By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MAY 31, 2019 | Summer has definitely arrived well in advance of its normal start for Gwinnett, June 21, giving us a full three more weeks of hot weather here at beginning of summer. (I like hot weather; Hurrah!)
Today let’s salute people years ago who approved planting trees in the parking lot of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce. By having the foresight to plant shade trees, now maturing, between the rows in the parking lot, we now enjoy their summer shade, and it just makes the area a whole lot nicer. It’s a pity more developers of big parking lots don’t recognize the beauty that trees bring, much less their shade. It keeps the vehicles much cooler, of course, and that’s a great benefit to motorists. We suspect people would shop stores more if their parking lots had trees and their shade.
We’re also pleased to find that we are seeing more white vehicles these days. A person got into my white Jeep SUV the other day, and immediately said: “Wow! This is a whole lot cooler than my car,” which is a gray SUV. Why people in the South purchase darker colors in vehicles makes you wonder.
You’ve seen the signs in shopping establishments, particularly near the ocean. They tell their potential customers: “No shoes, no shirts, no service,” or similar thoughts. They don’t want any sloppy-looking customers!
Now we have seen a new list of “No’s.” It surprised us: “No hats, no shorts, no service.”
And we thought hats were coming back.
However, there was great irony in this sign. You see, it was that of a restaurant, and above the name of the restaurant was a single emblem….of a hat!
How many of you were pleased as I was this week when The Writer’s Almanac reappeared on your computer screen? It is great to have this feature of the Internet back and running.
It’s the vehicle that Garrison Keillor had produced previously on the Internet and in an audio version on public radio. While Keillor may not be heard on the radio anymore, it’s good to get his tidbits, literature, history and contemporary thought via computer.
Medical schools in Georgia were at one time confined to either Augusta or Atlanta, at Emory or Morehouse. Then Mercer University (my alma mater) opened a medical school in Macon, and later on extended a medical campus to Savannah. Meanwhile, our own Suwanee was surprised one day to learn that the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) would start a campus in Gwinnett. Today it has over 1,000 students in several medical programs. And last year PCOM announced it would also open a campus in Moultrie, to start matriculating students on August 12.
Now even another city will get a medical school. Mercer University is expanding its two-year medical campus in Columbus to a full four year program and campus by 2021. Mercer will eventually increase the number of students to 240 on a downtown campus known as a former Synovus Bank call center on 11th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It’s a culmination of an eight-year drive that launched a $25 million public-private venture.
Mercer President Bill Underwood says: “It is a very vivid demonstration of the good that can come when local communities and institutions and our state government identify a problem and say we’re going to come together and solve this.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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