Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / Sept. 8, 1994, edition 1 / Page 4
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THE BRUNSWICK#RACON Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers Lyn?: Sweatt Carlson Editor Susan Usher .News Editor Doug Ratter Sports Editor Eric Carlson Stqff Writer Mary Potts & Peggy Earwood Office Managers Carolyn H. Sweatt Advertising Director Ttmberley Adams & Linda Cheers Advertising Representatives Dorothy Brennan A Brenda Clemmons Moore Graphic Artists William Manning Pressman Lonnle Sprinkle Assistant Pressman PAGE 4 -A, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1994 A Modest Proposal Or A Serious Switch? It was about a year ago that a Sunset Beach Taxpayers' Association meeting ended with member Bud Knapp floating a tongue-in-cheek proposal that the island of Sunset Beach secede and become a part of Bermuda. Bud's joke was met with nervous laughter, and after the meeting, several SBTA members sought to reassure themselves that the only reporter present understood that the remark was in jest. "Wouldn't want people to take it the wrong way," they said. This past Easter, the subject arose again and actually went to vote but failed 24-19 after spirited debate. Then last Saturday SBTA ? complete with news release and position paper and in the presence of several reporters ? agreed to "pursue establishing the island of Sunset Beach as an independent, incorporated town, separate from the Town of Sunset Beach...." No affiliation with the government of Bermuda was mentioned. Is it "A Modest Proposal" or for real? Remember back in high school English reading Jonathan Swift's satiric essay? Swift set forth "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in the Land from Becoming a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public." His pro posal, put forth oh-so-seriously and articulately, was to turn poor peoples' babies into food and leather. The secession plan might work for the islanders, who seek a way to hold on to their quaint surroundings and protect pioperty values that they perceive as threatened. For that matter. Swift's proposal would have worked too except for a few prickly moral and ethical hindrances. SBTA members' frustration with "taxation without represen tation" has been steadily escalating in recent years. But a majori ty of its members don't live here, bringing to mind another lesson from high school, this one from civics class. In representative democracy, the right to "control the destiny" of any town belongs to those who vote there. The right to vote, of course, is deter mined not by monetary investment, but by residency. People who care about freedom wish it ever to remain so. Stay in or pull out ? the fact remains that the majority of peo ple backing this proposal happen to live and vote in towns, coun ties and states elsewhere, and do not speak for a majority of Brunswick Countians or even Sunset Beach residents. That fact alone should be sufficient to keep Brunswick County's legislative delegation from seriously considering any proposal, no matter how modest, to create a tiny new 19th municipality. The chance that Senator R.C. Soles and Reps. David Red wine and Dewey Hill will support a secession proposal for the is land of Sunset Beach seems pretty slim. The chance that the General Assembly will back one without them is virtually nil. Complete Four-Laning % A /? - I A r> ? ^ f I ? !? witn a rair kjt li grits After nearly three years of construction and more than a decade of serious congestion before that, motorists can now glide virtually unimpeded through Brunswick County on four lanes of U.S. Highway 17 ? that is, if they make it past a couple of treach erous intersections in one piece. New Hanover County Sheriff Joe McQueen and his family were among several carloads who almost didn't on Labor Day. The sheriff's family was involved in one of two crashes at U.S. 17 and N.C. 904, known in local parlance as the Grissettown in tersection. The site of numerous accidents over the years, the risky intersection is doubly so with two lanes of faster-moving traffic in both directions. The McOueen family was smart and lucky ? everyone in the customized van was wearing a safety belt when the vehicle flipped and landed in the median, and no one was seriously hurt. That won't be the case every time. "I don't want to become a statistic," one commuter from Grissettown to North Myrtle Beach said in a letter to the editor last week. She makes the valid point that the majority of people trying to turn onto N.C. 904 have no idea how to get across U.S. 17. The same is true of the U.S. 17 Business/Bypass intersection on the south end of Shallotte. Expect more frequent and more deadly crashes as the new improved route is discovered by truckers and local folks who long ago abandoned visits to the Grand Strand because of the traffic. While the four-laning of U.S. 17 al! the way through Brunswick is a bona fide asset to the area, the package should be completed with a pair of traffic lights. Worth Repeating... ? The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all. ? Gore Vidal mCivilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. ? Alfred North Whitehead ? The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me. ? George Bernard Shaw I Think It's Time To Check Our Priorities It's amazing how communities differ in priorities. At least one week every year I head to the North Carolina moun tains, to let the clear, crisp air blow out the cobwebs and to gain a little perspective on Brunswick County that only distance