GwinnettForum | Number 21.99 | Dec. 21, 2021
COMMEMORATING A JOB WELL DONE, this group of tree chippers from the past feel good after volunteering for the Annual Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful Yule tree chipping. That time is coming up around the corner, as detailed below in Upcoming.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Senator Isakson served with distinction as admired Republican official
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Understand the background of two Christmas carols
SPOTLIGHT: Law Office of J. Michael Levengood, LLC
FEEDBACK: News outlets often leave the unanswered question
UPCOMING: Tree recycling begins soon with GC&B needing Volunteers
NOTABLE: Kiwanians offer annual Father-Daughter Dance at three times
RECOMMENDED: Christmas Canteen at The Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville:t
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Grand juries find corruption in Rivers Administration
MYSTERY PHOTO: A large building, a waterfront, so where was this photo taken?
EDITOR’S NOTE: During the holidays, there will be no GwinnettForum published on December 24 or 31, 2021. The next two editions will be published on December 28, 2021, and January 6, 2022.—eeb
Senator Isakson served with distinction as admired Republican official
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
DEC. 21, 2021 | For 16 years in the Georgia Legislature, Johnny Isakson knew what it was to be a minority as a Republican elected official. For seven terms in the House, plus later another term in the Georgia Senate, he toiled endlessly for good government, winning even the admiration of those in the Democratic Party for his zeal, friendliness, reasonableness and hard work.
Isakson
This continual hard work as a Republican lawmaker eventually led the Cobb County state representative to be the obvious choice for governor for his party in the 1990 General election , going up against 16 year Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller. He lost to Miller, but had run a good race, gaining 45 percent of the vote against Miller, who had 53 per cent. The close race showed the first signs that Georgia’s long domination by Democrats was beginning to crack. Later, Governor Miller named Isakson to head the State Board of Education, a beautiful non- partisan move.
Back on the campaign trail in 1992, Isakson won a State Senate seat. Never to shy away from a fight, he found himself still in the minority in the Senate, too, and continued to work for what even his enemies considered good intentions.
Senator Isakson’s next crack at politics came in 1996, after Senator Sam Nunn decided to retire. This time Isakson faced five others in seeking to become the Republican candidate. However, businessman Guy Milner ended up as the GOP choice for the Senate. He eventually lost to the Democrat’s Secretary of State, Max Cleland. Cleland would be the last Democrat to serve a full senate term until the election of Jon Ossoff in 2020.
Johnny Isakson continued to be an influential person in Republican politics, and came forth in 1999 to run for Newt Gingrich’s unexpired term for Congress. Cobb County was then in Gingrich’s Sixth District, and Isakson easily went to Congress with a 40 point margin over his closest competitor. He would remain as a Georgia Congressman for five years.
In 2004, another opportunity came Isakson’s way when Georgia Senator Zell Miller decided to retire. Isakson easily won that seat with 58 percent of the vote over Rep. Denise Majette with 40 percent. He continued to serve in that office until 2019, when bad health (Parkinson’s Disease) caused him to resign the office. Governor Bryan Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to complete the Isakson term. That led to the election of Raphael Warnock to the Senate in 2020.
What Johnny Isakson did in his 40+ year career in public service was to fly the Republican flag when Georgia during many of his years in office was a thoroughly Democratic state. Yet there was Isakson, forever the white knight, seeking to move Georgia forward with progressive movement within the Republican Party. And finally, after years in the minority, Johnny Isakson saw his Republican cohorts win the ascension in Georgia.
He led the way, championing their cases with determination and zeal, showing the way, and doing it in a kind and gentle manner. He was an elected official people could look to with pride, always working to bring common sense and bipartisan efforts toward solving first one problem, then another.
The entire state of Georgia has seen his good deeds and decency all his days in office.
Johnny Isakson: 1944-2021: May you rest in peace.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Understand the background of two Christmas carols
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
DEC. 21, 2021 | One of the joys of the Christmas season is to return to the music of Christmas, particularly Christmas carols. Churches that devote a night to singing Christmas carols are always popular. Churches will benefit if they devote an entire night’s service to congregational singing of Christmas carols.
It is glorious, and inspiring.
Yet you wonder how this music of the season arrived to give so much joy and happiness to others.
We bumped into a site the other day on the Internet, which gives background to many of our favorite carols. Go to https://www.allclassical.org/the-stories-of-twelve-famous-carols/ and read more than we can quote here. It’s from All Classical Portland, Oregon.
This site’s short history: All Classical Portland is Portland’s classical radio station. Established in 1983, All Classical Portland’s mission is to advance knowledge of and appreciation for classical music; to build and sustain culturally vibrant local and global communities around this art form; to reflect the spirit of the Pacific Northwest; and to foster integrity, quality, and innovation in all that we do.
