Here comes the judge! October 8, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–October 7, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

I’m glad I never took a sip from the Fanta bottle.

The older kids told us it was an orange soda, but something didn’t look quite right. The drink looked more like Mello Yello. It’s tough when you’re 6 years old in a neighborhood tempted by the older boys.

As I stood side-by-side with my 6-year-old friends Joe Murrah and Andy Hamrick, the older kids tried their best to make us take a sip of what they called “Fanta Orange.” Thankfully, the oldest boy in the group stepped forward and saved our taste buds.

“Y’all don’t need to make them drink that,” said the oldest boy as he lectured his peers.

Then he said to my friends and me, “That’s not a Fanta Orange in the bottle.”

Suddenly, we had been rescued. Little did we know that this 11-year-old boy who stood up against his peers and saved us from the Fanta bottle would be laying the groundwork for his future career.

And so began my friendship with Judge Bill Hamrick.

Our houses were only a few yards from each other in the Chapel Heights neighborhood. Bill was the oldest of four boys in his household. When his family moved across town, our neighborhood didn’t just lose the Hamrick family — we lost four members of our neighborhood ball team. In other words, the Hamrick boys had been traded to the Sunset Hills team.

And so began our new rivalry.

Our Chapel Heights team would meet the Hamrick boys and the rest of the Sunset Hills squad at the West Georgia College track to play football in the fall and tennis ball (which is baseball played with a tennis ball) in the spring and summer. There was no adult supervision. We made up all the rules.

“It never failed that with each game a close call would usually lead to both teams arguing,” said my Chapel Heights teammate Sam Haney. “As voices and tempers elevated, the one person who always ‘calmed the storm’ was Bill Hamrick.”

He never raised his voice.

Besides, most of us never knew what he sounded like because he rarely talked. But when he did — he always had a way of cutting through the arguments.

That’s just who he was. That’s still who he is.

“He’s doesn’t just enforce the rules,” said his friend, Mark Parkman. “He follows them. For example, he’s the only person I know who always keeps both hands on the steering wheel at the 2 and 10 o’clock positions that we learned in our high school driver’s education class.”

By no means is Bill Hamrick perfect. Keep in mind he has a degree from Auburn.

When I heard that Georgia Governor Nathan Deal appointed Bill to a Superior Court judgeship a few weeks ago, I wasn’t surprised. Judge Bill may have learned many of his skills while in law school and for the past 12 years he served in the Georgia Senate, but his excellent judicial traits and talents were revealed to me as a child.

Besides, he’s the reason I never took a sip of that Fanta Orange.

Rivalry renewals September 3, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–September 2, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

It’s football time again.

As college football kicks off another season, I can’t wait for another fall filled with tailgating, marching bands, cheerleaders and good old-fashioned rivalries. I’m a graduate of the University of Georgia and a Bulldog to the bone. I’m even wearing red and black underdrawers as I write this column.

There’s no secret among Southerners that Georgia fans still refer to Georgia Tech as “the enemy.” Besides, if you look up the definition of “nerd” in the dictionary, it says “a Georgia Tech fan.”

My best friend Joe Murrah is a Georgia Tech fan and graduate. We grew up in the Chapel Heights neighborhood and often played football in Carol and Mac Martin’s front yard where he pretended he was Georgia Tech running back Eddie Lee Ivery and I was Georgia Heisman Trophy Winner Herschel Walker. Even then, the Bulldogs ruled.

During my senior year, I took a quarter off from UGA to work as an intern at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta. It was an exciting job to work among the writers and producers of Ted Turner’s enterprise. The downside to the three-month internship was that I lived with three Georgia Tech students from Carrollton — Joe Murrah, Tommy Muse and Mike Cocklereece.

I was outnumbered.

During this short stay, Georgia Tech had one of its greatest basketball teams in school history and even went to the Final Four. Of course, that same year my Bulldogs failed to make it to the second round. I kept my mouth shut.

