OPINIONS & IDEAS
PAGE 4 - HOGANSVILLE HOME NEWS - SEPTEMBER 7, 2000
THE HOGANSVILLE HOME NEWS
USPS 620-O4O
A Grtm tuhiicatign
Millard B. Grimes, President
MIKE HAI
PtmUStWa/ADVERTISlNG DmECrOR
JOHN KALL
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHE2JEDITOR
BRYAN GErER
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
JAYNE GOWN
BUSLm_ MANAGER
Phone (706) 846-3188. Fax (706) 846-2206
P. O. Box 426
Itogansville, Georgia 30230
When 1 Danced on the C
Each time I visit Savannah,
Georgia, I recall the spring of
1963, when I.was there, a boy of
16, and the azaleas were in bloom.
I was a member of the Key
Club at my high school. I don't
recall exactly what being in the
Key Club involved, but I was a
member of it and felt accepted,
and that makes growing up a lot
easier.
They held a state Key Club
I had tried to get somewhere
with our sweetheart before, but
I always stammered and looked
down at my feet a lot when I tried
to talk to her.
Normally, I never said a lot of
"uhs" and"ahs" and "you knows"
in conversation, but when I tried
to talk to our red-headed sweet-
heart I always sounded like a
baseball player being inter-
viewed on television.
Lewis
"I continued to
were in bloom.
ES.: Our
several years
I'm going to get in
telling that part
Convention in Savannah that year, "I, uh, ah you know, I, you of
Should We Pray and lwent. Some of us bought know, Iuh, you know..." I would make a fool
somebeeranddrankitinourhotel begin, and by the time she and myself when
rooms, her red hair would be looking for
Wealsowenttooneofthecon- somebody without an apparent [Ted to talk to our
At Ball Games ? vention meetings out of curiosi- speech impediment.
ty, and a boy from Atlanta who S W e e t h e a r t
wore thick glasses and pants that BUT THERE WAS that one
were too short gave a speech on glorious time in Savannah at the /ate]l... '
In a normal business week the
newspaper office is flooded with
E-mails and faxes.
While most are business relat-
ed, the office does receive a great
:deal of junk. I usually see all of
the E-mails and faxes. It is amaz-
ing how much you receive in a
day.
A lot of the junk is filed in
Chapter 13 and forgotten, but
every once in a while apiece
comes through that makes me
stop and read it.
Such was the case last week.
I received an E-mail from The
American Family Association.
They were requesting the news-
paper take the information from
their E-mail and sell a fu|l page
advertisement to a sponsor so the
message could be distributed
among our readers.
The information was inter-
esting and I decided to pass it
along to our readers though my
weekly column.
The E-mail was to inform the
newspaper that The American
Family Association (AFA) has
begun a national campaign pro-
moting prayer at high school foot-
ball games. The following is a
,efrom:tlie: :" !
qET'S PRAY AT FOOTBALL
GAMES!
e
What's happening to our
nation? Slowly, because of the
actions of the American Civil
• Liberties Union (ACLU) and other
groups, the Supreme Court has
been stripping away our religious
freedoms.
They want to disallow recog-
nition of God in the public arena.
They have already taken
prayer out'of schools, banned the
posting of the Ten
:Commandments, and recently
banned student-led prayer at
! sporting events.
• Children have been sent home
because of religious verses on
:their clothing and told they can-
:not read their Bible at school.
Teachers have been told they
cannot place a Bible on their
!.desks where a student might see
:it.
: The ACLU is threatening to
:sue officials who display the
inafional motto "In God We Trust"
fin their offices!
IT IS TIME TO STAND UP
AND BE COUNTEDt
The American Family
Association has begun a national
campaign to help preserve our
religious freedoms. At the next
school football game, immediate-
ly following the national anthem,
we encourage you to help start a
tradition in our community by
joining others in praying the
Lord's Prayer. At football games
at many schools, freedom-loving
people are already doing just that!
We are not asking that the
prayer be spoken on the stadium
speaker or that any school offi-
cial be involved in any manner.
We are simply:JtSking that fans,
students, cheerleaders, team
members, and others in atten-
dance--from both teams--join
together in a "spontaneous" ver-
bai praying of the Lord's Prayer
immediately following the nation-
al anthem.
Please pray in a spirit of
humility and understanding. Our
purpose is to express our thank-
fuiness to God before a watching
world and at the same time raise
a voice to preserve religious free-
dom in the United States of
America. Praying in this manner
is perfectly legal. We urge yo u to
participate at the next football
game. Share this information
with members of your church and
Sunday School class. Urge them
to participate. Help preserve our
precious freedoms."