The stations of All Classical Portland rebroadcast the KQAC signal from Portland, launched in November 2001 at their 90.1 FM.
Here’s background on two carols from this site:
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” reached its holiday prominence by a circuitous route. The tune, which originally had nothing to do with Christmas, was composed in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), as the second movement of his Festgesang or Gutenberg Cantata. Mendelssohn composed this work for the Leipzig Gutenberg Festival, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. Mendelssohn’s cantata, for male chorus and brass ensemble, was sung at the unveiling of Leipzig’s new statue of Johannes Gutenberg.
“Gutenberg, du wackrer Mann, du stehst glorreich auf dem Plan!” (“Gutenberg, you valiant man, you stand glorious on the square!”)
Mendelssohn hoped to publish his Gutenberg tune with English words, but he couldn’t find a text to suit him. In a 1843 letter to Edward Buxton, one of his English music publishers, he explained: “If the right [words] are hit at, I am sure that the piece will be liked very much by singers and hearers, but it will never do to sacred words…”
In 1847, Mendelssohn directed the London premiere of his oratorio Elijah, and one of the alto choirboys was one William Cummings. Little did Mendelssohn know that in the 1850s, Cummings would be the one to attach his Gutenberg tune to a decidedly sacred poem entitled “Hymn for Christmas-Day,” from Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739) by Methodist writer Charles Wesley (1707-1788), the first line of which is, of course, “Hark! The herald angels sing…”
Joy to the World: The text of this carol is actually an adaptation of Psalm 98, from hymnwriter Isaac Watts’s Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). Watts called the poem “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom,” probably not thinking particularly of Christmas or caroling.
In 1836, American composer and music educator Lowell Mason published the text with a tune entitled Antioch in The Modern Psalmist. Mason attributed the tune to Handel, but nobody’s sure what Handel melody Mason had in mind. It is speculated that the tune was inspired by the choruses “Glory to God in the Highest,” or “Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates,” from Handel’s Messiah, on the tenuous ground that the melodies of both begin with the same four notes as Antioch. It’s also possible that Mason adapted it from a pre-existing anonymous hymn tune, as scholars have found earlier tunes published in America which resemble Antioch.
Thank you, All Classical Portland!
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Law Office of J. Michael Levengood, LLC
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s underwriter is the Law Office of J. Michael Levengood, LLC. Before relocating his general civil practice seven years ago to Lawrenceville, Mike Levengood practiced law as a partner in an Atlanta firm for almost 34 years, handling a wide variety of commercial and litigation matters for business clients. Mike is a community leader in Gwinnett County where he serves on several non-profit boards.
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News outlets often leave the unanswered question
In response to the comment that news, when newspapers hit your driveway is old news, it is worse than that. As often as not, you can go with the rhyme “Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution often holds news earlier reported “online” as long as a week or more until they have enough space to run it in print. It sort of tears up Adolph Och’s “motto” of “all the news that is fit to print” into “all the news that fits, we print.”
But this is not just true for the print media, it is true for the standard television news, local and national, and the several news commentary TV shows like CNN and MSNBC. There are a couple of stories that I find interesting because they were mentioned, but the real truth never came out.
There is a large Methodist Church on the Northside that had their safe cleaned out several years ago. More recently, however, there was a 14 year old boy shot and killed in a house in Cherokee County. The article never mentioned where the parents were during this party, it never mentioned an address and left off a lot of other information. These omissions were not in the newspapers, it was all local TV news outlets. Who were those parents, where were those parents, and did they know that there was to be a party there while they were gone? Or was the house vacant?
Many Unanswered questions pop up each day in news reports.
– Raleigh Perry, Buford
Thinks Blackwood’s idea well worth investigating
Michael Blackwood is sharing an idea worth complete investigation, that of legalizing some drugs. I know that a lot of loud objections would arise, but this idea may be the answer to a lot of our problems.
– Alma Bowen, Gainesville
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, and include your hometown. The views of letters are the opinion of the contributor. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net.
Tree recycling begins soon with GC&B needing volunteers
Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful (GC&B) invites neighbors in Gwinnett County to dream of a Green Christmas this year. Rather than placing their live Christmas tree by the curb after the holidays to decompose in a landfill, the eco-friendly organization encourages citizens to take part in one of the largest “treecycling” events in Georgia – Bring One for the Chipper 2022. In preparation for the big day when all collected trees will be chipped into mulch at Bethesda Park on January 29, GC&B has issued a call for volunteers and has released a list of collection sites where Gwinnettians can drop off their live trees between December 26, 2021 and January 24, 2022.
Schelly Marlatt, GC&B’s executive director, says: “We’re very proud of the fact that, since we started Bring One for the Chipper in 1984, Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful has been a leader in Georgia’s treecycling efforts. We’re extremely fortunate to be part of a county that places such an emphasis on community and the environment.
