THE HOGANSVILLE HOME NEWS
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PUBIJSHEIffADVERTISING DIRF_L'R
JOHN KUYKENDALL
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/EDITOR
MAroON (TEv) SMrm
IANAGING EDITOICAL
DIRECTOR
WnJmlcr
BusmTs MANAGER
me
Phone (706) 846-3188. Fax (706) 846-2206
A (Orim publivatm P.o. Box
Mil B. Gmm, Hogansville, Georgia 30280
T
My First Love
I guess we all can remem-
ber our firsf love. John
Although I met my first Kuykendail
love some 25 years or so ago, ....
there isn't much I don't
remember about her.
I can still remember the
feeling that rushed through-
out my body the moment I saw
the one that was right for me.
I remember thinking how
much I would love to have her learn as much as I could.
for my own and how hard I At every opportunity t I
had to work to get her. would ask any male around for
It was love at first sight.., tips at making things better
there has never been any for her. I wanted to do every-
doubt about it. To this day, thing right and didn't have the
there has been nothing that needed experience or know
could compare to that feeling how, but I knew the older guys
I got when I finally made her did.
mine. She and I lasted all the way
Oh the times we had through high school. Oh, the
together. Those were the best times we had together. You
times of my life. There was never saw me without her and
nothing I wouldn't do for her I didn't want to be without her.
and she was the only thing that We were inseparable.
mattered to me in the entire As with all good things
universe, however, it finally came to an
Every chance I got, I'd go end. Sometimes I wish I could
' shopping for little trinkets to go back in time and retrieve
• help make her even prettier her and never let her go. She
and my friends envious of her. would be mine forever.
I really wanted to make them However, we must all pay
jealous. I wanted them to for our mistakes. Mine was
know she was mine and they meeting a girl and getting
couldn't have her. married.
Of course, improving per - After I put the ring on my
fection isa-task and cer- finger I figured it was time to
tainly hard as a 16 year-old say goodbye to the sports car
that knows nothing about and buy a real car. What a mis-
things like that. But I tried to take that was!
THE HOGANSVlL£ HOME NEWS is llbllshed weekly by the Star-Mercury lJblish
Company, a division of Grimes Publications, at 3051 Roosevelt Highway, Manchester,
Georgm 31816. USPS 620-040. Subscription rates by mail: $15 in Meriwether, Talbot or
Hams Counties, $20 a year elsewhe. Prkes indude ell sales tas. Second class postage
paid at Hogamvilk, Gcorgin 30230.
FoR suescmtoNs call (706) 846-3188 or write to Circulation Manager, Sta
Mercury Publications, P. O. Box 426, Manchester, Geccgia 31816.
POSTMASW: Send addr--s changes to P. O. lka 426, Hogansville, GA 30230.
Srsr
Pubfisher and Director ..................................................................... Mike Hale
Associate Publisher and Editor ................................................................. John Kuyndall
Managing Editor and Technical Director ............................................ Marion (Ted) Smith
Business Manager ...................................................................................... LeeAnn Wdbert
Associate Editors ......................... Billy Bryant/Talboa Michael Snider/Harris County
Bryan Getex, Caroline Yeagex/Cncenvilk, lee N. Howell
Staff Writer ......................................................................................................... J. Dan Stout
Assistant Advertising Manager ........................................................................ .Laurie Lewis
Advertising Sales .................................. : ........................................................... Linda
Photography ................................................................................................... J:ha¢l Snidef
Composing .................................................................................... Vanda lvery, Dori Green
Lcgais ......................................................................... : ....................................... Valinda lvery
Receptionist and Classifieds .............................................................................. Clem Young
room ..................................................... : ................. mid SoS W C.,w
CommIx OmJs
President ......................................................................................................... Grimes
Vice President ......................................................................................... Charlotte S. Grimes
tary ................................................................................................. lama Grim Cor
Treasurer .............................................................................................. Kathy Cain C, arr
Legal Counsel attd Amistant Secretary ..................................................... James S. Chimes
OPINION
PAGE 4 - HOGANSVILL HOME NEWS - NOVEMBER 3, 1999
George W. Bush a Presidential Nominee
Texas governor George
W.Bush has become the odds
on favorite to win the
Republican presidential nom-
ination next year.
His recent spats with the
more ideological members of
his party's right wing seem
only to have enhanced his
standing in the national pres-
idential polls wthen matched
up with a Democrat - sort of
like then candidate Bill
Clinton's argument with
Sister Soul jab enhanced his
standing in the polls against
the GOP front runner in 1992.
Vice President A1 Gore
seems on the verge of regain-
ing his stranglehold on the
Democratic Party's nomina-
tion after his early endorse-
ment by the strongest voice
in organized labor in the
country the AFL-CIO.
Thus with the two major
party nominations seeming-
ly wrapped up at this early
stage of the campaign, most
of the interest is in who will
get the Reform Party nomi-
nation.
It is unlikely that whoev-
Lee N.
Howell
Associate
Ed
er gets the Reform Party's'
nod will win the presidential
election, but since it's the
only game in town, all us polit-
ical groupies are interested
in watching.
