Opinion

By Mike Ruffin

I follow the Twitter account @WatergateDayOf. Its description says, “Tweeting out the events of Watergate as they happened 47 years ago.”

I remember the Watergate crisis well. I was a young teenager while it was going on, but it affected my view of politics in ways that have endured until this day. It’s been interesting to relive some of the Watergate events through @WatergateDayOf.
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Growing up in Savannah, one often heard snitches of conversation about the root doctor. I remember wondering what or who the root doctor was and where he stayed.

Fortunately, back in the 50s and 60s when I was there, Savannah had an excellent school system. Students took Georgia history every year and you learned it backward and forward before you moved on to the next grade. Severe, steely eyed, gray-haired teachers you would never even think about talking back to made sure of that. For punishment, they would make you clean erasers by beating them against a brick wall outside the school until you couldn’t breathe for the chalk dust. I’m sure there must have been cases of white lung. [Full Story »] 

It was summertime, sometime in the late 1960s. I was, as many children did (and I hope still do), participating in the public library’s summer reading program. I was reading Fred Gipson’s 1942 novel Old Yeller.

I knew the book was about a boy and his dog. I didn’t know much else about it. I’d never seen the 1957 Walt Disney film based on the book. It might have aired on the Wonderful World of Disney by the time I read the book, but I wouldn’t have seen it because I never saw the Disney program because it came on during Sunday night church time and my parents thought we had to be there every time the church doors were opened and that was that.

(I also never saw the Ed Sullivan Show for the same reason. I mean, who needed to be introduced to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones when you could sing the same old hymns and hear another sermon instead? But I’m not bitter. Nope, not at all.)
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Officers in NYC and, perhaps, other major cities in the nation are allegedly planning a ‘Blue Flu’ on the 4th of July. This one day sick out is described as an opportunity to step away from law enforcement due to the lack of support police officers are seeing from their local and national leaders. Many officers in major cities have already walked off of their jobs, retired early, and backed away from proactive policing which is described as initiating criminal deterrence to prevent crimes and instead are only answering calls for service - 911. 

The idea of policing began as a result of a need for a discretionary force to quell violence and enforce laws in large cities. Originally, the militia or army was called to quell violence. Sir Robert Peel (London) began with his "Bobbies" in 1829. Although policing was at it infancy, a trend began that we see today in our modern law enforcement officers. Officers were expected to wear uniforms (they looked similar in appearance and could be recognized easily). They also investigated crimes and kept a police presence that allowed for an absence of crime or major reductions in crime. 
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As I reflect on the Black Lives Matter march that took place in Barnesville on Saturday, June 6, I think about how far we’ve come.

After I was born in 1958, my parents raised me in Barnesville, which was my mother’s hometown. I left for college in 1975 and didn’t come back except for visits until my wife Debra and I built a house in 2015 on the farm in Yatesville where my father grew up. But the experiences I had growing up in Barnesville helped shape the way I look at things, although subsequent experiences in other places have modified my perspectives.
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The question from a fellow Georgia football fan came out of the blue.

“If the Georgia-Alabama game in Tuscaloosa was tomorrow with the stands full and I had a ticket and invited you, would you go?”

I didn’t hesitate in answering affirmatively. I am sure there are many who would answer differently but, among UGA fans, I have found only one who wavered a little when the same question was posed.
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By Mike Ruffin

Writing is what I do. I try to observe life—both the life I live, insofar as I can see it, and the lives that others live, insofar as they allow me to see them—and then write about what I see. I am a Christian writer, by which I mean I am a Christian who writes.

My writings don’t always live up to some folks’ standards and expectations of Christian writing, by which I mean I don’t always quote the Bible, mention God, or refer to Jesus. But I can no more separate my identity as a Christian from my writing than I can separate my breathing from my existing. I write everything I write from the worldview I’ve been given over half a century of doing my best to accept and offer God’s grace, love, and mercy as I have experienced them in Jesus Christ.
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One piece of the COVID-19 situation that has concerned and confused me is the disdain some people have exhibited toward experts.

I was in Baltimore, Maryland a few years ago working at a conference. (Remember the old days when people traveled to conferences?) I was sitting at my table in the Exhibit Hall when I realized that the vision in my right eye had become very blurry. This would have seemed like something I should get checked on anyway, but I had recently had laser treatment to repair two retinal tears in that eye, so I was certain I should.
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High school graduation has always been a defining moment. The class of 2020, these large groups of teenagers, many of whom have been together since pre-K, will scatter. After getting their diplomas, flipping those tassels and throwing their caps in the air, they will go off in many different directions.