I was very intrigued by this
idea, If you are for doing this or
against it, please drop me a line
to this newspaper. It is a very
interesting condept and I would
like to know what our readers
think about the idea.
The views expressed on the
Opinion Page of
The Hogansville Home News
are the expressions and ideas of each writer and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the management.
I i
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STAFF
Publisher and Advertising Director ................................................. ; .................. Mike Hale
Associate Publisher and Editor ................................................................ John Kuykendall
Assiate Editor ....................... . .......................................................................... Bryan Geter
Assistant Editor ........................................................................................... Rob Richardson
BtLsiness Manager ....................................................................................... Jayne Goldston
Staff Writers ....... . ............................................................... Michael C. Snider, Billy Bryant
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• COme, ATE OtC-'ZRS
President .................................................... ............................................... MiILard B. Grimes
Vice President ........................................................................................ Charlotte S. Grimes
Secretary ................................................................................................ Laura Grimes Cofer
Treasurer .............................................................................................. Kathy Grimes Garmtt
Legal Counsel and Assismm Secretary .................................................... James S. Grimes
the importance of being good rep-
resentatives of our schools, com-
munities and parents while we
were out of town.
I felt a little guilty about the
beer, but the feeling soon passed.
WHO ELSE went to the state
convention that year was our Key
Club sweetheart.
Every Key Club chapter had
a sweetheart. I'm not sure why
that was, either, but it made sense.
Our sweetheart had red hair
and I was in love with her and our
principal knew what he was doing
when he made her stay in a dif-
ferent hotel than the boys in our
group.
state Key Club Convention. There
was a dance contest, and you don't
have to talk when you dance.
Members drew straws to see
who would get to dance with our
sweetheart in the contest.
I won.
There were maybe fifty cou-
ples entered in the contest.
The band played "Stay," by
Maurice Williams and the
Zodiacs.
My partner and I were one of
four finalists. And then there was
only one other couple to chal-
lenge us.
My feet were winged and I
was rhythm and grace, elegance
and style, and I didn't sweat near-
ly as much as I usually did when
I danced.
We won the dance contest, and
somebody took a picture of us
kissing on the mouth while hold-
hag our trophies. I may have felt
that good two other times.
There isn't very much more
to this story. I continued to make
a fool of myself when I tred to
talk to our sweetheart lateTand
she married somebody else and
so did I.
But I still have my trophy and
I still smile gently when I think
of her, the dance contest, and the
spring of 1963 when I was here,
a boy of sixteen, and the azaleas
IN 1996, AND A WRITING:
EDITING LAB IS BEING I
ICATED TO HIS
HIS BELOVED
OF
BOOKS AND TAPES ARE
AVAILABLE FOR
THROUGH BAD
P.O.
ATLANTA GA
126
STORES NATIONWIDE.
The Little White House,s
design was based on a house
President Roosevelt had seen in
the nearby town of Greenville. He
was a strong believer in copying
local styles. He persuaded his
mother to build a small cottage to
rent to patients and families of
patients. He persuaded Toombs to
design it.imthe, style of anold
Meriwether Inn servant cabin.
The Little White House was
located at the brow of a hill, on the
very edge of a ravine. Roosevelt
wanted a sun porch overlooking
the ravine, where he would work-
(often at a card table) in nice weath-
er. The simplicity of what came to
be on occasion the headquarters
of the United States government
is suggested by the fact that when
he wanted to work indoors in chilly
weather, he had the card table
moved in front of the fireplace.
The frame house with dark
stained pine interiors (no plaster,
FDR ordered) has a kitchen and
pantry, two small bedrooms con-
nected by a bathroom, and a room
and bath off the porch for the sec-
retary, and the living-dining com-
bination.
IT WAS FURNISHED mostly
from items from the first
Roosevelt cottage,
including furniture made at a
small factory at Val-Kill, one of
Eleanor's enterprises in Dutchess
County. There were ship models
and nautical prints; a ship's lantern
on the front porch was always lit
when the President was in resi-
dence.
The porch was colonnaded, as
the Southern Greek Revival style
required. It must have been galling
to Roosevelt, who felt so strongly
that the South should be self-suf-
ficient, that Toombs had to order
the columns from Chicago.
Roosevelt had urged Toombs
to use "local woods" for paneling,
even when it was expensive. He
told him to make up for it by
installing the "cheapest possible
fixtures." Roosevelt knew of this
and other details of the project
because he demanded and
received weekly reports from the
construction superintendent on
material used, the number of men
employed, the weather, the
progress of the work.
That was during the fall and
winter of 1931-32, the period in
which he was also governing New
York State and seeking the presi-
dential nomination. He and
Eleanor came down in May and
stayed in the Little White House
for the first time.
