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TODAY'S
FOCUS
Berlin
Candy Bomber to appear at free concert April 25-26
By KELLY LADD
Special to GwinnettForum.com
SUWANEE,
Ga., April 24, 2009 -- U.S. Air Force Pilot Gail Halvorsen from Tucson,
Ariz., nicknamed the Candy Bomber by children in Berlin, Germany, will
join five other metro-Atlanta heroes being given tribute during the In
Praise of Heroes" free community concert series being held April
25 and 26. With performances by the 65-voice Sugar Hill Latter Day Saints
Choir and 60-piece Gwinnett Community Band, both fourth annual concerts
will be held at 7 p.m. each night at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints' (LDS) Sugar Hill Stake Center at 4833 Suwanee Dam Road, Suwanee,
near North Gwinnett High School.
Halvorsen in 1983 |
The concert
will culminate the April 25 "Day of Service" occurring in 10
states throughout the Southeast -- representing some 956 LDS congregations
and nearly half-a-million members being joined by thousands of others
to do a simultaneous day of service. Concert attendees are asked to bring
cans of food to help struggling families with donations going to local
food and pantry organizations.
Halvorsen, 88, is on tour to help raise awareness of the difference one
person can make in the life of another by recreating his famous "candy
parachute drops" that raised the morale and restored hope in mankind
for thousands of children in Berlin. Halvorsen's drops will be held on
Saturday, April 25, throughout North Atlanta with those attending also
being encouraged to bring cans of food.
In July 1948, at the end of a German airport runway, Halvorsen gave two
sticks of gum through a fence to a group of children caught in the World
War II Cold War aftermath and Russia's blockade of food and supplies.
By the time the Berlin Airlift ended 60 years ago this May, hundreds of
American school children, U.S. candy companies and U.S. Air Force pilots
helped to make possible thousands of parachute wrapped candy dropped in
Berlin -- all resulting from Halvorsen sharing two sticks of gum and promising
to return with more.
His story, along with those of local heroes Becky Douglas of Peachtree
Corners, Kyle Maynard of Buford, Marin Morrison, former Suwanee resident,
Robbie Moore of Lawrenceville and Suzanne Geske of Duluth, will be further
highlighted during the concerts.
With last year's attendance reaching more than 1,500, this year's memorable
concert will provide a celebration of ordinary people doing extraordinary
things showcased through word and music. The program will include a variety
of popular songs such as The Impossible Dream, Battle Hymn of the Republic,
and Disney's When you Believe. For additional concert information
visit www.sugarhillldschoir.org.
For more information about the Food Drive collection sites and updates
on where the parachute candy drops will be held, visit www.fiveloavesandtwofishes.org.
ELLIOTT
BRACK
Georgia
has one of its original tax collectors at work again
By ELLIOTT BRACK
Editor and publisher
APRIL 24,
2009 -- Though retired, I now have a part-time job.
Brack |
Since a
self-published author now, I have this mandatory additional new job: a
tax collector the State of Georgia! Yes, on every sale for Georgians of
my history, Gwinnett: A Little Above Atlanta, I have to collect 6 percent
sales tax for the Department of Revenue, and send in a report on an official
state collection form each month.
In effect, it's a part-time job working for Sonny Perdue.
Yet I come to this job with experience, back from when I was one of the
first sales tax collectors for the State of Georgia, doing it for about
two years.
My gig as a semi-employee and collector for the State of Georgia goes
back all the way to 1951. That's when former Gov. Herman Talmadge engineered
through the Legislature his plan to help education, through a then-three
per cent sales tax to fund the Minimum Education Foundation Plan. (MEFP.)
And the MEFP worked. No less of an authority than the historian Kenneth
Coleman says that pouring the three cents sales tax into education "dramatically
improved the Georgia public school system," adding "whether
the improvement was measured in attractiveness of the buildings, educational
level of the teachers, or per pupil expenditures of public funds."
 |
Eliminated
were many one-teacher schools, with the state getting fewer but bigger
schools. In spite of the 1951 plan to improve Georgia schools, the state
still ranks well below where it should be for educational attainment.
We still need to improve.
Back to my early sales tax collection job: what the State did in 1951
was to determine that anyone in retail sales had to collect sales tax.
The interpretation of the new legislative act meant that individual newspaper
carriers throughout the state would be collectors, reporting their sales
tax each month.
So as a carrier charging 40 cents a week then for The Macon Telegraph,
I had to collect two more cents from each customer. Furthermore, each
month I had to fill out a sales tax collection, report and send my collection
(less a small commission for doing it) to the state of Georgia. So my
month would get 40 cents from each subscriber, times my 100 customers,
times 4.3 weeks a month, or $172 in sales. Three percent was the tax,
or $5.16. I got 15 cents for doing the collection, and sent the State
$5.01. I remember getting my first checking account in order to mail the
state a check each month.
