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TODAY'S
ISSUE
Remembering how it
used to be in older day Lawrenceville
By
Jimmy Sell
Hayes Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep
Special to GwinnettForum.com
LAWRENCEVILLE, June 25, 2004 -- My family moved from Buford to
Lawrenceville in 1942. I was two years old. Dad was hired by Marvin
Allison a local attorney, to be his foreman at his weekly newspaper,
The News-Herald. Mr. Allison provided a house and $25 per week.
Mom cooked and provided lunch, and made fresh pies for several workers
at the Georgia Shoe Plant for 75 cents each.
 My
earliest remembrances include:
- Living across from the vast Georgia Shoe Manufacturing plant,
where Cofer Adams is now located.
- Playing at the lumber yard and ice plant, where Graphic Communications
and Cooper Feed and Seed are located today, with ice and milk
being delivered to our house.
Our airport then had a dirt runway and single Piper Cub airplane,
now Lendon Lane subdivision. I remember the bowling alley with young
boys setting up the pins and the first ice cream drive-in was called
the "Penguin", and was located across from the Georgia
Shoe plant on Highway 20
Other remembrances:
- A busy train station with ticket windows for passengers.
- Watching someone on the train reach out and grab the mail bag
when it did not make a stop. (The Depot building still exists.)
- Edge's Greyhound Bus Station and restaurant that only closed
a couple of years ago.
- The hitching post and water for horses at the courthouse square.
- Our family moving to a house on Crogan Street in town.
- Playing in the cotton warehouse across the street, now the Brand
Bank.
- Attending Sunday school at First Methodist Church.
- Theater where I sold popcorn and took up tickets, where a church
is now. The late Miss Mary Alice Juhan threw a brick in the window
of the theatre, because it was opening on Sunday.
- My parents teaching me to be respectful of the Sabbath, by not
cutting the grass on Sunday.
- A neighbor, Roy Owens, that kept the weapons oiled and cleaned
for firing at veterans' funerals.
- Attending Boy Scout meetings, and camping out in the area where
the City lake was built.
- Swimming at the first city pool. (The filter was two large block
rooms filled with sand).
- Günter's Oldsmobile, Baggett Chevrolet, Brannon Ford, the
auto dealerships around the square.
- Dungan's, Haney's, and Brand's were three of the full service
stations.
- Watching the first black and white and then color television.
- Our telephone, which was a party line shared by several people.
- Riding the first elevator in the city, at Alford's Department
Store, now a parking lot.
- Teen canteen over the City Hall and Police station with Jail.
(This was across from old Post Office on Crogan Street next to
the First National Bank.)
- Stores closing Wednesday afternoons and Sundays.
- County commissioners shooting pigeons with shotguns at the courthouse
on Wednesday afternoons (when the stores were closed.)
- Post Office with no lines.
- Lawrenceville Drive-In Theatre (Now Burger King on Pike Street).
- Only U.S. Highway 29 to Athens or Atlanta.
- All the local family merchants and no credit cards. For credit,
you just signed your name on their charge ticket, since the merchants
knew all the families in town, and their relatives.
- Monfort Drugs on the corner of Crogan and Perry street with
curb service.
- Patton's Studio, the only wedding and crime photographer in
town.
- The annual Soap Box Derby races down Perry Street, with the
city blocking off the streets.
- Gwinnett County Jail where the Sheriff lived in the same building,
now a fire station on Perry Street.
- A volunteer fire department.
- The intimidation of a large single courtroom upstairs in the
courthouse.
- Funeral homes providing ambulance for medical emergencies.
- Doctors making house calls.
And I remember the day that Lawrenceville was known nationwide,
when Larry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reeves were shot on Perry
Street across from the old theatre. Ah, remembering……
ELLIOTT
BRACK
More
bashing of media, with suggestion for candidates
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com
JUNE 25, 2004 -- Today let's address two matters: the bashing of
the media, and one media which doesn't get much political bashing.
 You
often hear people harping on the media for one reason or another,
usually for something the media did that irks them.
The media understands continued bashing, for most are pro-active
in doing their job. In reality, even the media-bashers want the
media to be pro-active, or else the bashers would have nothing to
complain about.
