Opinion Page THE BRUNSWICK&6EAC0N Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers Edward M. Sweatt Editor Lynn S. Carlson Managing [Editor Susan Usher JV<?u>s Etiiior Doug Kntter Sports Editor Eric Carlson Staff Writer Peggy Earwood Office Manager Carolyn H. Sweatt Advertising Director Tlmberley Adams, Cecelia Gore and Linda Cheers Advertising Representatives Dorothy Brennan and Brenda Cleramons Moore ..Graphic Artists William Manning Pressman Lonnle Sprinkle Assistant Pressman Tammle Henderson Photo Technician Phoebe Clemmons and Frances Sweatt Circulation PAGE 4-A, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1993 Beware Of False Economy In Health Care Reform Plans ?A full-time minimum-wage-eaming restaurant worker is in a car accident. He is injured seriously enough to require several days in a hospital's neuro trauma ward. He doesn't have health insurance because his employer doesn't offer it (or can't afford to). Chances are, he would never have needed to use his cover age?except in a situation just like the one he's in. ?A young family?mom, dad and 3-year-old?is forccd to drop health insurance coverage when mom's regular job doesn't work out and she becomes a "temp." Dad's a student and a car penter and has no access to employer-subsidized coverage. The cheapest basic major medical policy they have found would cost them more than $200 a month. It might as well be $2,OCX). ?A low-income family has Medicaid for their young son. Because they didn't know any better, the parents allowed the boy to fall asleep sucking on a bottle of formula every night when he was a baby. His teeth are badly decayed and need attention. The closest dentist who will accept Medicaid is 35 miles away. Expect to hear a lot about health care reform in the coming months, on the state and national levels. It's high time. But as we hear proposals and make up our minds about them, we should pay close attention to whether they are wellness based, with their emphasis on the prevention of disease, rather than sickness-based, where people become seriously ill and re quire expensive high-tech care for problems which could have been prevented or made less painful and less expensive had they been detected earlier. The tide already is beginning to turn in the public sector. Medicaid and Medicare programs in some areas are starting to pay for pap smears, mammograms, preventive dental care, smok ing cessation treatment and other prevention and early detection measures. And that makes perfect sense. In many instances, a $50 test can preclude the necessity of a $15,000 or $150,000 op eration. The public and private sectors in North Carolina have joined in an impressive effort to combat our state's deplorable infant mortality problem. Their work is already showing good results, with fewer babies dying before their first birthday. The offshoot is better and earlier prenatal care?including health education, nutrition counseling and parenting assistance? for thousands of poor women statewide. Five hundred dollars worth of prenatal care can prevent a newborn from being a des perately ill "million-dollar baby" who'll require intensive med ical attention and, more than likely, be developmentally disabled his entire life. We'll do well to keep an eye on elected representatives who go after public health with the same kind of slash-and-bum zeal that might be appropriate in other sectors of government. They could be promoting a very false economy. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Educate Beach Realtors About Overcrowding To ihe editor: Week after week I read about the problems of overcrowding on Hol den Beach and how the homeowner needs to be educated. The home owner has no idea how many people arc crammcd into their rental prop erties. 1 found out the costly way when 1 put my house into Realtors' hands. Come July 4 I got a call from the Realtor and ended up having to have my scptic tank pumped and a new sewer line put in. It cost me SI,200. 1 cainc down following that and found a fold-up col in my kitchen that the Realtor had brought in. A neighbor told me there were at least 12 people in my house the week of the Fourth. 1 had put into my contract that not more than six people could stay in my three-bedroom house. Needless to say, I changed Realtors. 1 get a flat-rate per week or week end for my house. Who benefits per person? I pay the water and power bills. The more people, the higher the bill. The Realtors should be educated of their responsibility. Matlic Burton Kemersville No Lottery, Please To the editor: Peggy Jayncs' letter in the Feb. 11 issue of The Brunswick Beacon appears to be the longest letter to the editor ever published. A zealous commitment promoung our base ap petite to get something for nothing sometimes requires the reader to be overwhelmed with words. North Carolina is fortunate that Mrs. Jayncs hasn't already been re cruited by alheisi Madeline Murray O'Hare to save us from Christianity. Mrs. Jaynes may also save us from being the lasi state to collapse from internal decay, the result of unbri dled immorality. It is almost certain that Mrs. Jaynes conducted her research after she decided to promote a lottery and that the "facts" she quotes were re ceived from pro-lottery sources. If 1 were a lottery director, 1 would cer tainly present its positive features. Mrs. Jaynes discounts the possi bility that organized crimc would follow the lottery into the state. She can scarcely deny that favorable cli mate for a lottery would encourage other forms of gambling. If a lottery becomes our prime recreation, why should we not also enjoy pari mutuel betting, casinos, state-spon sorcd prostitution and crack houses, all related, morally uplifting activi ties? It would be possible for us to ap proach the enviable