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TODAY'S ISSUE
Bartow Jenkins provided good leadership
in schools and as mayor of Lawrenceville
By Norman Baggs
General Manager
Forsyth County News, Cumming
Special to GwinnettForum.com

FEB. 7, 2003 - -The news that Bartow Jenkins had retired as mayor of Lawrenceville immediately took me back more than 20 years to small and cluttered offices deep in the recesses of the county school system's administration building.

The Gwinnett school system in the early 1980s wasn't nearly the behemoth it is today. For a young newspaper reporter handed the assignment of covering a rapidly growing collection of schools that already had more students than any town in which I had ever lived, it was plenty big enough.

On a routine basis I would venture over to the central office, sometimes just to engage in the sort of idle chit-chat that helps those in the news business learn about their subject and the people with whom they work. It didn't take long to find out where to go when you just wanted to hang out.

After pausing to say hello to Dr. Alton Crews, or the ever vigilant Grace Cain, I would ease on to the very back of the building, where there usually was good conversation, pleasant fellowship and hearty laughter to be found.

A handful of the school system's middle and upper management went out of its way to make me welcome, folks like Brooks Coleman, Joe Smith, Russ Everson, David Crews and Bartow Jenkins.

I quickly learned that if you timed things just right there was a pretty good possibility of a lunch invitation, and it wasn't unheard of for a car full of folks to head out to one of the schools with the better cafeterias, or even down to Snellville for a restaurant visit.

Over the course of the next 18 years, Bartow and I seemed to show up at a lot of meals together, usually along with dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of other folks - Gwinnett Municipal Association programs, Chamber of Commerce galas, county government functions, awards banquets. It always made sense to see him there, because he always was in public life in one way or another.

And everybody knew Bartow. He is blessed with the perfect personality for being in the public's eye. It served him well in a lifetime that has included being a successful football coach, administrator, school system athletic director, county commissioner and mayor of Lawrenceville.

Our paths crossed often in the course of his various public duties and my changing responsibilities in the world of newspapers. Over the years I developed a great deal of respect for how Bartow conducted himself. Always quick with a laugh and a friendly smile, Bartow, in whatever position he was serving, came across as being honest and sincere, character traits sometimes rare among those in public office. Seldom confrontational, he seemed to find ways to handle hard decisions and difficult choices without unduly antagonizing those with whom he might disagree.

The last 14 years of his long public career were spent as mayor of Lawrenceville, and the job fit him perfectly. Together, Bartow, City Clerk Bob Baroni and members of the city council brought the town a long way during his administration, without abandoning the city's heritage or the lifestyle preferred by its residents.

There's a term those of us native-born to the state don't hear as frequently as we once did, but it applies well to Bartow Jenkins. He is a "southern gentleman." Gwinnett is a better place for his willingness to have served its people.

Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Mayor. Exit the stage of public life knowing yours was a job well done.

ELLIOTT BRACK
If you can remember old time "rolling stores"
that means you were familiar with the country
By Elliott Brack
editor and publisher
GwinnettForum.com

FEB. 7, 2003 -- If you remember a "Rolling Store," chances are you were raised or spent a good deal of time in the country.

Oh, the joy of seeing a Rolling Store coming, kicking up dust on a backcountry road! You knew it would stop at your house if you gave it any encouragement. There was an excitement of knowing what goodies awaited you.

Only problem was, back in those post-Depression days, money was tight. People didn't have the dollars they do today, especially working or living on a farm in the county

Yet there was a way. You could barter with the rolling store operator. Many a housewife has used her chicken's egg production to swap for a bag of sugar or flour. And if your garden was a good producer, why that was another way you could "spend" at the Rolling Store.

A Rolling Store was a truck or perhaps an old bus fitted with shelving. We remember the driver opening the back of his vehicle, and us ogling the many items on the shelves. Think of those days' general merchandise stores, and that's what the Rolling Store stocked, in smaller quantities, of course.

If the husband needed a new pair of overalls, why there they were on the store. You hoped for the right size. Or if the lady of he house needed more thread for her sewing machine, there it was.

As a child, we remember spending saved pennies and nickels on hard candy from the Rolling Store. During the summers, we remember the Rolling Store also had an iced soft drink box. Wow! Did those Cokes or Red Rocks or Royal Crowns taste delicious dripping with coldness!

Another element of the Rolling Store was that it didn't come by very often... perhaps once a week. That made its coming even larger, and more thrilling!

Where the Rolling Store had as a home base, we have no idea. We suspect many were the works of entrepreneurs, seeing an opportunity to serve people living in the country, back when many people did not have motorized transportation. And no doubt they charged high prices. Yet there was no easy alternative, other than Sears and Roebuck, and even Sears didn't mail you sugar and flour, though of course, they would mail you chicks to raise, or materials to build an entire house! The Rolling Store seem to have just what you needed, when you needed it. It was early home delivery.

It was another era. In cities, there were greengrocers who went through the neighborhoods in their pick-up trucks, hawking fresh produce that they had bought at daylight at the Farmer's Market. And in New York and other big cities, there were pushcarts, giving people the same delights that Rolling Stores did in the country.

Yes, modern day kids have no inkling of how less mobile people were in those days. The Rolling Stores, the produce trucks and the pushcarts, served their own little worlds, and had loyal customers.

And their arrival always stirred everyone up. It is a nearly forgotten era in America.

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McLEMORE'S WORLD
2/7: Weapons of mass destruction
By Bill McLemore

UPCOMING SPEAKER
2/7: Historical Society gets Savannah speaker

Speaking at the February 17 meeting of the Gwinnett Historical Society will be Dr. W. Todd Groce, the executive director of Georgia Historical Society in Savannah. He holds three degrees from the University of Tennessee and is the author of '"Mountain Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates and the Civil War," published in 1999 by the University of Tennessee Press. He frequently lectures on the South and U.S. military history. He has made national television appearances on the Discovery Channel and on CSPAN's Book TV.

His presentation is "Will the South Survive?", a humorous yet serious look at what makes the South "Southern" and whether those characteristics will survive in the 21st century. The meeting is at the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse on the Square in Lawrenceville.

NEWS ITEMS
2/4: Special needs for college program set

By Cindy Thompson and Mary Root
Gwinnett PTA Council

For the 11th straight year, the Gwinnett County Council of PTAs is presenting a program for college bound special needs students. The program will be Monday, February 24, at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center.

Co-sponsoring the event is the Gwinnett County Extension Service and Gwinnett County Public Schools. . The event will be held on Monday, February 24, 2003. A College Fair will be conducted from 5-6:30 p.m., with the program from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m.

The College Fair will host individual representatives from four-year, two-year and technical colleges from across the state. These booths are manned by people who work in the areas of student support - disability services - at their schools.

The Program portion will begin at 6:30 p.m. A panel of students from The University of Georgia will talk about what college life is like for them, services that are available to them and techniques on surviving college with their disability. A representative of the College Boards will discuss information concerning administering the SAT. Admissions representatives from several of the college present will talk about filing for admission, services, etc. There will be interpreters to sign for the hearing impaired.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Faster than a speeding ... lie

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

-- Sir Winston Churchill.

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