There’s no doubt many outstanding Georgia Tech graduates with Carroll County ties have positively influenced this community and the world. Roy Richards, who founded Southwire, was a Tech graduate. Roger Kaiser, who coached West Georgia’s only national champion basketball team, was a hall of fame Tech athlete and Carrollton native Jim Borders changed the skyline of Atlanta.

Despite all of the great Tech alumni who work and live in this area to make this community such a great place, I still can’t cheer for the Yellow Jackets — even if they’re playing Auburn.

A new college football season means different things to people. Some fans are preparing for tailgate parties, others are making reservations for road trips and many men are thinking of excuses to give their wives so they can sneak away to watch ESPN during a fall wedding reception.

For me, the beginning of football season means more phone calls from Dawsonville.

My friend David Hughes and I worked together as students in the UGA Athletic Department and he starts calling every fall. David represents a new breed of SEC football fans because he refers to himself as a “yupneck” — a redneck yuppie.

A “yupneck” is someone who drives a BMW littered with boiled peanut hulls and wears Polo shirts stained with barbecue sauce. David further exemplifies this trait because he married his wife for her pimento cheese recipe.

“I’m at the doctor getting a tetanus shot,” Hughes said in a pre-season phone call this week.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you OK?”

“No,” he replied. “I need it because we play at Auburn this year.”

So, may the jokes, jabs and jests begin. May your team win all of its games unless, of course, you’re playing against Georgia.

Oh, and by the way — Go Dawgs! Woof! Woof!

Trading memories June 25, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–June 24, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

He used to walk through the woods with a briefcase.

In the early 1980s, my Central Middle School classmate David Sheinin would dodge the briars and pinecones as he walked through the woods that separated his house on Edgewood Drive from my quarters in Chapel Heights. He didn’t come to play. He came to trade.

David and I began our friendship trading baseball cards. He built an incredible collection from scratch. I built my collection the old-fashioned way—I inherited it from my older brothers.

We would make trades. Some were good. Some were not so good, but we each built a heck of a collection. Although we didn’t realize it at the time, these skills would one day be the early training ground for our future careers.

Recently, a story aired on CBS Sunday Morning titled “Collectors of Baseball Cards Striking Out.” According to the report, “Over the years the art of collecting baseball cards has changed drastically, from a childhood hobby to a billion-dollar industry. Today the market for those collectibles is rapidly collapsing.”

“It’s too bad that the industry got so cutthroat and corporate that it sucked the joy out of it as a hobby, and eventually led to the demise of the whole industry,” said Central Lion Hall of Famer and award winning journalist David Sheinin, who is now the National baseball writer for the Washington Post. “I remember one stepping-stone on the way to oblivion: the year they stopped putting that awful-tasting, pasty bubblegum in the new packs of cards because the gum could leave a mark and lessen the value of whatever card it was touching.”

My mother probably drove 12,000 miles in her wood panel station wagon hauling my brothers and friends around Carrollton to find a convenience store that sold baseball cards. They were a hot commodity in the 1970s as stores would sell out sometimes the same day the new packages of cards arrived. My goal every year was to collect every card. We didn’t collect cards as an investment (we never knew that one day it would become a billion dollar industry). We collected cards so we could play each other in a dice game.

“If you rolled two sixes, it was a homerun,” said Carrollton native and Emmy Award winner Mark Parkman who will spend the summer in London as the operations executive for Olympic Broadcasting Services. “I still have all my baseball cards and even my notebook that I used to keep statistics on each player. My mother will be happy to know I kept them because she’s still waiting on her cut of the profits should I ever sell them.”

In the 1980s, the baseball card industry exploded as all of the sudden investors viewed the cards as valuable. Card conventions and trade shows started showing up every weekend in the big cities. When I realized that our Pete Rose rookie card was worth enough to provide a free college education for my brothers and me, I quickly searched and found the card only to discover that someone had crossed out “outfield” as his position and wrote “second base” on the card. It’s still worthless.