financial posi tions of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other lottery-spon soring stales. It makes one wonder why an individual would live in misery here when they could live in bliss in those states. It would have been helpful if Mrs. Jaynes had specified the benefits Mr. Coy C. Privcttc would reap if his "self-serving innuendo, half truths and out-of-context state ments" were successful in defeating a lottery proposal. It's very refreshing to read a truthful, objective, selfless letter of love such as the one Mrs. Jaynes wrote. G. Nash Greene Holden Beach (More Letters, Following Page) The Revenge Of The Little People It's been so quicl and peaceful this winter along our little Holdcn Beach canal. No amateur fireworks displays. No chorus of revving out boards. No weekly rental kids, high on icc cream and Pepsi, running in circles and screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Look! A crab!" We should have known it was too good to last Lately, instead of being nudged awake by a heron's squawk or a seagull's cry, we arc catapulted out of bed by wailing Skii saws, pound ing hammers and 100-decibcl rendi tions of "Achy Breaky Heart" and "The Devil Went Down to Geor gia." They are building a new house next door and Lynn is taking it very personally. In fact, don't be too sur prised if you see a headline reading, "Neighbor Goes Berserk, Carpenters Dismembered With Cuisinart." I've been trying my best to dis suade her from complaining to their boss about the loud music, the litter blowing into the marsh and the gen eral rowdincss typical of all young nail-bangers. "Remember," I say to her each morning. "They will be here?right next door?all day while we are at work until late tonight." The wisdom of my "this-too-will pass" approach may not be immedi ately apparent to most folks. So let me tell you a little something about "The Revenge of the Little People." Between what my dad calls "real jobs"?like newspaper reporter and book editor?I have spent much time toiling in what are known as the "scrvice industries." I have been a store clerk, a delicatessen worker, a waiter, a bartender, a house painter, a sailing instructor, a tree trimmer and a carpenter's helper. From these experiences I offer Eric Carlson this advice: Never underestimate the sccrct weaponry that an otherwise disinterested and unmotivated mini mum-wage "worker bee" can bring to bear against a customer who has fell it necessary to "put them in their place." I remember one of our early house-painting jobs, when my part ner and I were new to the business and not loo savvy about estimating our time and materials. We submit ted an absurdly low bid and, natural ly, we got the job. The smart tiling for the homeown er to do would have been to grace fully accept his negotiating victory and watch us spend two weeks painting his house for nothing. But instead, he would meet us every morning with an endless list of things he "assumed" we were going to do as part of the job. "You mean you're not going to paint the flagpole or the barbecue grill?" Consequently, we would spend each morning politely explaining the generally acccptcd parameters of a normal house painting job. And we would try not to remind him that he was paying us a quarter of what a union painting crew would have charged. During our lunch break one day, after a particularly nasty session with our taskmaster, my partner quietly got up and walked toward the side of the house with a paint bucket. A few minutes later, I turned around to see an sirtfully rendered 10-foot high painting of Bullwinkle J. Moose making a very obscene gesture toward the passing traffic. After rolling on the ground in laughter for several minutes, we got up and painted over the artwork. But now, every three or four years, as each new coat of paint fades. Bull winkle J. Moose reappears to re mind our former employer of those naive young painters he look such pleasure in tormenting. Then there was the time my rent ed house in Mantco was purchased by a big shot from Virginia who in formed me that I would have to move out immediately and would not be reimbunied for painting the entire place. Worse was the fact that I would never be able to find anoth er rental in the middle of summer. Some of my old worker-bee bud dies were visiting on the morning the sheriff's department camc to evict me and haul all my belongings out of the house and into the street. Being a local, I was able to stall the deputies and got the clerk of court to postpone the order lor three months. But when 1 returned to the house I found that my loyal pals, fearing the worst, had left a little gift for the new owner. They had taken two dozen crabs out of the freezer, crawled into the attic and closed them up in the heat ing ductwork. I was touched by their gesture of friendship and solidarity. The Mafia has a saying that "Re venge is a meal best eaten cold." It generally applies to the need for pa tience and anonymity when res ponding to an unacceptable insult. It is also a motto commonly embraced by food-service workers, among whom ihe pun is nol misplaced. Waiters, waitresses and bar tenders arc often forced to grovel before some of the most obnoxious people in the world, like guys who have spent the day guzzling beer and working on a third-degree sunburn. At a fancy restaurant where I worked one summer, a waitress was relentlessly hassled hy a drunken tourist who repeatedly demanded that she take back his filet mignon because it was not sufficicnUy "well done." Seeing her return in tears after the third complaint, the broiler cook "accidentally" dropped the steak on the floor, crushed it with his foot and then zapped it in the microwave for 15 minutes. The steak went out looking like a hockey puck. It did not come back. Neither