North Carolina Newspapers

Opinion Page THE BRUNSWICK&BEACON Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers Edward M. Sweatt Editor Lynn S. Carlson Managing Editor Susan Usher News Editor Doug Rutter Sports Editor Eric Carlson Stajf Writer Peggy Earwood O//ice Manager Carolyn H. Sweatt Advertising Director Tlmberley Adams, Cccella Core and Linda Cheers Advertising Representatives Domthy Brcnnan and Brenda Clemmons Moore ..Graphic Artists William Manning Pressman Lonnie Sprinkle Assistant Pressman Tammie Henderson Photo Teclmickin Phoebe Cleminons and Frances Sweatt Circulation PAGE 4-A, THURSDAY. JANUARY 28. 1993 Some 'Unity' In 'Community' Can Improve Our Report Card Take a look at Susan Usher's column to your right. Now read the letter below by Buster Gillis. Think back to a few weeks ago when you learned that the Brunswick County schools system, for the third year in a row. ranked near the bottom on its state school report card. The link between these seemingly unrelated incidents? They constitute a vivid illustration that what Brunswick County's pub lic education system most seriously lacks is the "unity" that be longs in "community." What are children to believe when their parents will offer them a chance to stay home and play when the road is too muddy for the bus to come? Nothing positive about activism: only that you can always get some attention if you're willing to cut off your nose to spit. your face. What are children to learn when a teacher offers them the op portunity to ante up a dollar a point for extra credit, even if part of that dollar will be donated back to the school? That every thing's for sale, a tenet to which we adults often subscribe, but to w hich we should insist our children be exempt. And that, as long as you can come up with the dough, why settle for earning a C if you can buy a B without doing (or learning) anything extra? These are strong reminders of the fact that a community-wide commitment to education?to the joy of knowledge for its own sake, and for the sake of the greater good?is the only way to solve problems that may manifest themselves inside the schools, but that by no means began or will end there. Until the community of parents and educators working to gether can demonstrate their commitment to the belief that going to school is children's most important endeavor, and that instill ing the love of learning is pivotal to children's success in school, nothing else we try will have much chance of succeeding. Worth Repeating... To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, w ith open hean; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony. ?William Henry Channing Why Use Kids As Pawns In Grown-Up Games? Since when is it kosher to use children as pawns in grown-ups' games? Don't get me wrong. I'm glad those nasty roads in places like Shingletree Acres and Dccrficld Estates were graded last week, hope fully in time for schixil buses to make it through 011 Monday. However, I do have a few ques tions about the process involved and about what happens next. And I'm concerned about what this unfolding story reveals about our willingness its individuals and neighborhoixls to accept responsibility. At the school board meeting the other week we heard parents threat ening to keep their children out of sch(x>l if the roads in Shingletree were not fixed. They acted as though they were doing those kids a favor. A large group from that neighbor hixxl managed to make it to that school board meeting at West Brunswick High Sclux>l, so we know that where there is a will, there is a way. If this community wants to gel their kids to school, they can. Meanwhile they could continue iii Susan Usher ^ seeking a permanent fix for die roads. They might even follow the example of property owners on oth er "private" roads and maintain or improve it themselves. Listening die oilier Wednesday night, you would have thought somebody owed the Shinglctrec Aercs neighborhood a road. And that bus scrvice was something owed their children, not a privilege. By keeping their kids out of school they may have sent some un intended messages: 1) That going to school every day isn't important. II you're trying to make a political point, it's okay to miss school. 2) It's okay to use kids as pawns or as leverage in negotiations. 3) Society owes us. This time, it's a mad What about next time? It reminded me of some of the Florida residents I saw on television after Hurricane Andrew made its devastating sweep acres that suite. They were standing around asking, "I'm a taxpayer. Where's the gov eminent?" instead of pitching in to do what they could for themselves. I've watched over a period of years as Shirigletrcc Acres residents have tried everything in the Iwk to gel their roads to qualify under one state rule or another. Now that it's clear the area isn't going to qualify under the old subdivision rules, their spokesman is try ing to gel the suite to lake over ihe roads because, he contends, thev existed but were overlooked when the state began taking over roads from the counties some years ago. They may have been. If he can actually prove that, it might get the state off the hook: DOT could probably justify Uiking over maintenance there