“I used to make my parents drive me around to card shows all over the state and at one of these shows, I traded a well-preserved Pete Rose rookie card for a 1933 Babe Ruth card that had giant creases down the middle and frayed corners,” said Sheinin. “Even though it was a terrible trade for me, in terms of value, I simply wanted a Babe Ruth card. I mean, how cool was that—to own a 50-year-old baseball card of the sultan of swat? I still have that Babe Ruth card.”

My brothers and I still have all of our baseball cards although I haven’t looked at them in years. Times have changed and anyone can search for a baseball player’s photo and statistics in a matter of seconds via the internet.

It’s almost as if the demise of baseball cards reflects much more than a dying industry. It’s the passing of the torch from a slower paced world of card collecting to a world of rapid, high speed information and overload. IPads are replacing briefcases.

“Oh, and that ‘briefcase’ you recall was actually a hand-made wooden box, with dividing slats perfectly calibrated for baseball cards, constructed by my stepfather, Bill Lowry,” Sheinin added. “I still have it—right under the desk where I work right now—and it’s still full of baseball cards.”

David Sheinin doesn’t walk through the woods anymore to talk baseball. He now leaves his office at the Washington Post and walks into every major league ballpark and press box in the country. I’m glad his passion for baseball still shines, but most importantly—I’m glad he kept the “briefcase.”

A teacher’s legacy June 11, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–June 10, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

She taught me how to write a sentence.

I had the opportunity to have some wonderful teachers from kindergarten through graduate school, but like most people, a few of them stand out above all of the rest. Last Sunday I learned that my seventh grade English teacher Beverly Goodwin died after a battle with cancer.

Mrs. Goodwin was one of my childhood neighbors in the Chapel Heights subdivision and I’ve known her my entire life. Before she was my teacher, I remember her bringing her daughter Gwyn swimming at Mac and Sylvia McGukin’s swimming pool which was our neighborhood country club during the summer months. She was always so gracious, so kind, such the Southern lady.

After my sixth grade year at Central Middle School, the upperclassmen warned me to prepare for the biggest challenge of my school career. No, I wasn’t going up against Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. I was going up against Beverly Goodwin and Marilyn Coulon.

I’ll never forget feeling terrified of both teachers the first day of school. Rumor had it that they were intellectually brilliant, which made their classes incredibly challenging and each of them quite intimidating.

What I discovered and experienced, however, wasn’t Ali and Frazier. Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. Coulon were not my opponents. They were on my side.

I honestly believe that I could have passed any college English course after the seventh grade. That’s how good they were.

Mrs. Goodwin made sure her students learned the different parts of speech and actually made learning pronouns fun as she would have her students sounding like a chorus as we would chant “I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they.” This may not sound like fun, but when a group of seventh graders say “she” followed by “it” really fast — it’s quite entertaining. Mrs. Goodwin pretended she didn’t hear this, but 30 years later I can testify her techniques work.

Two of her passions that she passed on to her students were music and dance. She took my class to see “The Nutcracker” at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. It was my first trip to the Fox Theatre. She loved ballet and wanted to expose her students to this form of dance.

Although I’m amazed at how ballerinas can stand on their toes, I’d rather watch a football game. I do, however, appreciate Mrs. Goodwin for trying to broaden my horizons. I’ve returned to the Fox to see “The Nutcracker” since her class, but I must confess I enjoyed my other trips to the Fox watching George Strait, Robin Williams, John Denver, James Taylor and George Carlin much better.

One of Mrs. Goodwin’s favorite events was the seventh grade graduation ceremony that she orchestrated. For weeks, she led her students in singing the soundtrack from the “Sound of Music” to perform in the graduation ceremony.

There’s no doubt that my classmates at Central Middle School probably still know the words to the “Sound of Music” soundtrack better than Julie Andrews.

She made sure each male student wore a tie and each female wore a dress for the event. Also, Mrs. Goodwin even lined my classmates from tallest to shortest as we marched on stage. In case you were wondering — John Ayers and I were the caboose.