can provide. The area we fiequent is the moun tain version of Brunswick County. At one time, not too long ago, it was rural, provincial. Its people were mired in poverty, lacking formal ed ucation and frankly, having little need of it. The Appalachian Parkway made the first big dent in that way of life, bringing tourism and a demand for the crafts and folkways of the area. That was followed by the growth of a small school into a good-sized member of the state university sys tem (Now there's a way to rapidly increase the average SAT score at a high school ? import students whose parents have money and are well-ed ucatcd.). Outsiders were at first resented and unwelcome, then used to advan tage. and finally accepted as a per manent facet of life. Today, there as in Brunswick County, the "out siders" make up an increasingly large portion of the population and an even larger share of the people typically considered "movers and shakers." Like Brunswick County, the area is growing in leaps and bounds, largely because of its attractiveness as a retirement and nearly year round resort area. Like many non-resident property owners here, we've tried keeping up Susan Usher with goings-on up there through the local newspapers and by talking to the "locals" when we visit. I'm al ways struck with how familiar the stories sound; 1 could have written many of them myself and just changed a few p.oper names. As in Brunswick County, DOT is trying to do its part to keep up with the pace of change, building bypass es and three-lane roads here and there. County and municipal govern ments there are coping with the de mands for expanded services as they are here. Almost concurrently (just a step or two ahead of Brunswick County, though we're growing faster here), the commissioners there have been dealing with the need for more landfill space, improved waste col lection. expanded library services, recycling (way ahead of us). *>1 1 and road/street name adjustments and to a slightly lesser degree, suitability of soils for waste disposal and efforts to meet new standards for sewer in stallations. The area has had the same kinds of divisive disputes over incorpora tion of 'icw communities versus their anncxalioa'absorption into nearby municipalities, and the same kinds of concerns about balancing economic and environmental inter ests. Like us, the people in this mountain area are beginning to real ize just how special a place they have. What I haven't seen there is a county government's seeming disin terest in public education as a high priority, though their constituency mix is very similar to ours here. They don't just talk support of edu cation, as candidates for county commissioner have done the past two election years. They believe in education and they support it with the county's resources. Jusl as school was starting, two large elementary school expansions and a two-story addition to the local high school were nearing comple tion and the board of education and commissioners were consulting on the bidding schedule for building additional projects. 1/x.al newspapers have featured recent stories about new technology in the schools and high public inter est in a year-round elementary school continued this year by popu lar demand of parents Nothing about commissioners balking over funding construction needs or disputing the operating needs of the school system Meanwhile, here I sit at the termi nal on Friday afternoon, about the time Brunswick Countv ("ommis sioncrs are considering whether to appeal a judge's decision to uphold a jury s award of $14 million to the Brunswick County ScShhiIs I'm sitling here waiting for the county to either go ahead with or forget its very public proposal to seek an audit of the schools' central office, a quest that faded in interest rapidly once commissioners found out the school board thought it was a good idea. I'm sitting here waiting for reso lution of funding for a new elemen tary school in Leland. Commis sioners and school board members still haven't settled, apparently on all the details of financing the pro ject. Meanwhile, the school system's 10-ptan construction plan is already several years behind schedule. Expansion projects at West and North high schools were cut to mini mum stop-gap projects that will have to be expanded later. We need a new elementary school in the C'alabash-Thomasboro area, espe cially considering the growth that's expected to result with the planned South Brunswick Water & Sewer Authority project. I doubt Brunswick County cannot "afford" new schools. If for some reason, the growth that is creating the demand for new landfills, new schools, new water and sewer lines isn't generating enough money to cover those demands, that can be fixed Most other high-growth coun ties in North Carolina have already imposed additional growth-related income measures. Among the most popular, the real estate transfer tax. paid at the time land changes hands Maybe it's time Brunswick County looked again at needs versus resources and make sure growth is paving its way and that our schtxils aren't shorted in the proccss. Until *e do. I personally think our priori ties are badly skewed. NEWS ITEM: All flf+beR^CMlinapv-isxi ivwctlesnou) m vented oirt-of-sta+e cells uj\ll bevetiKne^ bqr\ertTwie Once Upon A Time, Long Ago And Far Away ITiis is one of those weeks when nothing happened that seemed par ticularly interesting to me. So I'm going to tell you about another day, . a long time ago, when a lot of inter esting things happened. It was the fall of 1972. I was hitch-hiking around Europe during