without Lik ing over all the other roads in the county thai don't meet state require ments. Meanwhile the Shingletrcc Acres roads are private. That means their upkeep is the responsibility U| ,|K people who live in that subdivision as are hundreds of other roads, paved or unpaved. across uK county. That's partly because while oihu counties across the slate required 1 velopcrs to install roads that nKI suite suuulards. for approximately decade Brunswick County did not County commissioners, like i(,c U.S. Cavalry, came to the rescue l.w week of residents of roads like ihos^ in Shingletrec Acres, saying n would grade, one tine only, mails n, the process ol being taken over In the state. But what will happen il nM "when" because I am an optimist i the DOT finds that it cannot qualilv some or any of these roads for si.tu maintenance? If those parents return with the same demands, will ihc county keep going back and grading again although roads are no longer, by law, a county responsibility? And. voters, if you've got a proh lent you don't care to handle your self. have you thought about taikm. to the commissioners? Better hurrv the line's already forming. Sl?r LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Are Students Earning A Grade Or Buying A Grade? To the editor: I guess I'm old-minded when it comes to schools and education. Back in the '60s when you went to school, you dressed neatly, kept your hair cut in a neat fashion and kept your shirtiail tucked in. If you didn't, the principal sent you home with a note to get a hair cut, and you were punished the sec ond time you were caught with your shirtiail out. You didn't talk back to a teacher. If you did, you were sent to the of fice and punished, or even suspend ed for a week. It you skipped schtxil and were caught you were suspended for a week also. But now, if you talk back to a teacher, nothing is done or said. If you skip school up to 10 days, noth ing is done. After 10 days, you have to go on Saturdays and make up every day over the 10-day limit. No expelling these days; ii would be re warding the kids today. I thought all this was bad, but this week 1 think I heard it all. Now you can build your grade up by eating at a local fast ftxxl restaurant. That's light. Students in one class this past Tuesday could, by eating at this restaurant, add to their grade by as much as 10 points. This was done by giving the kids a point per dollar spent at litis restaurant if they brought their receipts in to class. To me tins is not earning an edu cation, but buying a grade instead. It makes you wonder where the teach ers went to school to leam this kind of of grading. This is not only ineffective but discriminatory What if a family is short on cash with parents not work ing or sick and not able to afford to give their kids money to go to a fast lood restaurant to eat? Say a kid had a 70-point grade and hail to work to get it and another had a M) point grade and went to this restaurant, spe nt S10 and carried his receipt to class for the 10 points. Is ihis fair to the one who worked for the 70 grade for the other to buy 10 points and get the same grade? What do you think about this way of giving grades? Buster Gillis Shallottc Writer Takes Offense At Column About Road To the editor: Ugh. No other word can encom pass the degree of disgust I felt when I, a 19-year-old native of Hale Swamp Road, read the slanderous and, above all, offensive column your daggy little paper's news edi tor, Susan Usher, wrote. 1 have a few questions for the Usher woman. Of what exactly were you thinking when you penned that article? Were you thinking at all? Did you think that no resident on this "attention-starved" road would Uike personal offense at what you wrote? Perhaps you didn't figure that there would be a resident literate enough to understand your wacked patronage, sly gentility, and sham aesthetics. Even though your columns appear on an "opinion page," you don't and never will possess the right to refer to someone's dwelling, someone's home, as a "tumbling-down shack" or a "decrepit trailer." Do you know our circumstances? IX) you rcaliy care? Or does your primary concern rest in the fact that this "miserable road" will lead you to the bcach? Have you ever consid ered Highway 179? Why not use it? In the future, I hope that Ms Usher will hone her writing skills (docs she have any?) and produce something that won't make her hx>k like, say, someone who's gotten too big for their thrift store Levi cords. In the method of the comic IX^nis l.cary: I think you hear me knexkin', Susan. And I think I'm comin' in. And I'm bringin' a rusty trailer, a junk car, and the rest of my "miser able" little road with me. Bridget Hill Shallotlc Don't Overlook The Bridgetender To the editor: Solitude spreading around his shoulders like a cloak, his day be gins as sunlight reflected from the windswept water casts minute spar kles through the windows of his tioating "office." Knowing lhat this lonely exis tence is of extreme importance to people he'd never met and probably would never sec again, he smiles and waves to strangers who, in their frenzy to keep an appointment or not to miss a tee lime, hardly acknowl edges this gesture. It seems not