“Even after hosting this event for the last 38 years, with new neighbors moving to the area all the time, there are still a lot of folks out there who don’t even know that this option is available to them. They can drop their tree off to a local fire station and it will be chipped into mulch for placement in playgrounds and walking trails at parks throughout Gwinnett County for all of our enjoyment. Whether you’ve made Bring One for the Chipper an annual family tradition or this will be your first year to take part, it’s a simple but WONDERFUL way to celebrate a sustainable ‘Green’ Christmas.”
Marlatt adds that before dropping off live Christmas trees, they must be free of lights, tinsel, decorations and tree stands in order to be treecycled. Bring One for the Chipper drop off locations are as follows:
Buford
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- Fire Station 14, 1600 Highway 23, 30518
- Fire Station 24, 2735 Mall of GA Blvd., 30519
- Fire Station 29, 2800 Thompson Mill Rd., 30519
Dacula
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- Fire Station 17, 2739 Brooks Rd., 30019
- Fire Station 27, 2825 Old Fountain Rd., 30019
Duluth
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- Fire Station 5, 3001 Old Norcross Rd., 30096
- Fire Station 7, 3343 Bunton Rd., 30096
- Fire Station 19, 3275 N. Berkeley Lake Rd., 30096
Grayson
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- Fire Station 8, 2295 Brannan Rd., 30017
Hoschton
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- Fire Station 18, 1515 Mineral Springs Rd., 30548
Lawrenceville
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- Fire Station 9, 1900 Five Forks-Trickum Rd., 30044
- Fire Station 10, 1131 Rock Springs Rd. 30043
- Fire Station 20, 1801 Cruse Rd., 30044
- Fire Station 25, 3575 Lawrenceville Hwy., 30044
- Fire Station 31, 1061 Collins Hill Rd. 30043
Lilburn
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- Fire Station 2, 12 Harmony Grove Rd., 30047
- Fire Station 3, 4394 Five Forks-Trickum Rd., 30047
- Fire Station 22, 2180 Stone Dr., 30047
Loganville
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- Fire Station 28, 3725 Rosebud Rd, 30052
- Fire Station 30, 1052 Ozora Rd., 30052
Norcross
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- Fire Station 1, 165 Lawrenceville St., 30071
- Fire Station 11, 5885 Live Oak Pkwy., 30093
- Fire Station 23, 4355 Steve Reynolds Blvd., 30093
Peachtree Corners
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- Fire Station 4, 5550 Spalding Dr., 30092
Snellville
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- Fire Station 6, 3890 Johnson Dr., 30039
- Fire Station 12, 2815 Lenora Church Rd., 30078
Sugar Hill
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- Fire Station 26, 6075 Suwanee Dam Rd., 30518
Suwanee
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- Fire Station 21, 474 Old Peachtree Rd., 30024.
After the last trees have been collected on January 24, they will be transported to Bethesda Park in Lawrenceville for the big event. Held on Saturday, January 29, 2022 from 8-11 a.m., Bring One for the Chipper volunteers must be 14 and older and can include anyone from individuals and families to school clubs and civic groups to companies and neighborhood associations. To volunteer, interested parties must register online at www.GwinnettCB.org and download a Volunteer Waiver Form to bring with them to the event. Registration will open mid-December. Questions may be directed to gwinnettcb@gwinnettcb.org or 770-822-5187.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Kiwanians offer annual Father-Daughter Dance at 3 times
Say one thing about the Kiwanis Club of North Gwinnett. They always get out publicity of their annual Father-Daughter Valentine Dance well in advance. News outlets got the first release of their 2022 dance a week before Christmas!
The Kiwanians call this a “a magical evening, making memories that will last a lifetime!” After a one year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Kiwanians are offering three dances again this year.
The new location will be the Lanier Islands Resort. The dances will be held on two days: February 4, from 7 to 9 p.m.; February 5, from 5-7 p.m. and again on February 5, from 8-10 p.m.
Charge for the dances are $60 per couple, with $10 for each additional daughter.
Click the links below to purchase tickets and for more information:
- Tickets: https://www.bigtickets.com/events/ngkc/father-daughter-valentine-dance-2022/
- Website: https://www.northgwinnettkiwanis.com/father-daughter-dance
- For additional information, contact David Williams at 404 386 4782, or Chris Witmer 770-337-5313, or email kiwanis.of.north.gwinnett@gmail.com
Christmas Canteen at The Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville
Christmas Canteen, photo via Aurora.