Cancer is an ugly disease. Mrs. Goodwin was first diagnosed with cancer during my seventh grade year in 1982. She missed about two months of the school year. Her time away could have been viewed as a break from her rigorous curriculum, but my classmates longed for her to return. Again, she was that good.

Thankfully, she would eventually defeat this first bout with the disease and return to teaching. She spent 40 years in the classroom. I’m one of the lucky ones who got to experience her. Our paths crossed for only a short school year, but each time I use a comma or try to even choose a better word for sentence — I can’t help but think about her.

Toasting a Veteran May 21, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–May 20, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

 

He never talked about the war.

Soon after his discharge from the 294^th Joint Assault Signal Corps during World War II, Bud Arnold moved back to Georgia and began a new life. For the next 44 years, like most people of his generation—he went back to work.

When I was in elementary school, my neighborhood friends Sam Haney, Joe Murrah, Christy Haney Rothschild and I would often sit in Bud’s driveway waiting for him to get home from his job at Norfolk Southern Railway. When he arrived home, we would follow him inside where he would go straight to his chair and turn on the television. We, however, walked straight to his refrigerator. Bud always kept his refrigerator stocked with Coca-Cola bottles for us and a case of his “favorite beverage” which we were forbidden to drink.

I’m sure he would have loved some peace and quiet when he arrived home every day, but he never seemed to mind us walking in his door and watching an episode of All in the Family, Gilligan’s Island or Sanford and Son. I guess you could say Bud Arnold was our first drinking buddy.

Bud’s sense of humor always made us laugh and if we ever got out of line in his house, he never hesitated to discipline us. He let us play in his house and sometimes we created so much noise and commotion, it sounded like a tornado—but he was used to the storms of life.

“One time Bud, Danny Patrick, Dr. Paul Gentry and I took a fishing trip to Shell Point, Florida,” said Bud’s former neighbor Carrollton Mayor Wayne Garner. “Danny and Paul bought a new anchor for our boat and when they tossed it in, Bud quickly realized that they forgot to tie the other end. As the anchor sank to the bottom of the ocean, Bud sang at the top of his lungs ‘Anchors Aweigh, My Boys…Anchors Aweigh.’”

In January 2009, I received word that Bud Arnold had died at the age of 86. I attended his funeral to honor a man who welcomed my childhood friends and me into his home. It was at his funeral, however, that I learned something he never told us about—he was part of the company on June 7, 1944 that stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. Of course, this day marked the turning point for the Allies in World War II that we call D-Day.

Furthermore, his company was sent back to the United States in December 1944 only to be shipped out to Japan where the atomic bomb was dropped and Japan surrendered.

On Saturday, May 26, the Carroll County Veterans Memorial Park will once again host its annual Memorial Day ceremony to honor the veterans who served for our freedom. This year the event begins at 10 a.m. Daniel Jackson, president/CEO of the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce, will serve as the guest speaker.

“We will ring the bell this year for the first time,” said Norris Garrett, President of the Carroll County Veterans Memorial Park. “This event started about 10 years ago by a group headed by Nellie and Henry Duke as a way to honor and recognize all of our veterans.”

The Memorial Park’s Wall of Honor recognizes almost 1,000 veterans who have either lived in Carroll County or have Carroll County connections.

“We also have a Killed In Action Wall honoring the Carroll County residents who lost their lives in war,” Garrett added. “Those numbers include 194 who died in the Civil War, 19 in World War I, 92 in World War II, 10 in the Korean War, 14 in Vietnam and 5 in Iraq.”

On Memorial Day, thousands of Americans will celebrate the holiday. Hamburgers and hot dogs will be cooking in backyards. I plan to light the charcoal at my house, but more importantly—I plan to think about and toast the men who served our country like Bud Arnold.

As a child, I viewed Bud as a great neighbor who opened his house and refrigerator to me and my friends. As an adult, I view him as someone larger than life who served his country and returned to civilian life and went back to work. His generation didn’t make excuses. His generation took care of business.