This defining moment has always been a point of pride with parents, grandparents, siblings and extended family in attendance. There have always been balloons and signs and shouts of encouragement from the stands - no matter how hard those in charge try to discourage them. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Back when I was a pastor, I had a conversation with the local high school football coach. I observed that our jobs were similar in that everybody in town thought they could do our job better than we could, and that 99.9% of them wouldn’t last two weeks trying to do it. He agreed with me. We laughed outwardly as we wept inwardly (at least I wept inwardly). We parted to go do our jobs the best we could.

I know for a fact that it isn’t easy being a pastor. I can safely infer that it isn’t easy being a rabbi or an imam, either.
I have a deep and abiding respect for ministers who do their best to do their best. I believe this includes the vast majority of members of the clergy.
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COVID-19 and coronavirus.

Two months ago, few, if any, us had heard those two words. The virus came upon us quickly. I would say we, as a nation, reacted pretty fast. We were scared not to.

The first real models we saw predicted 2.2 million Americans would die. Draconian measures were taken and they were called for or, at least, it seemed at the time they were called for. The models were, thankfully, wrong. Revisions were made and by late March the death toll prediction had dropped to 100,000-240,000 which is still a scary number.

At this writing, the US. death toll is officially reported at 65,735.
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By Will Davis, Publisher
Monroe County Reporter

The line at Dickey’s Peaches was 50 deep on Sunday, so my 6-year-old and I picked strawberries while we waited for the line to go down.

“Where can we go that has lots of berries left?” I asked the basket lady.

“Nowhere,” she replied, “the whole field has been picked clean.”

Indeed it had. Middle Georgians have apparently had enough quarantine. Since studies have shown the virus is very hard to catch in the sunshine, they made a wise choice. We gathered about 4 pounds and then headed to our reward — the best homemade strawberry ice cream.

Dickey’s hires mostly Mary Persons kids, so I knew about all of them.

“You should have been here yesterday,” one friend told me. “You would have had a story.”

She said a woman berated co-owner Cynde Dickey for having the temerity to be open during the “pandemic”.

Then on Monday we got take out from our friends at El Dorado in Forsyth.

“Are you doing dine in?” I asked.

“Well, we were going to,” he said sheepishly. “But this woman started ripping us to pieces about it and we decided not to. Yet.” Probably the same woman. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

One of the interesting things about living in these days of COVID-19 is how our commitment to being apart has brought us together. We have come together in our commitment to stay apart.

Many of us—not all of us, sadly, but many of us—have done everything we can to keep a safe distance from others and to take whatever other steps, such as wearing a mask, that we can take to stop the spread of COVID-19. We have tried to listen to the medical experts and to follow their guidance. We have tried to filter out the noise put out by the politicians so we can concentrate on the information provided by the scientists and doctors.

We have banded together in our efforts to stay apart. It’s been a challenge, but we needed to do it to flatten the curve, to limit the spread of this deadly disease.

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By Walter Geiger

A review of issues of the Barnesville News-Gazette from October, 1918 revealed an epidemic of Spanish flu was plaguing the area to the extent classes at Gordon Institute were suspended. There were also multiple obituaries at the time listing flu or pneumonia arising from the flu as the cause of death.

Here is the Oct. 17, 1918 front page report of the suspension of classes at Gordon in the flowery, run-on sentence writing style of the era:

Gordon Institute suspended last Friday for two weeks on account of the influenza epidemic which has the country in its grip, the announcement of the suspension coming somewhat as a surprise to the citizens of the community. The students assembled at school that morning and the announcement was made by Dr. E.T. Holmes, president.

The suspension was largely a precautionary measure. There had, however, been a number of cases of the disease here among the students and among the people of the city. Dr. Holmes was receiving daily inquiries from the parents scattered over the state and nearly all of them expressed anxiety over the situation. After fully considering the matter Dr. Holmes and the school authorities decided that the wisest course lay in suspending and thus avoiding what might perhaps result in disaster, which move is heartily commended by the patrons of the school and the citizens generally.

Dr. Holmes hopes to resume operations within two weeks at the outside, but this will depend, of course, on the course of events. It is sincerely hoped that Gordon and Barnesville will escape the serious epidemic which has prevailed in many other places.
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