|
TODAY'S
ISSUE
County seeks vintage
items for McDaniel working farm park
By
Tammy Gibson
Gwinnett Parks and Recreation Department
Special to GwinnettForum.com
SEPT. 7, 2004 -- Have items dating from 1913-1939 farm life? Gwinnett
County Parks & Recreation is seeking donations such as household
items, clothing, farming implements, and other objects that relate
to this time period to add to the permanent collection at the new
McDaniel Farm Park in Duluth.
Donations are tax deductible according to IRS guidelines. Even
more importantly, the items donated will help paint a portrait of
what farm life was like during this time period in Gwinnett. If
you have interest in donating an item, please contact Brent Walker
at (770) 814-4920 or via email at brent.walker@gwinnettcounty.com.
Located just minutes northeast from Gwinnett Place Mall area, the
128-acre park's grand opening is scheduled on Saturday, October
9 and will be a "green" respite for area residents from
surrounding commercial and residential development. The parcel of
land has remained relatively unchanged since its drawing in the
1820 land lottery.
Sharon Plunkett, director of Gwinnett County Parks & Recreation,
says "McDaniel Farm Park will be part educational, part historical
and part recreational. If people have items that they would consider
donating to us, we would really appreciate it and would like for
them to contact us."
The property is a former cotton farm, and will be restored to depict
a typical 1930s subsistence farm in Gwinnett County. Gwinnett was
one of the largest cotton producing counties in Georgia in the early
1900s. Cotton farmers typically paid sharecroppers or tenant farmers
by means of supplies rather than money. McDaniel Farm housed sharecroppers
from 1913 to 1941, and it is this period that will be recreated
at the new park.
The McDaniel family experienced the struggles that farmers everywhere
in the South underwent during the 1920s and 1930s due to the arrival
of the boll weevil (the cotton-eating insect), the Great Depression,
and the migration of farm workers to factory jobs in the cities.
This is the story that will come to life again at McDaniel Farm
Park as the property's original barn, well house, chicken coop,
blacksmith shed and tenant farmer house are being restored.
In addition to historic preservation and interpretation, McDaniel
Farm Park will also offer passive recreational amenities, including
a paved multi-purpose trail, a picnic pavilion, and a large informal
play area.
The mission of Gwinnett County Parks & Recreation is to provide
quality parks and leisure activities to the citizens of Gwinnett
County.
ELLIOTT
BRACK
Americans
tire of campaign tactics of hate-spewing
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com
SEPT. 7, 2004 -- As for the national election: we wish for a shorter
campaign. Most people, we figure, have already made up their minds.
Therefore though nothing much will change between now and the election
(outside of some catastrophe), the campaign will wear on.
 Each
side will call each other names, and before you know it, the campaign
may have worn us out so much that it will turn some people off on
the process, perhaps keep them away from voting.
We hope not, of course. What we would like to see more than anything
is the greatest number of people voting. Getting a higher turnout
ensures that the winner will get the backing of more people, and
hence, we are closer to a true reading of the people, or at least
those who are registered.
What we have seen in this election is a growing nastiness in the
electoral process. It very much seems an outgrowth of the partisanship
of Washington. You plant all that venom, and eventually it sprouts.
We've seen it in the tone of the advertisements not so much from
the candidates, but from their supporters. These groups, not regulated
by campaign rules, violate many tenets of decency, if not the spirit
of the campaign rules themselves. So this nastiness and bile has
spread from the pure politicos to the various groups backing the
candidates.
And what some of them are spouting is nothing less than hatred.
It's nothing more than that. Can't both of these sides accept the
candidates of the other party and see them as good and forthright
people who honestly believe their views…..without hating them?
This unruliness has in its roots in similar plagues of harshness
from another troubled time in our country, back when the Ku Klux
Klan was spreading its hatred. This group of twisted thinkers could
see no other way, and they spouted not only hatred, but harsh actions.
You wonder if the current hatred will sprout into something even
more contemptible.
These days during this campaign, some of these unregulated and
loose groups supporting both the major political parties, are so
partisan that they have become zealots, and preach the mantra of
hatred to the rest of us.
That's not the American way. Most Americans reject such tactics.
You even wonder if the action and outlandish thinking of such groups
have backfired, by going so far as to convert some of the people
not to their side, but to the candidate they are seeking to tear
down! Unfortunately, you find these tactics from both sides, so
perhaps the outcome is a wash.
So we are doomed for another two months of an uncivil war of words.
It won't be nice. Yet the outcome is significant, and people are
willing to go to the mat for their candidate. We just regret having
to go through these next two months.
After all, can you think of a worse four letter word than HATE?
Americans want a better way than this election is showing by these
tactics. We wish we felt more optimistic about the outcome. But
we don't. We just wish the campaign were over.
ABOUT OUR SPONSORS
 The
public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com
to you at no cost to readers. Today's sponsor is the Aurora Theatre,
Gwinnett County's First Choice for Professional Theatrical Entertainment.