It was absurd to require Georgia's youth newspaper carrier to be the collection
agents. I figure that there were perhaps 300 other newspaper carriers
in Macon, and therefore, perhaps around the state, maybe 5,000 of us who
were collecting that tax for the state at the most basic level. Think
of the wad of paperwork coming from carriers! You wonder if mine and others
were figured right. Some carriers may never even sent in the tax.
After about two years, the Revenue Department got wise, and started collecting
the sales tax at the wholesale level, that is from the newspaper itself.
Finally, someone saw how incredulous it was to seek all that paperwork
from 5,000 carriers, when they could save money by collecting it from
the 200 or so newspapers in the state!
So you see my sales tax report these days is completed by having two years
of experience in collecting sales taxes. The State of Georgia is getting
a bargain.
ABOUT
OUR SPONSORS
The public
spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you
at no cost to readers. Today GwinnettForum welcomes a new underwriter.
It is CAB Incorporated, an international supply chain and quality
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for waterworks and industrial piping and castings and forgings used in
mining, industrial, agricultural, rail and other industries. CAB recently
moved its headquarters from Oakwood to Buford, Ga. CAB has a manufacturing
facility in Nacogdoches, Tex. and offices in Shanghai, China; Busan, South
Korea; Johannesburg, South Africa; Delhi, India; and Hanoi, Vietnam. CAB
employs 75 people around the world, including more than 20 engineers with
expertise in metallurgy, castings, forgings and quality assurance. Visit
the web site at www.cabinc.com.
McLEMORE'S
WORLD ARCHIVE
Getting the
employee discount
FEEDBACK
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500 words, we'll consider it for Today's Focus.
UPCOMING
Second
Buford Art and Jazz Festival opens May 9
Artists
from around the Southeast, vendor displays and jazz bands from area middle
and high schools will converge on Historic Downtown Buford on Saturday,
May 9, for the area's second annual Art and Jazz Festival on Main Street.
Hosted by the City of Buford and the Buford Business Alliance, the festival
will open at 10 a.m. and close at 10 p.m., with performances from professional
jazz and swing bands.
Beginning
at 5:30 p.m., a wine and food tasting will take place at the historic
Bona Allen Mansion. Several of the area's finest dining establishments
including Grapes and Hops, Red Sky Café, Rico's World Kitchen,
Sean's American Bistro and Tabby's Irish Pub, will serve signature menu
items and host a wine tasting. Local chocolatier, Peterbrooke, will provide
samples of their famous European style chocolates for dessert.
A portion of proceeds from the festival will provide scholarships to local
high school students who excel in music and marketing. Four professional
bands Capitol City Express, Hot and Cool, Daniel Jackson Explosion and
the King Daddy Polecats, will close out this year's festival on the amphitheatre
lawn in front of the at Bona Allen Mansion beginning at 7 p.m.
Tim Koenning, BBA president, says: "The annual Art and Jazz festival
is a celebration of not only art and music and the history of these things
in Buford, but of spring and community. We hope everyone will take a look
at our schedule of events and be sure to mark this day on their calendar."
Booths, sponsorships and advertising opportunities are available for artists,
merchants or organizations. For the first time, the festival has partnered
with local newspaper Gwinnett Daily Post to produce a multi-paged event
guide that will include sponsor spotlights and a schedule of events publishing
on Sunday, May 3.
Long known
as an artist colony, Historic Downtown Buford and its Tannery Row are
home to 17 local artists, unique dining, specialty shops and professional
offices. The Buford Business Alliance is a non-profit organization that
brings together the citizens, city leaders, civic organizations and the
businesses in the Buford area in a communal spirit. BBA sponsored festivals,
events and other marketing opportunities promote business and tourism
in Buford. The BBA meets monthly and is open to the public. Visit www.VisitBuford.com
for more information.
NOTABLE
Aurora Theatre announces
upcoming play list for 2009 season
The Aurora
Theatre announced its 2009-2010 Main Stage 14th season with an array of
proven audience theatrical delights. The line-up of presentations includes:
Kiss Me, Kate, opening the new season from August 6 to September
6, 2009: the Cole Porter musical, with book by Bella and Samuel Spewack.
Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare, Kiss Me, Kate recounts the backstage
and onstage antics of two feuding romantic couples during a touring production
of The Taming of the Shrew. This Tony Award winning revival sparkles with
one Cole Porter hit after another - including Another Op'nin', Another
Show, Wunderbar, From This Moment On, and Too Darn Hot.
Buy My House . . . Please! a world premiere, will be presented
October 8 to November 1, 2009. Promising young playwright Gabriel Dean
shows us that laughter is the best way to weather the recession. Like
so many young marrieds today, a couple finds that pregnancy, unemployment
and foreclosure have put a strain on their marriage. The answer to their
problems, Reality TV!
Christmas Canteen 2009, an Aurora Theatre Original, celebrates
14 seasons, runs from November 27 to December 23, 2009. This nostalgic
musical extravaganza is a winter wonderland that just keeps getting better!
It's Christmastime all over the world as the cast of 2008 returns. Along
with the Festival of Trees in Aurora's majestic lobby, it's quite the
way to get you ready for "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year."