a year off from college. I had been in Great Britain for several weeks, af ter taking the Belgium to Dover fer ry and bumming around England, Wales and Scotland. I woke up before dawn at a youth hostel in Edinburgh and decided it was a fine morning to start heading back south. Downstairs in the group kitchen, I shared breakfast with a Chinese student who made us a deli cious omelet in his little wok, while I contributed tea and day-old bis cuits from my rucksack. Riding a trolley to the outskirts of the city, I scrawled "london" in big magic-marker letters on the back of a folded map. The driver let me off at a southbound highway on-ramp, where I stood by the entrance hold ing my sign. About the only people who pick up hitch-hikers in Britain are truck drivers (or lorrymen, as they call themselves). This makes for great long rides, sitting high above the other traffic, listening to the endless stories of men who spend their lives on the road. The driver who picked me up was heading for a small town within a hundred miles of London. Like most English lorrymen he was a great talker who loved to tell visitors about his homeland, lie had grown up along the coast of the North Sea. His eyes brightened when I told him of my own love for the ocean. "If'n ycr nutt in a horry, I could tck yc thar," he announced. "Sure," I said, having learned long before that a fixed itinerary is the bane of great adventure. And so we left the four-lane high way and began a twisting, turning tour along a tiny road hugging the high cliffs overlooking England's northeast coastline. It was one of the most incredibly beautiful visual feasts I would ever see. Being in Britain (where they drive to the left), I was perched in the sea ward seat, high in the cab of an 18 wheeler rumbling along inches from the unguarded precipice. One slip of the wheel would have sent us plum meting hundreds of feet to the rocky shore below. But there was little need to fear, this being the home of my driver, who confidently wrestled the wheel with one hand while pointing out is lands and birds and fishing boats and villages with fanciful names like Blyth and Tynemouth and Seaham and Hartlepool. I shared his silent sadness as we turned back inland and re-joined the highway hustle. In the approaching darkness, we said goodbye at the ex it for Nottingham, where he assured that I could easily find a room for the night. Living on a vagabond's budget, 1 had no plans for such extravagance Instead I headed for the big stone church at the center of town in those days, needy travelers could generally count on a local minister to allow you a dry place to unroll your sleeping bag tor the night. The church, high on a knoll over looking Nottingham, was one of those giant Gothic structures, proba bly built before Cieorge Washington was born. I found the door unlocked and no one inside, so I stashed my rucksack behind the choir pews. I decided to speak with the minis ter later that evening and walked down the hill to find some refresh ment at the pub across the street. Being just past supper time, the place was Tilling with a boisterous crowd of working-class regulars who evidently gathered there every night. No sooner had I ordered a pint of bitter ale when a muscular arm around my shoulder began herding me toward a table full of young peo ple. They were all locals who worked in various trades and offices around Nottingham. This was their hangout. They wanted to hear all about America. Yet, like so many Euro peans, they already understood a good deal more about my country and its place in the world than 1 would ever come to know about theirs. We drank many beers. We played darts. We sang idiotic songs. I showed them r-y stupid bar tricks. They showed me theirs. One guy could put a half-lit cigarette in his lips, suck it into his mouth, then push it back out ? filter first ? and blow smoke out the end! I was im pressed. When closing time arrived (much earlier than here), one of my new friends invited me to stay the night Cheerfully accepting, I asked if he wouldn't mind waiting wiiile i went across the road to retrieve my pack "No problem. We'll wait," they said, stilling a mischievous laugh as I headed for the door. By then 1 was more than a little bit tipsy. So a stroll in the fresh air seemed like a good idea. But as 1 stepped outside and looked up at the big stone church on the hill, 1 froze. Gone was the peacefully dark out line 1 remembered from before. Now the great stained-glass win dows were glittering like a l^as Vegas casino. The parking lot was full. A chorus of singing voices and the resonant tones of a giant pipe or gan boomed down from above. I'll always remember the sea of rosy-cheeked English faces that turned toward me as I slipped in through the back door. The great or gan's final chord faded into silence as the priest, fully outfitted in color ful silken robes, motioned for me to approach. Edging sheepishly toward the al ter, 1 whispered my predicament into the priest's ear. He gave me a know ing smile and graciously escorted me to the last row of choir pews. He even lifted my rucksack and helped me hoist it onto my back. Blushing like a new bride, I walked back down the aisle shrug girj and nodding apologetically to the chuckling congregation. A hun dred warm smiles assured me 1 would not be judged harshly by those gentle people as 1 faded back into the night, feeling reborn.
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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Sept. 8, 1994, edition 1
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