Most respected media usually have no pre-set agenda, go about reporting
and commenting on everyday matters, and catch the devil at times
from all sides.
Now let's turn to one form of the media which seldom draws political
bashing: cable television.
Of all the media, cable television offers voters during the political
season virtually nothing of value, unless you call the political
advertising you see on the cable as valuable.
Cable is primarily a carrier of other programming. It offers little,
if any, original programming of its own. In other words, all it
does is take….with no effort at all to "give" to
the community. Meanwhile, it sits there and rakes in money, month
after month, for programming major networks, re-runs, sports channels,
shopping possibilities, every niche you can think of, and old movies.
(Do not disparage the old movies. They may be the best part of
cable's offering.)
Cable television has built-in to its system the possibility of
doing great good in local communities, if it would take the initiative.
Yet its leaders seem more content in managing its assets, collecting
its fees, and sending these monies on to the parent company, in
the most efficient manner. They never show creativity in managing
the cable outlet.
The way the cable industry could help each individual community
would be to offer at least a little local programming on its own.
There is no better time to perform this public service than during
local political season.
In Gwinnett in each political campaign, you can count on one element
turning up as sure as the sun comes up each morning: political forums.
Most communities, and many organizations announce that they will
hold a political forum, and invite all the local candidates.
The candidates feel duty bound to show up, or risk getting no votes
from that community or organization. And for what do they show up:
a handful of people, perhaps 25 or 50. Should 100 people be present
at any forum, it would be lauded as a major success. It really is
not worth the effort to appear at these forums night after night,
and have only a handful of people hear you.
Here is where a responsible cable channel system could step forward.
If the cable franchisee sponsored forums in each local political
race, that would be a far different breed of forum. Instead of being
heard by a few, a televised forum could be heard by the entire cable
television audience, and create for the candidates, a viable platform
to present their views. And here is the key: it could be done just
one time per race, and get the widest possible audience.
With there being two primary cable systems operating in Gwinnett,
should they combine forces and each broadcast the forums, people
throughout the county could benefit.
As for the candidates, it would be far more efficient than the
drag of nightly forums that they now must attend. But mainly, it
would get their message to the largest bloc of voters.
Will it happen? We question it. Cable TV operators seem far more
intent on straining the most profit from their system than being
of public service.
And as such, they are the one media that perhaps needs bashing….for
not doing the job they should.
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McLEMORE'S
WORLD
6/25: My Life
FEEDBACK
6/25: Feels Iraq war
is just, and U.S. must use unconventional means
Editor, the Forum:
I am extremely upset and disappointed with your article
last week on "Just Wars." The very idea that you could
call Vietnam, Korea, and even World War II as just, but yet state
that the Iraq conflict is unjustifiable borders on warped political
insanity. You obviously have succumbed to the same liberal bias
of your national press brethren.
Why is the removal of a brutal tyranny today any different than
in 1941? Why have you so easily forgotten the savagery and loss
of American lives on September 11th? Saddam harbored and financed
those terrorists and supported their efforts for years.
Is your political hatred of the current administration so intense
that it blinds you of our moral and justifiable defense of our nation
and our freedom? Senator Joe Lieberman has been extremely vocal
in his support of the war. President Clinton in his "60 Minutes"
interview last week stated that the Iraqis are better off with Saddam
gone.
The war against terrorism will be difficult and long. It will be
fought as often by unconventional methods as by traditional tactics.
Mistakes will be made but the effort and resolve must never waver
if we are to be rid of these vermin. The fact that our European
neighbors don't have the stomach should never be a deterrent to
our efforts. Quite frankly it is the same folks for the most part
who stood by and let Hitler overrun Europe.
Our troops and military personnel need our support as they seek
to defend our democracy. I realize that same democracy has the guaranteed
right of a free press. I also realize a healthy debate of the issues
is basic to that right, but the debate should not become outright
denial by the press of the problem. Your article denies that we
are fighting for a just cause and you are dead wrong.
The facts, supported by countless UN resolutions, are that Saddam
was a terrorist who had subjected his own people to his brutality.