did the tourist. Or consider Molly, the waitress whose ex-husband?a certified din bag who was convicted of molesting her child?came to cat in her section of the restaurant several times a week after his parole. Whenever he showed up, one of her fellow workers would immedi ately switch sections to spare Molly the indignity of serving him. And every lime, she would call Molly back to the kitchen before delivering his sandwich so Molly could spit in to it. So the next time you feci?as we all do sometimes?like strangling that pimple-faced adolescent with the blank stare who just handed you another double-decker cheeseburger instead of the chicken sandwich you ordered, pause and ask yourself: "Who will he wrapping my sand wich and pulling it into the bag?" Remember: He who laughs last, laughs best. Bon appelit! T) e -e> M Yov couli J Stand -to ^ (ose some ^ <?6hls, i y'Knoiw AUDrr /*? PETAT MARWtd Worship In A Special Kind Of Son cfuary "I don't want you to put houses on this island," it says in a child's scrawl in one of the three damp stenographers' pads in the Kindred Spirit mailbox. The mailbox is on the South Carolina side of Bird Island. There's a bench beside it where people can sit and write in the notebooks, jour nals full of random musings by peo ple visiting one of the most beautiful and tranquil places in Brunswick County and the last remaining unde veloped barrier island west of the Cape Fear River. The mailbox and bench arc on the beach, below the toe of the frontal dune, so folks visiting there aren't trespassers?they're on the public's property. Some visitors prefer to think of it as God's property. Close to the mailbox, nearer the water, an altar has been fashioned from beach trash. Set in a metal pipe shoved in the sand is a cross cut from an or ange Slyrofoam pontoon. Its two pieces are lashed with a stray length of yellow nylon rope. A brown vinyl boat seat serves as a kneeling pad. It seems appropriate. The beach on Bird Island is, after all, a special kind of church, a sanctuary with the power to make our workaday con cerns?the ones that give us mere mortals stomach ulcers?suddenly seem distant and mundane. From the Kindred Spirit mailbox: ?"We have Bird Island all to our selves today..." Lynn Carlson iWi' ?"Enjoy life. It's too short." ?"God has given us a wonderful thing." ?'We enjoyed surfing your beach." ?'We're not going to tell anyone about this." Mote frequently these days, the journal entries arc entreaties that the island remain as it is, that the plans of Janic Pace Price, owner of most of the North Carolina portion of Bird Island, be thwarted. Mrs. Price, a Greensboro resident, is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permission to build a private system of bridges and cause way more than a mile long from Sunset Beach to Bird Island so she can develop a 15-homcsitc family compound in the center of the is land. "Please join us in saving Bird Island from development," one visi tor pleads. Another, from Europe, says, "1 would be happy to know that this island stays this way." A third?another child's entry, com plete with smilcy-facc, says, "Don't put buildings on this island, bccausc it is beautiful." They're not alone. The Corps' of fice in Wilmington has been flooded with letters opposing Price's propos al and expressing concerns for wet lands and wildlife since the agency began seeking public comment on the issue several weeks ago. Nobody knows Bird Island better, or loves it more, than Frank Ncs mith, a Sunset Beach resident who bought waterfront property on the mainland in '58 and left Tabor City to retire here in '78. Frank and his yellow dog Spartina have explored every inch of marsh around the is land. He can pilot his small boat ef fortlessly through a labyrinth of grasses and water that will be bone dry at low tide, all the while point ing out tricolor and Louisiana herons obscured to less observant eyes by nature's camouflage. It's not Mrs. Price's housing plans that cause Frank a problem; it's the idea of those bridges and causeway slashing the marsh that gives him a fit. He can't for the life of him find a way to justify disturb ing that much wetland to serve just 15 houses. Stopping his boat at just the right point in the marsh, Frank can help you shoot an imaginary chalklinc from Bird Island to 4(hh Street, down the old low causeway, which is mostly gone now, to the burned remains of the bndge which con nected Sunset and Bird Islands more than two decades ago. This exercise brings into focus the magnitude of Mrs. Price's propos al?not just to rebuild an old, low sand causeway and one-lane wood en bridge, but to put in a higher paved causeway and modern bridge big enough to dwarf the causeway and bridge which connect the main land and Sunset Beach. Frank makes a quicUy impas sioned case for the conservation of Bird Island, bristling at some peo ples' suggestion that the Bird Island Preservation Society?of which he is a member? wants to take away Mrs. Price's land or her rights. He is quick to point out that the society wants nothing more or less than an opportunity to purchase Bird Island if it can raise the money. And, at least for now, Mrs. Price is leaving the door open on that possi bility. Frank's kind of approach is the right one, 1 think. It is shared by the group's president. Bill Duckcr, and by Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation, un der whose umbrella the society is operating. They arc goint at their task in a spirit of cooperation with Mrs. Price, looking forward to the day when they can negotiate with her and her agents toward a solution in which no one gets cheated?out of money, rights, or out of the opportu nity to worship in one of God's most special sanctuaries.

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