TODAY'S ISSUE
Motoring trip out West leaves one awed by beauty of nature
By Roger Hagen
Special to GwinnettForum.com

LILBURN, Ga., Aug. 2, 2005 -- Recently my wife and I decided to extend our trip out west to see my niece graduate from high school in California. By driving there (we rented one way from Avis) and flying back, we could squeeze in a much needed vacation with our trip.

Hagen

Since the goal was to see lots of the southwest before California, we stocked a cooler. We managed to get to Santa Fe in just two days. It was far less grueling than we had expected. Once in Santa Fe we fell in love with the high desert town, vowing to come back again.

Our next stop was Sedona Ariz., the gateway to the Colorado Plateau. The sparse vegetation of the high desert we had seen all along Interstate 40 coming into Flagstaff ended and we entered a large pine forest that cooled the air significantly. We descended down about 4,000 feet through the red-hued walls and sandstone cliffs of the mesas surrounding the Sedona Valley area. We got up early the next morning and both got massages before heading north to the Grand Canyon. (The massages were a major reason our trip was not so grueling, I recommend it to road warriors of all stripes.)

The ride to the Grand Canyon is spectacular and then there is the Canyon itself. Words cannot describe the Canyons immense beauty. Forgive me for even trying. All Americans should see it once before they die. There's nothing like it in the world.

We headed west again, taking the road less traveled, going north from I-40 to Hoover Dam, crossing it, skirting Las Vegas and crossing Death Valley, and stopping in Lone Pine, Calif. at the base of Mount Whitney. We had just passed from the lowest point on the continent and were now looking up to the highest point on the continent, all in a single day.

Then on to Manzanar, once a detention camp, or as FDR himself called it, a concentration camp for interned Japanese Americans during World War II. The Museum is a testament to both Japanese culture and the human spirit. A recurring theme among these camps is how the people detained here turned a desolate and isolated place ill suited for human living into a home. It also holds a certain place in my life as the parents of one of my childhood friends had been detained in one of these camps.

From Manzanar we drove up into the White Mountains to eat lunch in the Bristlecone Pine Forest among 5,000 year old trees. They survive by allowing parts of the tree to die off‚ while keeping just one strip of bark alive to feed one branch of the tree. The older ones often appear dead at first glance. You feel like you have stepped back in time, a humbling experience, when you see them.

Then we traveled across the Central Valley of California, crossing the coastal mountains to my hometown of Watsonville. After a great family visit and much celebrating, we drove south along U.S. 1 through Big Sur and more awesome scenery, including a waterfall which is the only known waterfall on the west coast which dumps
directly into the ocean at Julia Pfeifer State Park. This is the first State Park in the U.S. named for a woman.

Our final destination was Los Angeles, where I visited with more relatives and my 99 year old grandmother.

Our nation is most beautiful. I urge all Americans to check it out while they can and when they can. It lends an appreciation for the smaller things in life
when you see something as spectacular as the Grand Canyon and contemplate its creation. It certainly takes the sting out of being stuck in traffic in Atlanta most of the year.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Health problems grow out of move by colleges to semester
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com

AUG. 2, 2005 -- You might call it an "unexpected consequence."

It all started when a powerful board in a state, one supervising the universities, decided that they wanted to junk the long-held "quarter system" and switch the state institutions of higher learning to a semester system.

Once in place, one thing lead to another and another, and the upshot is causing consternation among parents for one reason, and causing possible harm on another front.

Once the universities switched to the semester system, teachers in public schools around the state found that their schedules were out-of-kilter. You see ,the universities now began their year not after Labor Day and later, but about a month earlier, in August. After all, they reasoned, they wanted to get in all their classes and tests for that semester before the Christmas-New Years holidays.

This new schedule bumped up against the traditional start of public schools just before or after Labor Day. So gradually, over several years, the public schools started moving back their start time, to the point today some systems will begin this year as early as August 3. (It was to accommodate the teachers, who wanted to take university summer classes.) Too, the schools want to end that first semester of 90 days prior to the break for holidays in December.

You start public school earlier, and what else happens? Of course, you begin football practice several weeks before the actual opening of school. In the past football (and cheerleader, and band) practice began in August. Now they begin well up in July!

Guess what? It's hot in July. Our students in football and cheerleading and band camps must stomp not for two or three weeks prior to September opening of school, but now are out there in first July, then August, too….meaning several more unnecessary weeks of hot and humid weather.

The unintended consequence: health problems, too much exertion in the high heat of summer.

And the recent heat wave and heat indexes well over 100 degrees is having its effect on the students practicing in this extreme weather.

What to do?

* * * * *

What law requires that football games must begin the same week school starts?

There is none. By tradition, the start of the football season has been with the start of schools, in order to get the playoff games in before Christmas.

But today, between the opening in school in say, mid August, and the end of the first semester in December, there are about 18 Friday nights. With football teams playing 10 regular season games, and some schools in three or four playoff games, that leaves four empty Friday nights.

Why can't the Georgia High School Association legislate that no football game could begin until after Labor Day? Though school might start in mid-August, there could be two or three Fridays with no football game. It wouldn't hurt anything, and in fact, that would mean the elimination of hot, muggy, unhealthy August football games.

Sure, you might allow football (and cheerleader and band) to start practicing once school starts. But at least they would not be practicing in July.