Carpooling in station wagons May 14, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian–May 13, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

My mother was never on time.

When it was her turn to drive in my elementary school carpool, my friends knew we would be the last kids picked up. I used to think her watch was broken. The reality was she was coordinating rides for my two brothers while being responsible for my carpool.

Once she arrived at Central Primary School, we would board her Mercury station wagon that had enough wood paneling to start a bonfire. We could have easily walked home to our Chapel Heights neighborhood, but I’m part of the generation whose parents had to start worrying about kidnappers and other bad guys.

On this Mother’s Day, I want to honor all the moms who chauffeur and have chauffeured their children and their friends from place to place.

Mildred Musselwhite was one of my favorite chauffeurs as a child. I even called her little red station wagon a limousine because I would sit in the backseat as she drove me home from school. By no means was her limo a show car. As a matter of fact, that car was so slow her son Craig could outrun it in his tennis shoes. No wonder he grew up to be a track superstar and state champion winning coach.

I’m convinced my wife Ali drives 100 miles per day in her SUV just in the city limits of Carrollton to haul my boys from school and other activities. Today’s station wagon is the SUV and I’m grateful to the motor companies for this advancement. I must admit, however, that I still sometimes long for riding in the back of a wood panel station wagon again.

My sons will never know the feeling of riding without seatbelts.

When my mother, Mildred Musselwhite or Irene Duffey would carpool, they just loaded Cindy Musselwhite Muse, Heather Duffey North and me in the backseat of their cars without seatbelts. If Mildred ever slammed on her brakes, she would look back at us and say with a big smile–“Wasn’t that fun?”

It actually was, but like today’s parents–I want my kids to buckle.

Pat Murrah and Linda Haney were my other favorite chauffeurs as a child. They drove Joe Murrah, Sam Haney and me to hundreds of ball games and movies. Jean Muse would drive me and her son Donnie to either the D&R Shoppette or the Four Lane Shoppette across from Big Chic for an afternoon snack. Like my mother, these moms also drove station wagons with fake wood panels.

There was never a boring minute when my friends and I were together in a station wagon. We would talk and play games in the backseat such as “Rock, Paper, Scissors” and “Mercy.” Things would usually be fine until someone would pass gas and the boys would erupt in laughter.

“Y’all need to know that’s inappropriate,” we often heard. “It’s time you boys think about growing up.”

As a father of four boys, I’m absolutely amazed at the art of motherhood. By the time it takes me to walk the 10 feet from my back door to my car parked in the driveway, my wife can make four sandwiches, check homework, comb my sons’ hair, prepare their breakfast and 50,000 other things.

There’s really something special about a mother. I’m lucky that I’ll be able to visit my mother today, but something is missing.

This will be the first Mother’s Day without my childhood chauffeurs Pat Murrah and Jean Muse who passed away last summer. Maybe somewhere in Heaven they’re looking down at us today with a smile. Perhaps they’re going out for a special lunch. I just hope Mildred Musselwhite picks them up in her red limo. It’s her week to drive.

Safety First — “Boys and Their Bottle Rockets” February 5, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian – February 5, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

Boys like to blow things up.

I’ve been trying to explain this to my wife Ali for the last few weeks since I took my four year-old son Charlie to the fireworks store near Heflin before New Year’s Eve. It was his first venture into the world of bottle rockets, Black Cats, Roman candles and smoke bombs.

“I don’t understand what the fascination is with explosives,” she said. Ali has three sisters and no brothers so being the mother of four boys is new territory.

I don’t understand what the fascination is either.  I can spend hours shooting bottle rockets, and nothing is more fun than lighting a smoke bomb and throwing it in your friend’s car…just kidding.

Fireworks terrify most mothers and for good reason.

“Y’all make sure you don’t shoot them at anybody, and back up after they’re lit,” my mother used to tell me and my friends. “And don’t forget about that little boy from Bowdon who lost his eye from shooting firecrackers.”