The Reform front runner
at this point is Republican
also-ran Pat Buchanan. If
Buchanan does get the nom-
ination, it will be a classic
case of politics making
strange bedfellows.
the Reform Party, as envi-
sioned by founder Ross Perot,
is fiscally conservative and
socially moderate, with a
hefty dose of political
reform. That is the platform
on which Perot ran and on
which the party is organized.
While Buchanan is a fis-
cal conservative and his
views would be somewhat
compatible with those of
Reform party voters, his
social agenda would be anath-
ema to most of them.
Buchanan supports
mandatory prayer in schools,
public funding for religious
education and the abolition
and criminalization of abor-
tion. Reform voters are, to
put it mildly, "secular" vot-
ers.
Many of them probably
applauded Jesse Ventura's
comments during his recent
interview with Playboy in
which the attacked the sani-
ty of those who are actively
involved with religion, even
if they personally may not
have been so blatant in their
description of their fellow
citizens.
Political analyst Albert J.
Menendez pointed out in a
recent article in the
Washington Post, "If
Buchanan takes a hard look
at" past voting patterns, he
might rethink his interest in
the Reform Party nomina-
tion."
Menendez points out
the areas carried by Peroti
Colorado voted 70
against tuition tax
public schools in a 1998
erendum and also su
gay rights that same year. 1
precincts that were
most strongly by Perot
Washin
ingly rejected a
that would ban
tions.
Menendez further
that the precint around
fundamentalist bastion
Bob Jones University
Buchanan nearly 50 perce
of the 1996 GOP r
South Carolina but gave
only two percent of their
in the election.
Buchanan still
able to take over the
Party because of their
nominating
Wthether his winmng
nomination would
most of the party's
ents to give their votes t0!
man who represents a
laundry list if items
oppose is another question.
Depression Hits Roosevelt's Farm
(Another in a series.)
Despite his desire to make
his farming operation prof-
itable, Roosevelt soon found
that that was easier said than
done. The "Southern Depres-
sion" before 1929 was bad; the
national Depression following
the crash of that year made
things worse even in Georgia.
In the year before the crash, per
capita farm income in Georgia
had been only $145. By the year
Roosevelt was elected
President, that had dropped to
$74.
On his own farm, Roosevflt
found he was playing the gen-
tleman farmer--if not the
squire or the patron--in the
sense that he was subsidizing
his work force.
They were hard workers;
they were proficient;
Roosevelt's overseership was
informed and enlightened--and
all of this did not add up to earn-
ings in excess of expenses and
investment. In part this was due
to Roosevelt's being too enlight-
ened. Having a full-time farm
manager, to whom he paid $100
a month and provided a house,
was unusual, even extravagant
for those times in that place. No
cotton farm in Meriwether
County had a manager at that
time. The largest peach
orchards did have managers,
but none received that sort of
pay.
In addition to paying Doyle,
Roosevelt also paid $50 a month
to Otis Moore to handle the cat-
tle herd. That was about what
the managers made at the best
peach orchards.
Roosevelt's payroll was
almost surely the highest of any
farm of similar size in south-
west Georgia. In March 1930,
for example, his monthly pay-
roll was $195 - $100 for Doyle,
$50 for Moore, $15 for one "wage
hand" and $10 each to three oth-
ers.
At that rate, he could expect
his annual payroll to be $2,340.
Yet when he prepared his 1929
income tax return that month,
he had to notice that his:gross
income on the farm the year
before had been only $2,275.35.
And of course, there were a
great many more expenses than
just payroll--seed, fertilizer,
fencing, building repairs, equip-
ment maintenance, etc. As the
Depression deepened,
Roosevelt increased his payroll
Moore got $75 a month after
January 1931; and the wage
hands got raises to $25 for one
and $17.50 each for two others.
(One was let go.) In 1929, his
expenses exceeded gross
income by a whopping
$3,184.08.
At that point the farm was
still essentially a cotton farm,
with about two-thirds of its
income derived from cotton, a
situation Roosevelt eventually
ended--temporarily. Income
from cattle in 1929 was only
$65.41. The farm was gradual-
The
Squire
of Warm
Springs
ByTheo
ly going out of the peach busi-
ness. Doyle and Roosevelt had
been urging such a course on
each other from the start.
"My labor bill fro" pieking,
packing, grading peaches added
to 'the cost of containers
amounts to more than all the
peaches will bring," Doyle
wrote Roosevelt the summer
before he decided to run for
Governor.
Roosevelt wrote on several
occasions in the next few years
that he saw no future for the
peach business. Roosevelt
urged other enterprises. For
example, he had what was
apparently the first Concord
grape orchard in the area. It had
never done well in south
Georgia.
Two men named Scott and
Stuckey were trying to develop
a better-yielding grape to sub-
stitute for the native scupper-
nong.
Roosevelt knew of their
work and ordered a vineyard on
a slope of his own farm. In early
years this varied from 2 to 1
or 12 acres. It brought in
income at first, $22.15 in
for example. But later,
Roosevelt became so
known, roadside
sales to an Atlanta
amounted to over
of grapes one year.