"Dear Henry," he wrote on
May S, "We are all settled in the
cottage and I can't find words to
tell you how delighted I am with
it. So far there is nothing I want
to change."
But there was. He wrote J.W.
Ewing of the Warm Springs
Construction Co. that he wanted a
flat rock mantel instead of the orig-
inal wooden one, and he had a show-
er put in the basement for the ser-
vants. The servants' quarters were
located in the garage, which had
no hot water.
Over the presidential years,
there were some changes - a guest
house, a guard house, security
arrangements - but simplicity
"Hecould/augh
everywhere, but
he seems to have
been able to /augh
most there."
remained the hallmark of the Little
White House. It was never gilded.
Toombs, who had proposed in
his original plans an octagonal
reception room -his client was
after all Governor of New York -
and who had been turned down by
his client who thought this preten-
tious, later wrote, "Love of simple
surroundings - a bright fire,
always a cluttered room of books,
papers, a few ship models, odds
and ends, sometimes acurious but
seldom a really fine thing formed
the unstudied background in
which he liked to live. I cannot
imagine either him or
Roosevelt employing a
to redo a room or house
Theywouldus
without much
saries. The
personal, unpretending,
They were never
decor, but they were
It was a comfdrtable
and for Franklin -although
for Eleanor - that word
the social environment
Springs had become. In the
idential years of his life,
hopes for his health's
were gone, when the
hess and responsibility
greatest and ever
Warm Springs became
Roosevelt could relax
could laugh everywhere, t
seems to have been
most there.
i
(Next week: The
ing and other parties at
Springs.)
'THE SQUIRE OF 'THE
OF WARM SPRINGS IS oN:
AT(
TIE WHITE HOUSE. IT
TAINS
REPRINTED IN
PER DURING
PROCEEDS
SALE ALL GO TO TI
SEVELT
CENTER.
Church Provides Us A Sense of B "
By the time you read this, both they were taken to Assyria. There fellowship. Of course the
the Democratic and Republican they ceased to gather to worship, est and foremost
Convention will be history. They did not repent of they aims- ing is to worship,
Someone recently asked, "Why tasy and return to the Lord their that experience of
have a convention if the candi- God. All ten tribes became the God. We need to focus
dates they are going to support "losttribes."Theyneverretumed
are already decided?" Well, the to their homeland; they ceased to to do so publicl)
answer is not quite so simple, exist. Apparently, they were ers. If we
Many issues are brought to the assimilated into the Gentile peo- church with our
floorforadecisionandthenacon- ple with whom they lived. HOW- ence, we drift away
sensus is declared by the votes EVER, when the Southern
taken for the candidates. Kingdom of Judah was taken caP- will host the annual faith. And our local
diminished without our
But the question remains, tive to Babylon 135 years later, Hummingbird Festival. This will tion of time
"Why have a convention?" One they were diligent to continue be my first year to participate, ving
thingaconventiondoesforapolit- gathering for worship, Bible but I am already getting excited assemble to worship is the
iced party is to solidify the group, study and for the religious about what it will do for our corn- edge that we celebrate the
And, of come, the party decides instruction of their children, munity. It is a time when we can LordandHis
what issues they will support. I Seventy years later, they were . come together as neighbors. It each time we meet wffh
guess the main thing that is done allowed to return home and the won't be just a commercial ven- believers. The innate
is that the convention creates two surviving tribes form the ture, it should be a community mankind is to
unity in the party. It gives them nation of Israel today, event. If we each take a part in worship because we
identity and community. A polit- What is the point? This: when the festivities, it will help us get or whom (Whom) we w0rS
ical convention is not altogether a group has regular meetings, acquainted, it will make us neigh- our own decision.
unlike a religious meeting in that they form community, they main- burs who know each other and we
one thing: they create oneness for tain identity, they survive. That will have "community." guidance of the
the group, is not only necessary for political Our churches meet regularly ship and Bible study,
to us and motivating us,
When the Israelites were ear- parties, it is also true for eommu- for worship and Bible study and have no sense of
ried captive from the Northern nities, fraternities, teams and one of the objectives is to create what is our
Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., Churches. On October21,this city community and strengthen the the church.
BY SPECIAL
MENT WITH HIS
DEDRA, THE HOME
CARRYING
COLUMNS BY THE
LEWIS GRIZZARD
UP IN NEARBY
AND BECAME THE
WIDELY READ
WRITER OF HIS
GRIZZARD
ALL AMERICA BUT
TICULARLY
THIS AREA OF GEORGI
AND WHERE A PORTION t
85 FROM NEWNAN
HOGANSVILLE IS
HIS HONOR. THE
House in Greenville Inspired