To this day I still don’t know who that “little boy” was or why he was always from “Bowdon,” but it was wise advice.

In my Chapel Heights neighborhood when I was growing up, no one was more popular at New Year’s Eve among the children than Tommy Haney. For more than 30 years, Tommy was a pharmacist in Carrollton and who better to teach kids how to blow things up than a man who studied chemistry in college.

Every New Year’s Eve Tommy would drive to Trickum Valley which is on the outskirts of Ranburne and return with thousands of explosives. As he returned, every neighborhood kid camped out on his driveway waiting to launch the first bottle rocket.

I probably need to reimburse him for the hundreds of dollars he spent every year.

Of course, fireworks are still illegal in Georgia which means most of us should be in prison for shooting a bottle rocket at least once in our lives. I hope Sheriff Langley doesn’t show up at my house this week. Just in case, I’ve stored my bottle rockets in Ranburne.

I don’t understand why Georgia doesn’t pass legislation to legalize firecrackers, but I hope it stays illegal. It just makes it fun. Plus, it gives many people a reason to drive to Alabama and pretend they’re Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed from “Smokey and the Bandit” by bootlegging bottle rockets across the state line.

So, if you decide to shoot a Roman candle or firecracker at the next big holiday (in Alabama where they’re legal, of course), make sure kids are taught about safety when they strike their first match. I’m trying to teach my kids.

I even told them about the “little boy from Bowdon.”

Martin’s Front Yard was a Playground January 6, 2012

Published by the Times-Georgian – January 6, 2012

By Joe Garrett

www.times-georgian.com

 

She let us dig up her yard.

In all of the years that Carol Martin lived in the Chapel Heights subdivision, she never won a Beautification Award for her lawn.  Instead of planting flowers, she allowed the neighborhood kids to build a ball field in her front yard. It was perfect for baseball in the summer and football in the fall.

She even adorned her front yard with a sign that read Buford T. Pusser Memorial Field as named by some of the neighborhood kids as a tribute to Joe Don Baker’s portrayal of a small town sheriff in their favorite movie “Walking Tall.”

Although the sign is no longer around and the field has been retired, the memories of playing in Carol’s front yard are still alive.

How many kids do you see these days playing a pickup game of baseball without any parental supervision?  Carol and her husband Dr. Mac Martin’s yard became more than just a place for recreation—it was the best school I ever attended.  My apologies to the writer Robert Fulgham, but everything I needed to know, I learned in Carol Martin’s front yard.

It’s not that I don’t like organized sports and activities.  I just liked playing in her yard better than any recreation league.   We made our own games and rules.  Just like Congress, we often debated and argued.  Unlike Congress, we would always come to an amicable agreement.

We pushed each other to become better.  We laughed often.  We sometimes fought and cried.   But most of all, we had the best neighborhood team in the area as nearby squads from Edgewood Drive, Sunset Hills and the Southgate Neighborhood would often leave Chapel Heights in defeat.

Carol would often walk out to say hello and even occasionally bring us lemonade.  One time when we wanted to make the pitcher’s mound bigger, we knocked on her door.

“Mrs. Martin, would mind if we make a larger mound?” we asked.  “No,” she replied. “The shovel is in the garage.  Just make sure you put it back when you’re finished.”

I never saw her complain.  Even when Dr. Martin would come home from a long day at the hospital, he would often walk out on the field and say hello.  He told me at Carol’s funeral home visitation, “We absolutely loved watching all of you play in our yard.”

Four years ago, Santa Claus delivered two miniature excavators to my sons for Christmas.  When my boys started digging a big patch in the front yard, I immediately felt my blood pressure rise.  It quickly lowered as I thought about Carol Martin’s lawn.

When I told her this story, she replied “Just let them tear up the yard.  You’ll have plenty of time to plant flowers and win a Beautification Award when they’re grown.”

I’m following her advice.  I’m letting them dig.