Tranced -- a regional premiere by Robert Clyman will be on the
Aurora stage January 14 until February 7, 2010. In this chilling psychological
thriller, Dr. Phillip Malaad, the nation's leading expert in a technique
called "trancing," helps his patients recover suppressed memories.
When he treats Azmera, a foreign grad student suffering from an inability
to concentrate, he uncovers a secret that could have catastrophic consequences.
A Catered Affair -- another regional premiere, will greet audiences
March 4 to April 3,2010. Drama Desk Award Winner and Tony Nominee for
Best Musical of 2008, A Catered Affair is a funny, poignant and
oh-so-human tale of love and marriage. The year is 1953, and the Hurley
family must decide whether to spend their life savings on their small
business or on the wedding of their only daughter, Janey. Music and lyrics
are by John Bucchino, with the book by Harvey Fierstein. The play is based
on the film written by Gore Vidal, from an original teleplay by Paddy
Chayefsky.
Boeing, Boeing, is the last play of the upcoming year, and runs
from May 6 to May 30, 2010. Bernard, an American architect living in Paris,
has been successfully juggling three (yes, three) fiancées who
are all flight attendants. His housekeeper reluctantly plays romantic
air-traffic controller as they fly in and out of his swanky bachelor pad.
But when his old college pal visits, things get turbulent!
To order season tickets, call 678-226-6222.
RECOMMENDED
- An invitation: What
Web sites, books or restaurants have you enjoyed? Send
us your best recent visit to a restaurant or most recent book you
have read along with a short paragraph as to why you liked it, plus
what book you plan to read next. --eeb
GEORGIA
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sherman's Field Order
15 soon overturned by Andrew Johnson
On January 16, 1865, Union general William T. Sherman issued his
Special Field Order No. 15, which confiscated as Federal property
a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, S.C., to the St. John's
River in Florida, including Georgia's Sea Islands and the mainland 30
miles in from the coast. The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres
of land to newly freed black families in 40-acre segments.
Sherman |
Sherman's
order came on the heels of his successful March to the Sea from Atlanta
to Savannah and just prior to his march northward into South Carolina.
Feeling pressure from within his own party, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln
sent his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, to Savannah in order to facilitate
a conversation with Sherman over what to do with Southern planters' lands.
On January 12 Sherman and Stanton met with 20 black leaders of the Savannah
community, mostly Baptist and Methodist ministers, to discuss the question
of emancipation. Lincoln approved Field Order No. 15 before Sherman issued
it just four days after meeting with the black leaders. From Sherman's
perspective the most important priority in issuing the directive was military
expediency.
The order explicitly called for the settlement of black families on confiscated
land, encouraged freedmen to join the Union army to help sustain their
newly won liberty, and designated a general officer to act as inspector
of settlements. Congressional leaders convinced President Lincoln to establish
the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands on March 3, 1865,
shortly after Sherman issued his order.
The immediate effect of Sherman's order provided for the settlement of
roughly 40,000 blacks (both refugees and local slaves who had been under
Union army administration in the Sea Islands since 186. But the order
was a short-lived promise for blacks. Despite the objections of General
Oliver O. Howard, the Freedmen's Bureau chief, U.S. president Andrew Johnson
overturned Sherman's directive in the fall of 1865, after the war had
ended, and returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida
coasts to the planters who had originally owned it.
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TODAY'S
QUOTE
Mark
Twain's reflections on
Noah and his boat
"Often it does
seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat."
-- American
original Mark Twain (1835-1910)
MORE
FROM ELLIOTT BRACK
MORE
RECENT COMMENTARY
MODERN
HISTORY OF GWINNETT
NOW
IN STORES! You can purchase the book now at several locations:
- Books
for Less in downtown Snellville and Lawrenceville (Highway 20
near the Braves park);
- Gwinnett
Historical Society in the Historic Courthouse.
- Howard's
Hardware,
Duluth
- City
Hall, Buford
- Atlanta
History Center,
Atlanta
-
City Hall,
Dacula
- City
Hall, Loganville
- Victorian
Cowgirl,
Cleveland
- City
Hall, Sugar
Hill
- City
Hall, Lilburn
- Bookstore,
Greater Atlanta Christian School
- Campus
Store, Wesleyan
School
Or order
directly from elliottbrack.com
and get a signed copy.
The book consists
of 850 pages, including more than 143 demographic and historic tables,
with more than 4,000 names in the index, and 10,000 names in the appendix.
ON
THE BOOKSHELF
Here are some other
good reads that you might want to consider reading:
- A
Short History of a Small Place, T.R. Pearson
- A
Turn in the South, V.S. Naipaul
- The
Book of Marie, Terry Kay
- Plain
Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, Merle Miller
- Suggest
a book to us
FOR
CHARITY. You can give "A Gift of Laughter," a great book
of cartoons by Bill McLemore, to help raise money for Rainbow Village.
At just $20, it's a fun way to help. To order, call 770 840 1003,
or 770 446 3800, or email to info@gwinnettforum.com.
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day. Saves you a lot of money and time.
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-- an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible
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