By Elliott Brack,
Editor and publisher, GwinnettForum
SEPT. 16, 2025 | Save money on your water bill. Here’s how: if you have an irrigation system for your lawn, you may be watering far too much.
Tim Waters of Waterways Irrigation, who is a full-time Gwinnett firefighter when not working on watering systems, feels that most people water their grass too much. He told me when working on my system: “Water for about 10 minutes every other day. That’s enough to keep your lawn healthy.”
If you cut back on the amount of water your lawn gets, you save two ways: a reduced charge for water from Gwinnett County Water and Sewer, and since your sewer bill is based on the water used, it’s a double whammy, saving two ways. Try it and you’ll find out.
Local author Julie Rutkowski of Norcross, who thinks and puts on paper some of the ordinary aspects of life, has two new books out, both available on Amazon.
One is called Bet That Song was Written for Me, which sells for $14.95 paperback and $7.99 Kindle. It has 229 pages and has a cover painted by her Norcross High classmate Kim Pitts of Buford, now a professional artist. His work, entitled “Yesterday When I was Seven,” is currently on display at the Sugar Hill Art Gallery.
Her second book is Jack and The Quest for Chipmunks, which is 64 pages, and $9.95 paperback or $5.99 Kindle.
Continuing to follow her heart in writing, she also has a third book underway, with a working title: Is a Lima Bean a Vegetable?… and Other Culinary Quandaries.
Brand swap: Have you noticed? Costco, at its snack counter, is now offering Coca-Cola, not Pepsi. The switch came about a month ago. This is not just a change in drink offering for Costco in Atlanta, where Coca-Cola is headquartered. It is a company wide change.
Think of how big a deal this is….for both soft-drink companies.
For you who do not know, Pepsi was founded in 1893 in New Bern, N.C. Apparently the Atlanta area is still served out of New Bern, since we spotted 18-wheelers from New Bern Transport dropping off Pepsi products on two different days recently in Gwinnett. Coke was founded in 1886 in Atlanta. From its beginning, the company has promoted the drink as “Delicious and Refreshing!”
In April 1833, the world’s oldest taxpayer-supported public library was founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The money for the Peterborough Public Library came from the State Literary Fund, tax money collected from the sale of capital stock for the purpose of paying for a state university. There wasn’t enough money in the fund to fulfill its original purpose, so a Unitarian minister named Abiel Abbot proposed that some of the money be used to purchase books that could be lent to townspeople free of charge.
Vatican astounding: Reading a book by Bill Bryson (“Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe”), when he got to Rome, he was astonished at how large St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican is. It’s not big; it is enormous.
Look at these facts: It is 730 feet long, 364 feet wide, and the distance from the floor to the top of the dome is 438 feet! It can seat 20,000 worshipers. Another mind-boggler: four grand pillars that support the dome are each 50 feet wide! It is the largest church in the world! Astounding!
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