Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Mr. Editor, here's the rub. That great Atlanta columnist Lewis Grizzard was always my all-time favorite humorist (yes, even over Bill Cosby who's a close second of mine). This letter deviates from my usual political style to one of humor. You see deep down, I'm a Lewis Grizzard Cowboy Engineer wannabe. Yeah I've secretly wished to be a humorous-style writer. On these pages I humbly offer my feeble attempt at comic relief for the good folks of hometown PTC.

Act I. Living here of late in PTC, I couldn't help but notice the pressing dilemma that is faced by my City Council (God lov'em). Ol' Mayor Brown has been tryin' to get a Sports and Entertainment Authority in place but he hasn't had much luck at it. So, I thought I might come up with a good suggestion that may fix the problem free of charge. Hey, I figure it's my civic duty, you know.

Has anyone thought of my ol' friend the asterisk. That's right, it's on the computer key pad, by the number "zero my hero." I was visiting the PTC website and I saw this listing about a Recreation Commission. Hey, if we got a recreation commission then I got me an idea. Now I can't take all the credit for this idea because some of the credit for it must go to that football great Hershel Walker. Do y'all remember when he broke a football record for rushing over 2000 yards in a single season? Well after he did that because he wasn't in the NFL they gave him an asterisk. After that when people looked up in the record books they saw that Hershel rushed for over 2000 yards in a single season, but down at the bottom of the page by that asterisk we saw that Hershel was in the USFL at the time he did it.

I bet that would work here too. We could give both the DAPC and the Recreation Commission an asterisk. All we'd have to do is swipe their letterhead. Once we got that letterhead, we just add the asterisk. By the time the people look down at the bottom of the page, we would see the asterisk, and the note saying that the DAPC shall hereinafter be referred to as the Sports and Entertainment Authority of PTC. Same thing for the Recreation Commission.

That asterisk would refer folks down to the bottom of the page with the note saying the Recreation Commission really recruits industry here in our PTC town!

Did anybody ever think of that? No mess, no fuss, no local legislative delegation (with their establishment ideas) to deal with. Yeah, I think that would work well, PTC Council.

Act II. I always heard so much about that David Letterman guy on the TV tube and his top 10. I says to myself, "Hey, bet I could come up with one of them there top 10s." Yeah, let's see, I'll call it the PTC Cowboy Engineer top 10. Well, I gave it a little thought and here's my final offering to be submitted to David Letterman himself. I call it the top ten reasons why you may be a member of the PTC establishment crowd.

Number 10: you may be a member of the PTC establishment crowd if you sit on the DAPC and you've been referred to as "lifer" and not "new blood."

Number 9: you believe that the DAPC's main game is recreation venues.

Number 8: you believe that it might be a good idea for the Recreation Commission to recruit new industry.

Number 7: you're a PTC employee and you see other establishment employees droppin' like flies (guess what, you're next).

Number 6: you live in PTC and you think you got a great deal on the last sewer rate increase.

Number 5: you live in PTC and you think the price taxpayers paid for the sewer is just terrific.

Number 4: you think that the PTC sewer purchase is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Number 3: your establishment has over 400 employees and grosses over $50 million in annual sales and you constantly harp on it.

Number 2: you believe in the saying, "If you don't vote, you don't count here in PTC."

And the Number 1 reason why you may be a member of the PTC establishment is: you actually believe you know more about PTC (on any issue) than anybody else.

Ha, Ha, well, what did y'all think? Maybe Letterman should see this after all. This essay has been especially dedicated to our favorite number cruncher on City Council, Captain Crunch, and that ever-lovin' PTC mayor known as "Golden-Boy," 'cause every thing is always comin' up golden. I hope that this makes y'all laugh. Please know that it's gonna get better, many are behind ya 100 percent. To the PTC establishment crowd: "Get over it."

James Melvin Ewing

Peachtree City

[Ewing served on the city's Water and Sewer Authority during the 1990s.]

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