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2A THE NEWS-JOURNAL Racford, N.C. June 18,2003 Viewpoints Tough love didn’t work for dad My next door neighbor, the Yorkie man who has 25 little rat-size dogs, is a friendly fellow to be a Yankee. Folks love those Yorkies; they must — a heavy price is attached to the little rascals. One of my golfing friends bought two of them. My first house didn’t cost as much. Regardless, the Yorkie man and his wife are good neighbors. They went south, bought tomatoes at a stand and shared them with us. In return, I asked if he would like some Irish potatoes. He looked puzzled and said, “What is an Irish potato?” It is going to take a long time to educate these Yankees. When I deliv ered them at the house, he looked in the bag and said, “Oh, that is just a potato.” Which was no great marvel? As I was leaving, I remarked, “There is enough for two messes.” After I left, I thought “Boy, have 1 got him confused. He will be up all night trying to decide what I meant by a mess.” If you aren’t a southerner you sim ply can’t understand our language. We use mess for a lot of meanings, I messed up, I brought you a mess of collard greens and you keep messing around and I will tell your wife. Not hard for us to understand perfectly good English. For some strange reason I can strike up a conversation with anyone. Such happened to me when I was gassing my truck. A fellow was on the other side of the pump 1 was using and naturally I started talking. We devel oped a pretty good friendship by the time the vehicles were filled. Still talking, while we were paying the bills, brought up another subject. Teenagers and their way of life rule the conversation, perhaps made more so, because a young man was in the store with an earring in each ear. Both of us continued to try and figure out why teenagers are different today than when we grew up. Ear rings are different, for sure. If I had worn an earring in my ear, my father would have taken the entire lobe off because he jerked so hard. Although that ‘is an unrealistic statement. What could we have used to put a hole in the lobe? Nothing around my house would have been suitable. Beside my mother would have boxed my ears if 1 had suggested I needed a needle to punch a hole in my ear. My friends at school would have put a label on me and it wouldn’t have been flattering. I told the gentleman teenagers in my time talked back to their parents, the one difference we made sure we were five miles away so they couldn’t hear us. He had a tale to tell, since I had the Dr. Dodson look. When his twin sons were 16, they began to bring some of their friends to the house. He said they were a seedy looking bunch, there fore he informed his sons that their friends were not welcome. It didn’t sit to well with the sons and the father calmly stated. As long as you are in my house, eating my food you will do I 1? One on One 0. G. Martin Lesson in stereotyping “Strong black women.” It is a positive image, don’t you agree? Maybe. But University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Prof Trudier Harris-Lopez’s recent book. Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women In African American Litera ture, challenges that view. 1 read her book to prepare for my interview with her on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch (broad cast last Sunday). 1 expected it to be a volume of unrestrained praise of heroic black women in fiction. I thought the author would pour out her admiration for these women who had overcome oppression and held their families, churches, and communities together. I was wrong. Although Harris-Lopez’s book is about strong black women as por trayed by important African Ameri can authors, she does not believe that this image of strength is a positive one. Instead, she asserts that the popu lar image of African American women as strong and resilient is so negative that it is a disease — a disease called strength.’’They are “almost too strong for their own good.” {See MARTIN, page 3A) A View from the Country Raz Autry what 1 say. They repi ied, “If our friends aren ’t welcome, we will not stay in your house, we will leave.” He invited them to do so. Without waiting for further talk from him, 1 remarked, “They were probably back in 30 minutes.” “No,” he replied, “It was six months before I saw them and only then when the sheriff called and asked me to come to hisoffice.” Once there he was informed that his sons were charged with breaking and entering and he was responsible for their mis deeds because they were only 16. The only way he could get out of the charge was by rounding them up and bringing them to the station. This he did because he knew where to find them. The sheriff informed him after he had brought them in that he needed to get a paper signed releasing him from responsibility; if not he would be held liable until they were 18. Idecided once again 1 would play the Dr. Dodson role. I bet they turned out to be good men. How old are they now and where are they?” 1 can asked a lot of questions in one sentence. He gave me a look which said, “You poor fool.” “Yes, indeed,” he replied, “They are now 27 yearsold. They turned out well, both of them are in jail.” Just goes to show Dr. Dodson can not be right all the time. My parting thought: A badman rushed into the barroom shooting his pistol and shouting, “All