to bother him that the nature of his job causes this attitude. As the day slips by like the tide, tempers flare hotter as scurrying va caiioncrs realize lhai they arc ai the mcrcy of this one person. Scorned, cursed and almost never praised, he goes about his business calmly, al lowing cars to travel on the cause way and then boats to traverse the choppy waters of the Intracoastal Waterway. The person who can control the lives of so many for such a short pe riod of time is, of course, the brid getender at Sunset Beach. The tact that he has rules to fol low as to the opening and closing ol the bridge has no meaning to most of ihc people wailing. It is so much easier to simply blame him for their inconvenience. Would it really be so bad if we smiled, waved and said "thank you" to someone who has ihc responsibil ity of bringing some order to this liny part of our world? John Sellers Sunset Beach (More Letters, hollowing I'age) A Nose, By Any Other Name, Would Smell Several of my friends from far away subscribe lo the Beacon, even though they've never been to Brunswick County. When I talk to them on the phone, they invariably ask: "Where did all those unusual place names like Exum and Makatoka and Navassa and Bald Head originate?" Well folks, after much painstak ing research. I have unearthed some astounding information about the history of some of our regional ap pellations. For example, few people realize that our county seat of Bolivia was named after Simon Bolivar, the free dom lighter who helped Brunswick County win its independence from Spain in the early I X(X)s. He later waged similar campaigns of libera tion in South America. Shallotic, as most of you know, was so called by early French set tlers who used to sell green onions (cschallottc) from roadside stands. Subsequent generations have resist ed the temptation to change the town's name to "Collard" or "Shrimp" or "Yard Sale." Winnabow was likewise named for signs thai used to appear along the road advertising weekly turkey shuns. Competitors would lire ar rows at targets in hopes of taking Eric 3. Carlson V?* f I home ihc first prize?a new bow. Contrary to popular belief, the emperor Napoleon never tame ashore at Bonaparte Landing. Actually, the area was fondly re membered as the site ol a major New Years Eve bash held by Shallotte residents who pave it the French name "Bon" (g<xnl) "Parte" (party). Likewise, another favorite relaxation area to the east came to be known as "Casual Beach." It was the Irishman Shawn O'Grady who named one of tne South Brunswick Islands alter his mother's favorite expressions. Whenever he got into mischief, she would exclaim: "Oh, Shawn! I'll be!" Visitors had trouble remember ing this, especially alter a wee dram of Shawn's homemade whiskey, so it became Ocean Isle Beach. A fellow named Ned Loh was the first man to set fool on what we now know as Holden Beach. Unfortun ately, old Ned suffered from severe dyslexia and wrote his name back wards on the signs identifying the strand along his island. The community of Ash was built on the ruins of an ancient Indian vil lage destroyed by a volcano that erupted in the early lWKJs. The vio lent explosion left no trace of the 4,(XX)-f(xrt mountain that once stixxl there, replacing it with a thick coal ing of ash. Little is known about the Viking invaders who came to Brunswick County many years before the great navigator Christopher Columbus miscalculated his position by a mere 15,(XX) miles and "discovered" the Bahamas. But they gave us many of our place names in eastern Bruns wick County. We know that the place must have reminded those seafaring Scandinavians of their home, be cause they named the community of Malmo alter a city at the southern tip of Sweden. A nearby area where the harsh winter winds were blocked by (all pine trees was considered the "Lee Land." And the spot where they manufactured church bells be came "Bclvillc." But alas, these Norse ancestors of mine were not terribly imaginative and soon ran out of g<xxl names. So when they established another settle merit oil to the northwest, the best they could come up with was "North West." They didn't do much belter when naming their "south port" or their fishing grounds "along the beach." Several other communities in our county owe their names to early res idents who were homesick for their birthplaces tar away. Hence we have Navassa, which was settled by voyaging expatiioLs troin the lovely island of Navassa in the West Indies And Sunset Reach, whose first inhabitants w-re ship wrecked Hawaiian surfers who longed for the pounding breakers of their home on the North Shore of Oahu. More recent settlers likewise named their new homes lor places they longed for elsewhere. The first residents ol Waccamaw, lor example, so named their new home because it gave them easy ac cess to nearby outlet malls in South Carolina. Calabash residents were similarly fond of restaurant row in Myrtle Beach. l ike the meats, cheeses and veg etables on a super-supreme pizza, the amazing variety of these place names reflects the rich diversity of our ethnic heritage. The United Slates may be the world's greal melting poi, but we have the good fortune to live in America's great Brunswick Stew.