GwinnettForum | Number 20.57 | Aug. 7, 2020
MAJESTIC BEAUTY: The Historic Gwinnett Courthouse is neat and pristine in the background, and a summertime flower garden accents the foreground. This scene was captured this week by Roving Photographer Frank Sharp. When you are out and see an interesting and beautiful setting, click a photo and send it to GwinnettForum for others to enjoy.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Grayson’s 81 Year Old Senior To Be GGC’s Oldest College Graduate
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Georgia High School Association Putting Athletes At Risk
ANOTHER VIEW: Ministers Need to Re-Read and Preach of Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and King
SPOTLIGHT: Georgia Gwinnett College
FEEDBACK: Bernard’s Recent Views Seem Equitable, Sensible and Workable
UPCOMING: Tom Summers of Snellville New Chairman of Salvation Army Board
NOTABLE: Gwinnett Shelter Seeking To Clear Out All Animals
RECOMMENDED: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Early 20th Century Saw Growth of Craftsman Bungalow
MYSTERY PHOTO: Watch Out: This Mystery Photo May Not Be What You Think
LAGNIAPPE: Many Gwinnett Neighborhoods Have Population of Deer
CALENDAR: Vegetable Garden Workshop Coming August 11
81-year-old senior to be GGC’s oldest college graduate
By Ken Scar
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. | The nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns have had heartbreaking effects on graduating college students from coast to coast. Traditional graduations and other cherished events have been canceled or postponed after years of students toiling toward their degrees. Despite all odds, Prescott Lawrence of Grayson received his degree in business administration with a concentration in management information systems from Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) after more than a decade of persistent work.
Lawrence
Lawrence will join more than 800 of his classmates at GGC’s virtual commencement, scheduled for 10 a.m., Saturday, August 8. The ceremony can be viewed at www.ggc.edu/commencement.
Prescott Lawrence was not just your average student. At 81, he is the oldest graduate in GGC’s history.
“I called myself the ‘senior senior,’” Lawrence laughs. He’s living in Grayson sharing with his son and daughter-in-law during the coronavirus crisis. “I believe learning is a life-long experience. I try to keep my mind and body as active as I can. The mind is like any muscle – you have to exercise it.”
It took him 10 years at GGC to complete his degree. “I started when I was still working, but only took two or three courses per semester.”
Unlike his much-younger classmates, Lawrence didn’t seek a college education out of necessity. It was simply his natural drive to learn new things that led him to GGC.
Lawrence is a native of Connecticut, and was raised in Falls Church, Va. Prior to moving to Georgia in 1989, he lives in Bethesda, Md. “I like the warmer weather here, but I still miss the snow.” He served for six years in the regular Army, then put in 22 years in the Reserve as a Battalion food first sergeant.
Lawrence’s original major at GGC was information technology (IT) because he worked with computers at Atlanta Gas Light, his last full-time job, before retiring in 2012. After an aortic aneurysm in 2011 forced him to drop calculus (but not to give up on his education) he switched his major to business administration and his concentration to management information systems.
The field of management information systems is still “pretty tough,” but he never doubted he could make it happen at GGC.
When asked if it felt odd to sit in classes with students many decades younger than him, Lawrence said it was surprisingly enjoyable, and he found himself using the opportunity to share a little life experience.
“I’d talk to the younger people and give them my ideas, and they’d give me theirs and it was a good exchange,” he said. “It was interesting because, one of the things I learned very late in life – in my 50s in fact – is making arrangements for retirement should start early. My financial professor thought I was amazing, because I’m the perfect example of what not to do. I didn’t buy a house until I was 66 years old! So, I made it a point to get up in front of all my classes and stress to the young people that now is the time to start putting money away.”
Now that he finally has his degree in hand, he doesn’t plan to end his lifelong pursuit of learning.
“Getting the degree was my original intent and it feels amazing. But good or bad, we’re learning all the time,” he said, noting that he’s already taking some free online courses during his spare time during the lockdown. “So many people get left behind and I don’t want to be a vegetable.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Georgia High School Association putting athletes at risk
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 7, 2020 | What is it with athletic groups during a pandemic? In all sports, the many level leagues seem to be making terrible decisions. And there may be one single factor driving it all.
The executive committee of the Georgia High School Association (GHSA), meeting Wednesday, essentially sanctioned playing a full season of high school football in Georgia beginning Sept. 4. Of course, this comes during the COVID-19 pandemic, in spite of the warning from state health expert, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Dept. of Public Health.