right, all of you bastards clear out of here.” Everybody broke for the door ex cept one fellow who stood nonchalantly drinking and said, “There shore was a bunch of them wund’t there.” CpfieyNtyESirfiot WE'VE APOPTEP k HEW SfOSW: “LEKNIE HO m u?peR'1Hoohe child mvo".. WUES WK SUMHER □C We Get Letters Disaster support needed Because of their pure dedication and concern for the safety of the citizens, I have always had the ut most confidence in the ability of HokeCounty’s first responders(fire, rescue, law enforcement, and EMS) to handle emergency response. How ever, while serving as the Hoke County Emergency Services Direc tor for nearly six years, I have con tinually expressed my view that Hoke County Government needed to sup port a more proactive disaster pre paredness program. I have resigned from Hoke County. 1 am now employed as deputy director of emergency man agement/fire services for Cumberland County. As I look forward to my new job, on a personal level, 1 hope to finally spend more quality time with my family. 1 feel confident that I will have the manpower to effectively handle all phasesof emergency man agement (in Cumberland). 1 want to thank Hoke County’s fire departments, rescue, FirstHealth of the Carolinas EMS, the Sheriff’s Office, the N.C. Forestry Service, the N.C. Department of Transporta tion, the City of Raeford Fire De partment, the Raeford Police De partment, and all of the other state and local departments, agencies and individuals that supported me—both professionally and personally — during the time I served as the I loke County Emergency Services Direc tor. 1 wish them well. A special thanks goes to Ron Fairbanks, who served as my com munications supervisor. Not only did he serve in that capacity for the past six years, but he spent many unrewarded hours assisting in emer gency management. Much of the praise belongs to Ron for Hoke’s new communication center. Many have stated it is one of the best in the state. Additionally, Ron was instrumen tal in the development of the Emer gency Operations Center for Hoke County, the training program for telecommunicators, professional certifications for the telecommunicators, the GIS map ping program at 911, and national certification as a Storm Ready County, the first county to achieve such recognition in the Raleigh weather service area. I also want to thank the citizens of Hoke County for the opportunity to serve them during these past six years. I want them to know that the staff of dedicated telecommunicators and I performed responsibly and al ways had their safety utmost in our minds. Additionally, I hope they feel that the additional services we provided along with the programs we insti tuted while I was county fire mar shal, emergency management, emer gency communications, and safety officer, helped to improve their qual ity of life. Al Schwarcbher Words don’t suffice To the Editor: This letter is to all the people who participated in the Tony Graham Poker Run and Gospel Sing. I would like to express a great big thank you to all of you. My prayer is that God wi 11 bless you and keep y oil safe as you ride your bikes and con tinue to bless your song ministry to God. The donations that was taken up will be used wisely to pay for medicine and for medical bills. My family and 1 appreciate every thing people are doing for us. These people are really true friends. True friends are really hard to find but, when you have them you have peace of mind knowing that if you need something you can count on them. Also, there are many friends that have given donations to my family and we just want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Sometimes just saying thank you is not enough and it’s really hard to find the right words to say how much I appreciate it all. May God bless you and keep you in his protection. The Tony Graham Family TroTTps'Send love To the Editor: Grace and peace be with you. I am sending my greatest gratitude to all of those who support the Ameri can troops here in Kuwait and Iraq. We all send our love and say thank you to all who supported our efforts in Opera tion Iraqi Freedom. 1 pray ye olt Raeford that you all show love to one another and appreci ate the freedom that you have, and that we (American soldiers) have fought to protect. Let not your sons' and daugh ters’ deaths and hard work be in vain. I would also like to say hello and thanks to the following people: My mother Constance D. Johnson, Tyrone Johnson, Kiaunia McEachin, Kenneth Lee McBryd, Arion Patterson, the Rev Owens of Freedom Church and his house, the staff at Food Lion, Stepheni and Tonya, and to all others that 1 forgot. I leave you with this Bible scripture, and hope that it encourages you the same as it has encourged me. Isaiah 54:17 - No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. God bless and God speed! SPC. Negelee Hawkins Lower county taxes Dear Editor: I am glad that the Hoke County budget for this next year provides a pay raise for county employees. That’s the good news. When the County Manager briefed the Commissioners on May 21 st, there was a sigh of relief when they were told the budget was balanced and there was no need for a tax increase. Clearly, the Commissioners have the wrong goal. For Hoke County to attract new businesses and homeowners, our goal should be to lower taxes. Yes, lower taxes to bring business to our county and give our homeowners, particu larly our seniors, some tax relief. A tax decrease without the flim flam shell game of property revalua tion we are seeing now in Cumberland County (our property revaluation will be in 2006). 