The theatre is located in historic downtown Duluth and is committed
to producing quality, professional theatre for all of North Georgia.
The 2004-2005 Master Season includes: Neil Simon's comedy Last of
the Red Hot Loves; Das Barbecü, a country western Ring Cycle;
Hometown Holidays, now in its 9th smash season; Jamie Pachino's
coming of age drama, Waving Goodbye; the romantic play Enchanted
April; and 4 Guys Named Jose and una Mujer Named Maria. To purchase
individual tickets, season tickets or for more information, visit
their website at www.auroratheatre.com
or call 770-476-7926.
For a list of other sponsors of this forum, go to: http://www.gwinnettforum.com/about/sponsors.htm.
FEEDBACK
9/7: One way to bid
adieu to force leaving Gwinnett
Editor, the Forum:
Arthur Blank: May the Force be with you. We Gwinnettians won't...
-- Brian Luders, Duluth
9/7: Wonders if the
senator is purely off his medications
Editor, the Forum:
I watched Sen. Zell Miller's speech at the Republican National
Convention and his later interviews. I couldn't help but think,
"How long has he been off of his medication?' Or, has he been
getting prescriptions from Rush Limbaugh's doctors.
-- Ralph Greene, Snellville
9/7: Feels every word
Senator spoke is the absolute truth
Editor, the Forum:
Every word that came out of Sen. Zell Miller's mouth at the Republican
convention was the absolute truth. Zell did not leave the Democratic
Party, but the Democratic party has disgraced him and all the rest
of us that used to support it!
I am certain that FDR and JFK are turning over in their graves
because of the un-American attitude that has taken over the Democratic
Party. Not only should John Kerry not be running for President,
but I believe that he should be hung for treason due to all the
lies he concocted concerning his service in Vietnam.
Bill Clinton just told a few white lies, but nothing as blatant
as that which is spewing from John Kerry's mouth. Three Purple Hearts
for three little boo boos... give me a break!
-- Roy McCreary, Dacula
9/7: Now regrets defending
senator and every penny he gave him
Editor, the Forum:
I applaud Betsy Corley Pickren's comments
in the last issue of GwinnettForum and second them wholeheartedly.
Yesterday I read the two speeches Sen. Zell Miller gave when he
introduced Sen. John Kerry in Atlanta on March 1, 2001, and his
address at the Democratic Convention in 1992. To say he is a hypocrite
is too kind, but appropriate. I now see how wrong I was when I defended
him when my Republican friends called him Zig Zag Zell.
I regret every penny I gave to support him and every vote I cast
in his favor. Hopefully those cowboy boots he wears so proudly "Were
made for walking" and he will walk over to the Republican Party
all the way to Crawford, Tex. buy him a ranch and name it "Zig
Zag Ranch--Home of Benedict Arnold".
-- Gerald Davidson, Lawrenceville
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION
From Ellen Gerstein
Health and Human Services Coalition
"I just finished Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson. This
book continues a series with detective Alex Cross. He has now joined
the FBI and continues his search for serial killers.
"I am currently reading Fortune Rocks, by Anita Sheve.
It is a novel about a teenager's first affair with a married man.
Set in "Fortune Rocks" near New Hampshire coast in the
mid 1800's."
- 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
9/3: Encyclopedia lists
top 10 motion pictures about Georgia
Georgia's long, volatile history, its varied geography, and its
vast pool of talent have made it a significant location for movies
since the earliest days of motion-picture production. Some of the
world's greatest directors have filmed in Georgia--including Jean
Renoir, John Huston, Robert Altman, Clint Eastwood, and Spike Lee--and
hundreds of Georgians have helped build the American film industry.
 Today,
the high quality of local production-company facilities attracts
a wide range of projects to the area. Thus, Georgia "stands
in" for many other places, complicating the definition of a
"Georgia" movie. For instance, such high-profile "southern"
films as Cape Fear (1962), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991),
and Sweet Home Alabama (2002) were filmed in Georgia, although
the stories are set elsewhere. Other movies are set in Georgia but
were produced on the West Coast. Regardless, Georgia's people, history,
and themes figure prominently in the films listed below. These movies
provide culturally important examples of how Georgia has been presented
to the world on the motion-picture screen.
The top 10 films about Georgia are listed in chronological order:
The General
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Gone With the Wind
Swamp Water
Deliverance
Wise Blood
Athens, Ga: Inside/Out
Driving Miss Daisy
Daughters of the Dust
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
What happens when you
get someone to really think
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you;
But if you really make them think, they'll hate you."
-- Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)
SEND
YOUR FEEDBACK
Send your thoughts, 55-word short stories, pet peeves
or comments on any issue to Gwinnett
Forum for future publication.
===========================================
MORE: Contact Gwinnett Forum at: elliott@gwinnettforum.com
© 2004, Gwinnett Forum.com. Gwinnett Forum
is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible
social, political and economic approaches to improve life in Gwinnett
County, Ga. USA.
|
