Letter to a new great-grandson

Dear Samuel Knox Wansley, Welcome! You are my seventh great-grandchild and the fourth male in my growing family tree.However, I suspect that is of little importance to you at this point.

Twin Pines indifferent to Okefenokee backlash

As of this writing, the opportunity has passed to express your opinion to Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division about its decision to issue draft permits for Alabamabased Twin Pines Minerals to strip-mine the 582 acres of wetlands it owns adjacent to the Okefenokee Swamp.

The magic of ‘The Waltons’

This story comes on good authority which assures us that this good story is true.One day, Tink and I were visiting his father, former television Executive Grant Tinker, when the conversation turned to Merv Adelson, a legend of iconic 1970s television shows.

Sweet talk about Vidalia onions

Let’s face it. We’re a blessed people. Not only do we have the oldest state-chartered university in the nation with two recent National Football Championships, 27 Rhodes Scholars (but who’s counting?

Fair and unbiased (or biased) sports reporting

Count me in as one who still enjoys holding a good, local newspaper and absorbing almost every word.From the front page to the obituaries to the sports to the legals. I even read the entire jury list.High school football season had just begun, and I was reading the town’s sports page.

Rich: Rudeness and courtesy

Sometimes, I have decided, rudeness works.Sometimes, it’s even called for.I had to do a lot of thinking on this because I advocate kindness and courtesy.But if someone is being abused publicly, I can see the need for rudeness to spare the victim.

Yarbrough: Bob Shaw, a man who made us better

My boss and mentor at Southern Bell, Jasper Dorsey, taught me a lot about the business world.He also taught me a lot about the world beyond business. One of his precepts was that we must leave this a better world than we found it. Otherwise, we have just taken up time and space and wasted a life.

Yarbrough: Becoming a Bulldog – forever

A lot is going on at my alma mater, the University of Georgia. Not all the news has been good.

Rich: Jesus was a Jew

In the modest country home where I grew up, prejudices were not allowed.However there was a serious bias against what Daddy called “no accounts,” men who laid up drunk and didn’t feed their families.

Yarbrough: Do politicians even care about the Okefenokee Swamp?

Between the time I write, and you read this, conditions can change.Particularly in politics.