From Ross Lenhart, Stone Mountain: Saturday afternoon we learned that Park Springs, our neighborhood, was providing a bus for us seniors to travel to Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville for its Christmas Canteen. The theater proper has not a bad seat in that house. The production itself was so enjoyable, so well-done, so professional, so seamless, so personal, and something for everyone. All this was accomplished by ten young people s talented each in a different way, but they worked together in a well-coordinated fashion. Coupled with spectacular sets and costume design both with subtle and fast changes, and a live instrument accompaniment facing the audience as they too became a part of the show. Two and a half hours came and went without a single glance at a wrist watch.. Well done, Aurora! We have become season subscribers. And little did we know that it would become such an afternoon to remember! Football? Bah Humbug!
- 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
Grand juries find corruption in Rivers Administration
(Continued from previous edition)
Gov. E.D. Rivers began new initiatives in public health and prison reform. Probably the most expensive state reforms came in the area of education. In the four years before Rivers became governor, state spending on public education amounted to about $29 million. During his four years in office, the Rivers administration appropriated almost $49 million, including measures to raise teachers’ salaries and provide free textbooks. Rivers’s reforms did not eliminate racial disparities, but these measures benefited Black schools as well as white.
Rivers received a vote of confidence in the 1938 gubernatorial race, but soon after the election, his administration became embroiled in controversy. The state legislature had enacted ambitious programs but failed to provide adequate funding. Rivers sought new taxes to pay for his programs, but the legislature balked. The governor had little choice but to slash state spending. By the fall of 1939, the state was unable to meet the requirements for teachers’ salaries.
Frustrated by the legislature’s refusal to enact a sales tax, Rivers tried to redirect a stream of revenue marked for the highway department to pay teacher salaries. When the state highway commissioner refused to approve Rivers’s action, Rivers used the National Guard to remove him, just as Talmadge had done in a similar controversy earlier. The dispute with the highway department began a long, bitter legal battle in both state and federal courts, during which Georgia’s governor was arrested for refusing to comply with a federal court order. (The arrest was overturned on appeal.) Rivers eventually won the legal battle to divert highway funds over the objections of the commissioner, but the entire affair was a public-relations disaster.
In 1940 a federal grand jury indicted four members of the Rivers administration on corruption charges. Two were convicted. In 1942 a state grand jury indicted Rivers and 19 others on various corruption charges. Rivers was accused of selling pardons, though he granted significantly fewer pardons than his predecessor, Talmadge, in comparable four-year periods. Rivers was tried on one count of embezzlement, but the jury deadlocked. Thereafter, Rivers was constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third consecutive term, although it seems unlikely that he could have prevailed in any case.
Rivers attempted a comeback in 1946, seeking the governorship in that year’s Democratic primary. Rivers finished a distant third behind his old nemesis, Eugene Talmadge, and Marietta lawyer and businessman James V. Carmichael. Rivers’s presence in the race, splitting the anti-Talmadge vote, very well may have been the deciding factor in allowing Talmadge to win the county unit race (though Carmichael won the popular vote), which led to the infamous constitutional crisis known as the “three governors controversy.”
Rivers’s ambitious reform agenda in the late 1930s attempted to motivate poor white voters in Georgia by offering a program geared toward improving their material well-being. Unlike Talmadge, Rivers was not openly hostile to African Americans, although his private associations clearly indicated that he shared the prevailing racial mores of the day. “In the end,” as historian Numan V. Bartley observes, “Rivers sponsored just enough reform to antagonize county elites without accomplishing enough to persuade [poorer whites] to abandon Talmadge.”
Rivers was never again elected to public office, although he continued to be active in state politics. A successful businessman, he owned several radio stations at the time of his death in Atlanta on June 11, 1967.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Large building, waterfront, so where was this photo taken?
Where’s this water and building scene. Hint: it’s not around the corner. Try your hand at identifying this photograph. Send your ideas to elliott@brack.net and include your hometown.
Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill sent in the photograph, which Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. commented on: “Today’s mystery photo is a picture taken from Mother’s Beach (also known as Kennebunk Beach), off the coast of Maine, just two-miles west of Walker’s Point Estate, the summer retreat of the Bush family, in the town of Kennebunkport, Maine.
Walker’s Point
“Mother’s Beach is part of a trio of beaches that includes Middle Beach and Gooch’s Beach, all of which can be found along Beach Avenue in the picturesque Kennebunk area of coastal Maine. My wife and I visited the area in August 2014, and although we did not visit Mother’s Beach, I did check out the Walker’s Point Estate and took a photo of the large central house that sits on the property. Informally called “The Summer White House” during H.W. Bush’s time in office, the New England shingle-style edifice has nine bedrooms, four sitting rooms, an office, a den, a library, a dining room, a kitchen, and various patios and decks.”
Others recognizing it were Paige Havens, Lawrenceville; Bob Foreman of Grayson; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.
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