1 have spoken out many times about our obsolete user fee schedule which places an unnecessary burden on tax payers. If this schedule of user fees was more realistic we could easily have a two cent decrease in our tax rate this year. We could also decrease taxes by cutting costs but the Commissioners don’t appear ready to pursue any of the options that have been in my platform since February 2001. Last year at this time I wrote a letter to the editor about this same subject. I will ask my webmaster to post it again on my website (www.petecamp.com http:// www.petecamp.com> ) so you can judge for yourself. A tax decrease in Hoke County would generate news further than Raleigh and wou Id be a clear message to all that this is one county out of one hundred that really wants to attract new business and new residents. The public can speak in open fo rum about the budget at the next Com missioners meeting on Tuesday, June 17th. 1 will be interested in what you have to say. Interested, yes, but sad, because what you say will be irrel evant to the Commissioners. Next year’s budget was 99.94 percent fin ished when 1 spoke on this same topic on June 2nd at the last Commission ers meeting. Pete Camp Editor's note: Mr. Camp's letter was sent to us earlier and should have been in the June 11 issue. Angels among us To the Editor: On May 22,2003 intheearly morn ing hour, my father, “Jack,” passed away at Autumn Care Nursing 1 lome, here in Raeford. 1 le was in C Hall, the Alzheimer’s Unit. My heart goes out to all of you out there who may have loved ones suffering with this terrible disease. My family and I want to thank all of the Head Nurses and CNAs on C Hall who helped in the care of my father. It means a lot to know your loved one is being taken good care of when you can’t be there. These nurses are the best. The pa tience and care they give their pa tients is remarkable. They all loved my Dad and he liked them a lot too. 1 could see it in his smile and his big blue eyes! The last six monthsof my Daddy’s life there at Autumn Care demanded their undivided attention. Everything that could be done was done to help in his comfort. We also want to thank the nurses from “Advantage Hospice and Home Care of Fayetteville and also the nurses from Hospice in Moore County who came in and helped out with my daddy during his last few days. They did everything in their power to make him comfortable and his time left on this earth tolerable. Whatever they could do they did — and promptly. Our thanks also goes out to the kitchen staff that supplied hot coffee, drinks and snacks during those last few days for our family while spend ing precious time with our father. This will be the first Father’s Day without my daddy. And I will miss him dearly, but I know he is truly home now! And he has a new and healthy body now, no longer invaded by Alzheimer’s! We all love you. Daddy, and in time we all will be together again. But until then we must find some comfort in knowing that there are indeed “Angels Among Us!” Sincerely with much appreciation, Susan Pittman Baker and the Pittman family Letters to Editor policy The News Journal welcomes Letters to the Editor and encourages readers to express their opinions. letters must be signed and include an address and phone number. The street address and phone number will not be pubi ished, but are required so we may verify authenticity. The name of the writer and, in some cases, the town the writer is from will be published at the end of the letter. We reserve the right to edit letters for grammar, as well as those that exceed 300 words. We will not publish letters that we consider to be in poor taste or slanderous. In some cases we may add an editor’s note as a postscript when we believe a correction, explanation or amplification is warranted. We may also, at our discretion, limit the number of times an individual writer may submit a letter for publication. The i>ews -Journal Published every Wednesday by Dickson Press, Inc., Paul Dickson President 119 W. Elwood Avenue, Raeford, North Carolina 28376 (910) 875-2121 (Call for fax number) mBL) PRINTED WITH SOYINK Home Page: www.thenews-Journal.cum Robert Dickson (rob«rt@theneyys-|oumal.com) * PUblisheK Ken MacDonald (ken@thenews-iournai.com) General Manager Pat Allen Wilson (pat@thenews-|ournal.com) Editor Victoriana Summers (vicky@thenews-journai.com) Reporter Hal Nunn (hai@thenews-journai.com) Sports Writer Hal Nunn (hai@thenews-journai.com) Sales Representative Teena Jones (teena@thenews-journai.com) Office Manager Linda Watson (iinda@thenews-journai.com) Receptionist Robin Thompkins (robin@thenews-journai.com) Computer Design Sandra Wiggins (sandra@thenews-journai.com) Computer Design Henry L. Blue Production Supervisor Mantise Andrews Press Foreman email ads to: ads@thenews-|ournal.com email classifieds to: classjfleds(^henews-|ournal.com email legals to: legals@thenews-journal.com Periodical Class Postage at Raeford, N.C.(USPS 388-260) Postmaster: Send address changes to: P.O. 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The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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