Roosevelt also raised.
sale at a roadside stand,
es, spinach, peppers,
ons, cantaloupes,
tomatoes, string beans and
there was mohair from
goats, wool from
Roosevelt wrote DoyI6 in
that what he ought to do is
neighboring farmers to
their produce to his stand
him, Doyle, to sell. "If we
make even a slight profit,
keeps the trade going," he
The grapes never caught
with other farmers in the
but Roosevelt and his
Cason Callaway did get
farmers to try apple
for Roosevelt to boast to a
of agriculture writers
"for the first time"
could be bought in
stores in south Georgia.
is hot very encouraging
for the people of the state
Washington, but it is a
correct development," he
(Next week: Cattle
continue falling.)
My Friend - Willie Lee Black
I wish that, just for this er, but I only remember a few. " ............................................................................ our1
moment, I had the ability of a Mrs. Bea Black still lives in Allan Dee it up as we had work to do,
Hemingway to write about this the same house they occupied when he and Mr. Link were
man, but since I don, well have and I trust she will forgive me Dodson 00f00renc00, I was in a
to do the best we can with what for anything I say. After all, Bea since Mr. Link was plant
we have. knew him better than I. Bea is a er.I would lookl
Willie Lee worked in the splendid woman and used to
warehouse at the then U.S. come to our house many years : ....... ......... :: maybe go to the rest room.
............. n't want him to
Rubber. In those days, we ran ago. Willie Lee told me one day,
::i: me or Willie Lee, and I still
only cotton. Cotton bales weigh '€Mr. Allan, ff you could just be a ':::;i::i:;A i£ he would have gone 2 to 1
about 450to600pounds, and they black man one Saturday night, Willie Lee. Willie Lee liked
were moved on hand trucks, you would never want to be white I know, he never got too old. long cars with plenty
Willie Lee was a small man, but again." Looking at the happiness One morning Vtrtllie Lee came room. He sometimes had
he could move two bales to any- Willie Lee evidenced, I wasn't so in looking sad. He said he was luck with his cars. Told me
one else's one. Trucking cotton is sure but that he was right. Willie having trouble and had prayed, he had the only car that
not just a matter of strength - it Lee liked the women and evi- His prayer went, "Oh, Lord, I am use two quarts of oil at night
isskin, properbalance, andknow- " dently the women liked Willie having trouble, bad trouble, ting in the back yard. We
how. It was a revelation and a Lee. He either had an active and Please come down and help me. each other when we were
pleasure to watch him truck cot- vivid imagination, or it was the And, Lord, don send any of your He came to the house
ton. But it is not about trucking real thing. At that titne, I would disciples - you come yourself!" timeslater and we would
cotton I wish to write, but Willie have welcomed just the vivid Willie Lee and Bea lived in a of the old days. He died in
Lee, the man. The name proba- imagination! house owned by Mr. Charlie Sims early '70s and our town lost a
bly doesn't mean anything to Vrffiie Lee said,"Don't ever go (Truitt's daddy), the warehouse tleman and an
most of you, but ff yon ever met home and rush right in the house, man. He was behind on his rent character. I hope we can
him, you would remember, as I Stop on your porch, kick your and Mr. Charlie threatened to again someday and this time
"do. Ask Mr. Mike Link Mike con- feet, shuffle a little and give the evicthim.Theywereintheoffice, Black, I really want
suited him frequently and some- back door time to slam - then go and I heard threats, begging and all you told me was the truth, a
timesat great length. He was the in."Ifyouhaveafinesupperwith some crying. I knew Mr. Charlie I know he told me the tru
sage of the company. Witty, a pile of pork chops, don't ask had a soft heart and wasnt going along towards the last,
humorous, andalwayswithajoke where the money came from for to throwhim out, but Willie Lee saying a word. He
to tell and even a good listener, all this food - just eat it!" When didn. Finally, Willie Lee agreed breathing trouble and would
Later on, when we got lift trucks, WillieLee met a woman, he would to move ff Mr. Sims would lend to his doctor for medicine
the best driver I've ever seen. take of his hat and say, "Yes, him enough money to rent a return to his truck, barely
The first man on the job in the Ma'am." Can you think of a bet- truck. Mr. Charlie loaned him the to keep his seat,
mornings and ff shipping wasn ter way? I can't, moneyandW'fllieLeegaveitright was
finished by five o'clock, Willie I never knew Willie Lee to back to him for the rent, and, telling, that he was a man.
Lee would stay on no matter how take a drink of alcohol, someone askedforareceiptWfllieLeewas courage, ofhonor, ofdedicati
long it toolc If I could remember asked him why, and he replied, smart! Everyone would stop and and most of all, my friend.
only a small part of W'fflie Lee's "I'm saving that for when I get talk to Willie Lee for his words I wish I had told him so
sayings, it would make a best sell- too old for the womenY So fa as of wisdom. Since he was one of instead of waiting until now..j