Give everyone a break! Stop that herd-thinking that football must begin immediately the week of school. Mandate the start of the football season later, and the health, in some cases the very lives, of students, would be immensely improved.

The Georgia High School Association is not known for thinking outside the box. It would be refreshing, and more healthy, if they could.

That way, an unintended consequence, the health of students, would not be so harmed by the decision by a board of regents to move the universities to the semester system.

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FEEDBACK
8/2: Finds himself agreeing with Gwinnett school board

Editor, the Forum:

Funny thing, while you were wondering why the Gwinnett County Public School system would sell a newly purchased property, I was wondering why they hadn't.

With the urgent demand for more classrooms and the increase in taxes to support the school system, spending over $30 million for the property and renovations for a new central office made about as much sense as building the bunker

Rarely do I agree with the people running our school system, I commend them for this move although it was a no brainer and will undoubtedly be spun as a positive, innovative, move in the next election cycle.

-- Jim Dumond, Buford

NOTABLE
$12 million in Gwinnett highway projects included in HR 3

Congressman David Scott announces the passage of the federal surface transportation bill, H.R. 3. Congressman Scott secured funding for several major transportation projects for Georgia's 13th Congressional District in the bill. Over $12 million is directed to Gwinnett County projects.

For Gwinnett County, Congressman Scott secured $5,300,000 to improve U.S. Highway 78. The project will provide median upgrades, lighting and beautification from the DeKalb County border to Snellville. "The Highway 78 Community Improvement District has created a plan to improve the aesthetics as well as the safety along this heavily-traveled road," Congressman Scott said. "When completed, these improvements will bring a significant economic benefit to Gwinnett County."

Congressman Scott also secured $6,200,000 to improve Georgia Highway 316, including an interchange at State Route 20 and the addition of HOV lanes. Congressman Scott was joined by Congressman John Linder in providing the funds for both projects in a bi-partisan effort.

Suwanee mayor to deliver State of the City address

Mayor Nick Masino will present Suwanee's annual State of the City address at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 10, at the Chattahoochee Run Clubhouse. The presentation is part of the August Suwanee Business Alliance meeting, which runs from 6-8 p.m.; this meeting is free and open to the public.

Taylor picks Curt Thompson for Code Revision Commission

Thompson

State Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) has been appointed by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor to the Code Revision Commission, which is responsible for making technical corrections to newly adopted legislation prior to its inclusion in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.

Thompson, who represents parts of Gwinnett and DeKalb counties in District 5, recently completed his first session in the Senate after two years in the House of Representatives. For more information, visit Thompson's web site at www.becauseyourvoicecounts.com.

RECOMMENDED READ

• An invitation: What Web sites or books have you enjoyed? Send us your best recent read along with a short paragraph as to why you liked it, plus what book you plan to read next. --eeb
  
  

GEORGIA TIDBIT
Milledgeville once capital of Georgia before the Civil War

A town of 18,757 inhabitants, Milledgeville is the seat of Baldwin County, in central Georgia. It served as the fourth capital of Georgia (1804-68) and was the seat of the state government throughout the Civil War.

Old State Capitol

After 1815 the City of Milledgeville became increasingly prosperous and more respectable. Wealth and power gravitated toward the capital, and the surrounding countryside was caught up in the middle of a cotton boom. Streets were lined with cotton bales waiting to be shipped downriver to Darien. Oglethorpe University, where the poet Sidney Lanier was educated, opened its doors in 1838. (The college, forced to close in 1862, was re-chartered in 1913, with its campus in Atlanta.)

The cotton boom also significantly increased the slave population; by 1828 the town claimed 1,599 inhabitants: 789 free whites, 27 free blacks, and 783 African American slaves. The town market, where slave auctions were held, stood next to the Presbyterian church on Capital Square. Black carpenters, masons, and laborers constructed most of the handsome antebellum structures in Milledgeville.

Two events epitomized Milledgeville's status as the political and social center of Georgia in these years. The first was the visit to the capital in 1825 by the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette. The receptions, barbecue, formal dinner, and grand ball for this veteran apostle of liberty seemed to mark Milledgeville's coming of age. The second event was the construction (1836-38/39) of the Governor's Mansion, one of the most important examples of Greek Revival architecture in America.

On January 19, 1861, Georgia convention delegates passed the Ordinance of Secession, and the "Republic of Georgia" joined the Confederate States of America, to the accompaniment of wild celebration, bonfires, and illuminations on Milledgeville's Statehouse Square. Three years later, on a bitterly cold November day, General William T. Sherman and 30,000 Federal troops marched into Milledgeville. When they left a couple of days later, the statehouse had been ransacked; the state arsenal and powder magazine had been destroyed; the penitentiary, the central depot, and the Oconee bridge were burned; and the surrounding countryside was devastated. In 1868, during Reconstruction, the capital was moved to Atlanta-a city emerging as the symbol of the New South as surely as Milledgeville symbolized the Old South.

• To access the Georgia Encyclopedia, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
  
  

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Five-minute conservations can be most revealing

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

-- Sir Winston Churchill, via Rogers Wade, Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

• Another invitation: What's your favorite saying? Share with others through GwinnettForum. Send to elliott@gwinnettforum.com.
  

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