In a month before high school football begins. Before then, the GHSA may have a change of heart and opt not to play football this season if the COVID crisis worsens. Can’t this association recognize the constant physical danger they will be putting these athletes in? Can you think of a more up-close, in-your-face situation than two football lines charging at one another with all their might, tussling, twisting and trying to turn and subdue their opponents one way or another? Think, too, of a collision between a running back and a tackler. Neither aspect involves social distancing.
Can we say simply that these players are in close contact, breathing on one another, wrestling with their opponent, intent on their objective, all without face masks or any other preventative measure against the Coronavirus.
What were these GHSA executive committee members thinking? Unhappily, we suspect the problem boils down only to money. High school football revenue helps supplement the other sports, which often bring in little or no money.
Let’s look at the make-up of the Georgia High School Association.
Who are members of its executive committee? The 74 members (including five from Gwinnett), each represent one region at every level in the state. The members are primarily former high school football coaches, sometimes augmented by other sport coaches. They are intent on maintaining control in Georgia over high school athletics. This, of course, is the way each makes their living. It’s their life.
Georgia school boards allow the GHSA to dictate most rules of the statewide athletic competition, without giving it a second thought. Unfortunately, this is even the case concerning the COVID pandemic, where even the Gwinnett School Board is letting GHSA determine local policy regarding whether to schedule games.
It’s ironic that while most school systems are wrestling with doing the best for their students concerning the pandemic, at the same time these individual boards allow the GHSA to set the current rules for their athletic teams.
Why doesn’t the GHSA recognize how serious this COVID pandemic is, and simply say “No scheduling of games until the pandemic clears?” That would certainly be best for health for the athletes, who are the ones most seriously threatened. Granted, this would mean that the athletes won’t get playing time to make a name for themselves this year, and get no attention from college or pro scouts. Better sit out a year than not survive the pandemic.
Looking wider, you wonder why the college and professional athletic leagues can’t understand that while American sports fans might want big-time competition to return, that might not be best for the game and the athletes themselves. Some athletes are choosing not to put themselves at risk, and foregoing playing this year. Some colleges (the University of Connecticut this week) have cancelled their football season. Yet the baseball, football, and basketball leagues seem to be more about getting the money, especially the heavy television revenues, than looking out for the lives of the athletes.
Sadly, the money seems to be the real reason behind all the maneuvering concerning athletics, at all levels. Suspending sport events is far more important than exposing these athletes to competition that could kill them.
The five persons representing Gwinnett on the GHSA Executive Committee include Ed Shaddix, the county athletic director (of 4-AAAAAAA); Kirk Barton, Norcross, (7-AAAAAAA); Scarlett Grantham of Collins Hill (8-AAAAAAA); Matt McDonald (8-AAAAAA); and David Colvard, representing the Georgia School Boards Association).
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Re-read, preach of Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and King
By Ashley Herndon
OCEANSIDE, Calif. | In the 1930s there was the shocking capitulation of the “German Church” to Adolph Hitler. Ninety years later, we shockingly see many American churches and church leaders capitulating to President Trump.
Herndon
Hitler was a Nazi and a Fascist. Trump claims to be a Republican, though not recognizable as such in the actuality of Republicanism as normally practiced. I like Republicans. Of course, I like Democrats as well. But I think the Republican party should remove his name from its membership list, so his admirers/adherents can ‘fess up’ to being Trumpers and run their own party, because true Republicans they are not…they are the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). They are giving the Republican Party a bad name. Old Time Republicans are somewhere and something else. Let us hope they do not have to someday say, I was “just following orders…it’s not my fault.”
This behavior brings us to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who we know, was a minister in the German Church who defied Hitler. All it cost him was his freedom then his life. Same thing happened to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. However, and interestingly, Bonhoeffer’s life and teaching, Gandhi’s life and teaching, along with Dr. King’s life and teaching are positively remembered and revered today as a study in “Stand Up, Stay Up, and Speak Up…with Love…no matter what. Do What is Right.” Now we can add John Lewis to that list. At least he was not murdered.
Back to the first sentence. The German Church capitulated to Hitler 90 years ago. It seems there are many in the “American Church” of 2020 who are capitulating to base brutality, meanness, and hate, delivered by the current administration. The Christian Church I was taught at home, in the neighborhood, and at Morningside Baptist Church in Atlanta, was one of “Love in Action.” AGAPE. Today we seem to have people claiming to be Christian leaders and adherents backing violence and brutality. Certainly, that is non-agape.
