsored email does not give you any rights to privacy. (This from a explicit statement from the head of UGA's Information Management section.)
Making this the norm for everyone is the equivalent of allowing anyone to read the mail that arrives in your mail box or look at anything on your computer.

I know that our government needs to address the problems of airport security. I give them carte blanche to deal with that. My suggestions to that end include requiring the new equipment long needed by the airports for air traffic control. The present equipment is many years out of date and held together by baling wire and chewing gum.

I also believe that the government has an obligation to institute emergency networks for all air travel. Forget using 911 - installing hot buttons on every air traffic controller's console across the nation with appropriate effective directions and an effective system of response is one step towards thwarting the plans of those willing to die for their "beliefs".

Why these measures and not looking at the first moves already in place when the airports re-opened? It is obvious to me that what we saw last week is possibly not preventable. There are weapons made out of plastic and various other materials that cannot be detected. There are always ways around any security anywhere.

The government has an obligation to make our air travel safer. It has an obligation to mandate changes for the air industry. I believe the government has an obligation to step in to this private business sector because the airlines are not capable of effectively doing this on their own.

Obviously, many lifestyle changes will come our way in the next few years. The pendulum has started its swing. In order not to let that pendulum swing too irretrievably far, Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar, said it best last night: vigilance is the key.

We must be more aware of the possibilities life holds for us in this century and try to plan accordingly. The illusion of safety has been forever shredded. A harsh lesson--one to be learned from.

Some of these lessons produced by history have not been engraved into our legal system. Over 77,000 Japanese were incarcerated into our own "concentration camps" during World War II. This was never deemed by the courts as illegal. Any constitutional scholar and any reasonable human being will tell you that declaring a certain class of society or race of people to be "dangerous" goes against anything America stands for. But it happened.

There is no question in my mind that we must be vigilant to protect our rights and our freedoms so that America stays a place worth fighting for.

Table of Contents

Humor:	I'm Home	Who do you know?
Pack Rats	Moving Catch 22	Deer Tales
Balancing Act	Short and Sweet	Computers
LOST!	Country Greetings	Ah, Peace & Quiet
Guys and Beasties	Summer Vacation	Country Paranoia
Father's Day	Fire!	Manners
My Car	What's in a Name?	Who Me, Organized?
Christmas	Cold but Cooking	Doggie Adaptations
Our Natural Neighbors	Life's Little Lessons	Look Ma, I'm on Steroids!
Aah, Nuts!
Editorials:	Dirt Roads	Planning & Zoning
Outsiders	Terrorism

The Oglethorpe Echo