Thank goodness President Bush has not wavered in the face of blistering,
unsubstantiated attacks by the press. I say all this realizing that
you, like your left wing pacifist brethren, will not be swayed.
I, therefore, will exercise one of my guaranteed rights of a free
democracy. I cannot, given your views on this issue, continue to
financially support your publications.
-- David E. Snell, Snellville
Dear David: We respect your opinion presented
here, which is obviously different from ours. We also commend
you for the reasoned approach of your thoughts, unlike some of
the material we receive. We thank you for the support your firm
has given us and other entities around here over the years. We
are disappointed to lose you as a supporter.--eeb
6/25: Remembers father's comment considering smoking
Editor, the Forum:
The mention you made about smoking in this week's Forum caused
me to recall what my father, Ferris, told me at least 40 years ago
(when public perception of smoking was much more lenient):
"There's a lot of fine people that smoke, but ALL the sorry
ones smoke."
-- Lee Hutchins, Hog Mountain
6/25: Felt signing
petition about movie was right thing to do
Editor, the Forum:
Even though I am not a Republican, I signed that petition (about
Michael Moore's upcoming movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" on the
Internet) because it was the right thing to do. All through Clinton's
problems, I never attacked him because it would not have been the
right thing to do.
There is nothing right or wrong about Democrats or Republicans,
but there is right and wrong.
-- Roy McCreary, Dacula
NEWS
Chamber picks Richardson
as small businessman of the year
 Allen
Richardson Wednesday was named the 2004 Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce
Small Business Person of the Year. In 1973, Richardson began Richardson
Housing Group and made a strategic decision to keep the focus of
his building development in Gwinnett County.
He has built more than 2,500 houses for the community. He will
represent Gwinnett in statewide competition for Small Businessman
of the Year.
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION
6/25: From Michael
Grant
Mimms Enterprises, Marietta
"I have nearly finished reading Senator Zell Miller's A
National Party No More, an excellent personal account of his
life and his vision for America, with special emphasis on the need
for even greater need for educational reform and a chapter on the
absolute necessity of maintaining and expanding curricula in the
arts, especially music. He also casts some very candid negative
shots at his own party and expounds eloquently on how his Democratic
Party members have abdicated their role of serving the people to
the money gods of self promotion and self-aggrandizement by being
the lackeys of special interest groups.
"Hate him or love him, Miller's record in Georgia is enviable.
He has done a lot for the State. This book is a compelling read,
indeed.
"I am reading Prey, by Michael Creighton, a story on
the dangers of unfettered experimentation in nanotechnology, a thriller."
- An invitation: What books have you enjoyed? Send us
your best recent book along with a short paragraph as to why you
liked it, plus what you plan to read next. --eeb
ENCYCLOPEDIA
TIDBIT
6/25: Early village
in McDuffie County settled by Quakers
The original charter of the colony of Georgia encouraged the settlement
of Quakers, or members of the Society of Friends. Few Quakers, however,
came to the province in the early years. In 1768 more than 70 families
from the area of Orange County, N.C., began settling in a special
reserve set aside for them by the Georgia colonial government in
present-day McDuffie County. Less than one-fifth of the landholders
in this reserve were actually Friends. A fort was erected near the
settlement.
 During
the Revolution some in Wrightsborough actively supported the king's
cause. Bandits and rebel partisans committed robberies and murders
in Wrightsborough, and by May 1781, 35 people in the area had been
murdered, including 11 in their own beds.
In the autumn of 1781 a quarter of the families of Wrightsborough
were refugees in British-occupied Savannah. After the war they were
allowed to return peacefully to their homes.
Wrightsborough's Quakers were adamantly opposed to slavery, even
more so than most American Friends. They finally left Georgia mostly
for Ohio between 1805 and 1809 because of the growing slavery controversy.
Wrightsborough survived as a village until the 1920s, but little
remains physically of the settlement in McDuffie County. The Historic
Wrightsboro Foundation promotes the heritage of this lost settlement.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Comforting thought
when you lose something
"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is
finite. This is a very comforting thought-- particularly for people
who can never remember where they have left things."
-- Woody Allen (1935 - )
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