It is impossible to have it both ways. The dual personality of love and hate do not mix. That creates schizoid behavior. You cannot leave “Love” at church; you must live it. No wonder so many folks are confused…the human mind is not wired for such. How does a person ‘”lovingly” brutalize people while saying that they love them?
I am aware of my tiny mind, but when using simple arithmetic brutality (B) + love (L) = (W) – wrong answer. They do not equal (A) – acceptable behavior. Your Excel Sheet will not compute those variables.
Let us hope that the American Church and its leaders will quickly re-read, accept and preach Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and M.L.King Jr. before it is too late. See you at the polls.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Georgia Gwinnett College
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Bernard’s recent views seem equitable, sensible, workable
Editor, the Forum:
Inherent in electing leaders in any segment of our society is trusting in their abilities/experience to lead and tackle any new challenges with intelligence and creativity.
While no one including Nostradamus could have predicted the multiple mountains we are facing today, we should maintain our belief that our leaders will formulate a plan that is equitable, sensible, and successful.
I am not an expert on the specifics, yet Jack Bernard seemed to do that in his recent column. Desperate times require bold and often unprecedented solutions.
It is easy to second-guess what some of our leaders view as priorities from the (premature) re-opening of Georgia with a focus on massage parlors, bowling alleys, etc., to the lawsuit over the facemask edict of Mayor Bottoms and more recent home delivery of beer and liquor.
Politics aside, we would all seem to crave success or at least progress. Like everyone, anxious to see these strides and hope our governor and his advisers are up to that.
— Howard Hoffman, Berkeley Lake
Learns that her husband’s relatives were from Palmyra, Va.
Editor, the Forum:
I am so intrigued by George Graf from Palmyra, Va. He seems to have traveled to every place that you picture in the Mystery Photo. And he does more than identify it. He provides excellent tidbits of history and information that make me want to go visit these places.
As an aside, my husband’s family hails from Palmyra, Virginia–in fact, when my husband, David, first said the name I thought he had made it up! We have visited and did some research in their delightful Museum of History. We discovered that his great (x3) grandfather was the clerk of Palmyra and signed the scrip used during the Civil War. He and his daughter used the back of bank statements to create one-half inch by two-inch strips of paper with varying denominations and signed to indicate their validity. It was pretty eerie to see these displayed in the museum under glass.
So when I keep seeing George Graf’s responses, it makes me want to go back to Palmyra to meet him!
— Margot Ashley, Lilburn
Tulsa and TikTok combine to get poem about the president
Editor, the Forum:
May I contribute this poem that I wrote about the current situation?
Tulsa TikTok:
Hickory, dickory, dock.
Trump shuts down TikTok.
He claims it’s from spying,
But I think he’s denying
TikTok gave his rally a shock.
— Michael Wood, Peachtree Corners
Dear Mike: Your poem made us laugh. But readers: please, no more poems. We say that knowing that since everyone thinks they are all superb poets, we might be covered up. Please. No. –eeb
Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
Snellville’s Summers to be new chair of Salvation Army board
A Gwinnettian is to be the new chairman of the Metro Atlanta Salvation Army Advisory Board. He is Edward T. (Tom) Summers of Snellville. He succeeds Bill Byron Concevitch of Alpharetta, who has been chair for the last four years.
Summers
Summers recently retired after 37 years with SunTrust Bank. For the last 18 years, his duties included managing key banking relationships with charitable (501-c-3) institutions in Metro Atlanta having religious, charitable and health care related missions.
A native of Martin, Tenn., Summers graduated from the University of Tennessee in finance and business, and holds a MBA from Georgia State. He also holds professional banking certificates from the University of Georgia and the School of Banking at Louisiana State University.
Among his activities in Gwinnett include roles with the United Way of Gwinnett County, YMCA, Leadership Gwinnett, the Gwinnett School’s strategic planning team, and Special Olympics, Georgia.
In 2010 he joined the Salvation Army’s Metro Atlanta Command advisory board. He has served as board treasurer and a member of the Property Finance and Executive Committees. His term as board chairman starts with the September fiscal year.
Summer is married to the former Becky Jenkins, from Stone Mountain, a retired nurse. They have three girls and one son, and attend Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville.
