Column
By Kerri Testement
What happens when you forget about rain?
They say once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget.
But the question now on my mind is: Do you forget what it’s like to have rain?
In the past year, the lack of rain has become the norm for Northeast Georgia. We’ve grown accustomed to keeping an eye on our water use at home, dead grass in our yards, lowering lake levels revealing what was beneath the water and the endless news stories about the drought.
And when the rain drops finally started to fall in recent weeks, a strange thing happened — some of us didn’t know what to do.
Case in point: While recently driving in the rain at night, I heard a strange noise coming from my vehicle. I couldn’t tell if the noise was coming from the occasional water puddles on the road, or a mechanical problem in the engine.
Thinking the worse, I began worrying about what could be wrong under the hood — a broken hose, a loose part or even a hole in a major part. I’m no car expert, but I was certain a trip to the mechanic was on the schedule for the following day.
A few minutes later, I realized what was the culprit — my rear windshield wiper. I had accidentally turned on the rear wiper — and not having needed to turn them on for months due to the lack of rain — I freaked out by the noise it created as it swished back and forth across the window.
Later that night during a thunderstorm, a lightning bolt hit very close to our house. It was 1:30 a.m., and the sound caused me to abruptly wake up and grab my husband’s arm in bed.
I haven’t heard lightning in so long that I forgot that as an adult, I’m not supposed to be scared by the sound of lightening. I’m not supposed to jump into the arms of someone else when lightning hits nearby. I’m a parent now. I’m supposed to comfort my child during thunderstorms. But, somehow, my 15-month-old daughter slept through the storm. Apparently, she hasn’t experienced enough thunderstorms to be scared by them yet.
My cat has also forgotten the fact that cats are supposed to be scared of water. During one of the rain showers, she begged to go outside. She ignored the downpour of rain and slipped out of the house. A few minutes later, she was frantically scratching at the door, begging to be let back indoors. Silly cat, don’t you know you’re supposed to fear getting wet?
I hope the rain showers will keep coming, well into the spring and summer. A relative — who lives in an area that doesn’t have a total outdoor watering ban —?gave my daughter a baby swimming pool at the end of last summer. I would have loved to see her splash in that little, plastic pool, but there was no water to fill it. How do you explain water restrictions to a toddler?
While in college, I briefly lived in Orlando, Fla. There, the rain was too predictable — a thundershower came every day at 5:15 p.m. The rain and lightning would sometimes scare the tourists, who thought it never rained in Central Florida. They thought their vacations were ruined, just because of the evening showers. And just as quickly as the storm clouds would roll in, they’d roll back out of the area.
I wish we had such predictable weather. Who knew we’d start having so much rain in January and February? I’m certainly not complaining about it.
Kerri Testement is the news editor for The Braselton News. Her e-mail address is kerri@mainstreetnews.com.
Trouble brewing in Barrow over airport
If a government wants to rile up citizens, all it has to do is talk about putting a landfill or an airport in their backyard. Both issues breed large amounts of controversy and tend to shape opponents into strong political coalitions.
But if you want to add fuel to that controversy, mix in a suspicion that local government officials stand to personally profit from the deal. Such suspicions taint the debate and in the end, always damage the public officials involved.
Such is the case today in Barrow County where an expansion of the Northeast Georgia Regional Airport has created a conflagration of controversy. That action has come under fire not only over potential aesthetic and environmental issues, but also because there is widespread perception that some leading county officials and their friends are doing insider real estate deals in a move to profit from decisions about the airport.
It’s not clear exactly what’s behind the recent intense focus by Barrow County leaders on the airport. There’s a street rumor that Jet Blue is interested in the airport as a regional airport for its future growth. The company, however, denies that it has any interest in the Barrow County site.
Whatever the cause, Barrow officials have been putting a lot of time and effort recently into expanding its airport. The name was changed in late 2005 to its “regional” name; the county purchased 250 acres in mid-2007 for expansion; and the county condemned 16 acres in September for expansion plans.
While some of that may be just the result of a natural growth of the facility, rumors have been flying around the county that “insiders” close to the efforts are buying land near the airport, suggesting that a hidden, bigger deal is driving this issue.
Much of that speculation about insider dealings revolves around Barrow BOC chairman Doug Garrison, who has business ties to the real estate and development community. Garrison is, in fact, still listed as a sales agent for a local real estate firm.
That’s a bad idea. Public officials cannot serve two masters — the public and their private real estate interests. The co-mingling of the two always leads to problems and suspicion.
If a public official is interested in real estate, he should stay out of public office and do real estate. If he is interested in serving the public, he should distance himself from the real estate game to make sure the public’s interest comes first.
Until Barrow leaders remove this real estate cloud from the airport debate, they will never be able to have a serious discussion with citizens about the airport’s future.