Library presents live virtual talk Aug. 11 with 3 authors
A live virtual author conversation with Joshilyn Jackson, Suzanne Park, and Deanna Raybourn will be held on August 11 at 7 p.m. Visit Gwinnett County Public Library’s website www.gwinnettpl.org and find the link this session.
Suzanne Park is a Korean-American writer who was born and raised in Tennessee. Formerly a stand-up comedian, Park is the author of the adult hate-to-love romantic-comedy, Loathe at First Sight, a story set in the video game industry.
Deanna Raybourn is the New York Times bestselling author of over 20 novels. Her latest, A Murderous Relation, is the fifth installment in her Veronica Speedwell mystery series.
Park and Raybourn will appear in conversation with Atlanta’s own Joshilyn Jackson. Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of The Almost Sisters, Never Have I Ever, and many others.
Presented by Gwinnett County Public Library, AJC Decatur Book Festival, and Georgia Center for the Book, this talk is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.
Gwinnett shelter seeking to clear out all animals
For the third year, Gwinnett Animal Welfare and Enforcement will join shelters and rescues across the nation to find homes for shelter pets as part of the Clear the Shelters adoption drive.
Animal Welfare and Enforcement Division Director Alan Davis says: “Like shelters all over the country, our hope is to find happy forever homes for the many great pets in our care. We would love to literally clear our shelter.”
Clear the Shelters is sponsored by NBC and Telemundo and has seen placement of more than 411,000 pets in loving homes since 2015 as part of the annual campaign.
For the safety and well-being of the community, Gwinnett Animal Welfare and Enforcement is currently limiting visitors in the shelter each day and is following all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Interested adopters are encouraged to view the available pets on GwinnettAnimalWelfare.com and complete the adoption application before coming to the shelter for a meet and greet.
Currently, adoption fees for dogs and puppies are $45 each while cats and kittens are $20 each. Adoption fees are waived for senior pets more than seven years old. All animals are spayed/neutered, vaccinated and microchipped, which is included in the adoption fee. Most pets can go home the same day as adoption.
- For information including adoption specials and events, available pets and shelter visit guidelines, follow us @GwinnettAnimalShelter on social media or visit GwinnettAnimalWelfare.com. The shelter is located at 884 Winder Highway in Lawrenceville.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
From Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill: A highly contagious disease is raging throughout the city. Most people are trying to stay safe by sheltering at home behind closed doors. Others are throwing caution to the wind and partying in the streets. Does this sound like today? This was Florence, Italy, in 1358 when ‘the Black Death’ killed more than half the city’s population. The Decameron tells the story of 10 young adults who fled Florence and sheltered in a country villa. The seven women and three men entertained themselves by telling stories – each person telling a different story every night for 10 nights. There are 100 stories in this book but you don’t have to read them all to get the flavor of the book and its themes of love, lust, class structure, trickery and clergy hypocrisy. I read an older translation of this classic online, but there are more modern ones available.
- An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Early 20th century saw growth of Craftsman bungalows
Across Georgia, the period from 1895 to 1920 was an era of expansion and growth. In Atlanta, for instance, the “New South” center was transforming itself from a Victorian town that aspired to become the “Gate City” and leading metropolis of the region to a burgeoning metropolitan area whose downtown was connected by streetcar and then automobile to emerging suburbs and neighborhood commercial districts well beyond the limits of the 19th-century city. The growth was reflected both vertically, with new skyscrapers, and horizontally, with new suburbs.
In Savannah, the tower of William Aiken’s Renaissance revival post office (1898) and tall building blocks, such as Hyman Witcover’s Masonic Building and Mowbray and Uffinger’s Savannah Bank and Trust Company (both 1912), began to alter the pedestrian scale of the historic district.
Summerville, overlooking Augusta, dates to the 18th century, when it was established as a summer retreat, but it began to lose its rural character by the 1890s; architects displaced Sand Hills cottages and frame dwellings with larger, fashionable country houses, such as those built by Wendell and Kemp along Milledge Road (for example the Mediterranean-style George Stearns House, 1909; “Morningside,” 1909; and Twin Gables, 1911). These and other cities of Georgia—such as Macon and Columbus, despite being deeply rooted in earlier 19th-century cultures—built urbane and prominent institutional structures to house new libraries, clubs and societies, churches, post offices, and banks.
In Atlanta, which surpassed Savannah as the largest city in the state during this period, expansive houses continued to be built up Peachtree Street, and new developments stimulated rapid growth and a new lifestyle on the edge of the city. Edgewood and Kirkwood (both incorporated 1899), two railroad towns along the tracks leading to Decatur and Stone Mountain, were annexed to the city of Atlanta in the early twentieth century.
Ansley Park was established in 1904, and soon other suburban developments followed: Druid Hills (1908, but building out many of its principal houses in the 1920s), Morningside (early 1920s into early 1930), Garden Hills (mid-1920s on), and Brookwood Hills (1922 on).
The first quarter of the new century, however, was the era of the Craftsman bungalow. From about 1900 into the 1920s, a development in middle-class housing under the influence of an Americanized arts-and-crafts movement created neighborhoods of late Craftsman bungalows for the first generation of twentieth-century homeowners. Inspired by Gustav Stickley (1857-1942) and his magazine The Craftsman (1901-16), such pre-1920s neighborhoods as Washington Park, Virginia Highland, and Candler Park in Atlanta sprouted street after street of front-gabled single-story (or story-and-a-half) bungalows. The houses combined exposed wood structural elements, tapered porch piers, and shingle and/or clapboard siding to create what was argued to be an honest embodiment in architecture of such democratic ideals as freedom, the simple life, and character.
Individual houses in historic districts statewide show the breadth of interest in the Craftsman bungalow: the Walker-Moore House (ca.1905) in Sparta, the Brewer-Hamby House (1920) in Clarkesville, the Benjamin Hatfield House (1918) in Monticello, the Upshaw-Bridges House (ca.1904) in Dawson, the Locke-Boyd House (ca.1923) in Bronwood, and the Norton-Barfield-Jett House (ca. 1915) near Dawson, to name just a few.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org
Watch out: This Mystery Photo may not be what you think
Today’s Mystery Photo may not be what it seems. Be careful in your thinking of it. Here is an additional clue: the photo was taken on July 10, 2011. Tell us your idea where it is located and then send to elliott@brack.net, including your hometown.
The unusual architecture of the last Mystery Photo came from Jerry Colley in Alpharetta. Finding its location and what it is was George Graf of Palmyra, Va. He correctly said it was the Hotel Galeria Spirit on Horná Vančurova Street, Bratislava, Slovakia.”This crazy colorful extravagant building in Bratislava serves as a hotel and art gallery. Located behind the Bratislava train station, the unique and artsy hotel has an emphasis on health and beauty. Guests are even given a free nutritional supplement based on their personal health conditions in addition to the normal services.”
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. identified the hotel, saying “It must be the quirkiest hotel in the world. Like much of its Eastern European neighbors, Slovakia is well known for its beautiful and historic buildings and its fabulous areas of natural beauty. And then there is the Hotel Galéria Spirit – with a rather brave choice of bold colors and avant-garde architecture, to say the least. This place offers budget accommodations and is more in the style of a hostel than a hotel. The interior is equally unconventional featuring modern art everywhere. Each of the 100 rooms on these premises is unique and seems to be a modern art museum in its own light, decorated with numerous paintings on the walls and modern art structures and statues, all of which were created by the owners of the hotel.
“This colorful and architecturally unique building is known locally as the “Butterfly House” and was first opened 30 years ago. This hotel/hostel looks like something out of a children’s fairytale book with its explosions of color and jagged designs. It is located only 15 minutes from the historic Old Town area of the city.”
Members of the neighborhood
Here’s a deer and a young fawn in the Norcross Hills neighborhood, the same area where Elliott Brack saw a fawn (maybe this one) resting alone recently. Many neighborhoods in Gwinnett, especially those near a river or big pond, have deer as their neighbors. The deer may be safer in subdivisions than in the woods. (Photo by Andy Brack.)
Vegetable garden workshop coming Aug. 11
Virtual Fall Vegetable Garden Workshop: Cold weather will be here soon. Now is the perfect time to plant for fall and winter. Vegetables like cabbage, kale, and carrots actually thrive in cold weather. Join UGA Gwinnett Extension Agricultural Agent Tim Daly to learn which types of vegetables prefer cooler weather and the minimal maintenance they need for a successful harvest. This program is a virtual series, free and open to the public, and takes place on Tuesday, August 11 at 6:30 pm. Registration is required to access the series. Register through the calendar at www.gwinnettpl.org.
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