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Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? | Those were the daysBy SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE Many years ago, when we still considered ourselves pathfinders in this brand new city, we thought a lot about our roles here and took them quite seriously. Dave, 40, and I, 34, and daughters in high school, middle school, and (I think) fourth grade. The two older girls rode the bus to school in Fayetteville, complaining endlessly, but they had no choice. The elementary school on Wisdom Road was the only school in Peachtree City, and Jean rode her bike, across Ga. Highway 54. It would be another year or so before the pedestrian bridge was completed. Dave was on the first library board and was still playing tennis; rotator cuff soon put an end to that. Our daughters reveled in music and athletic activities, made a killing as babysitters. And I was usually at some committee meeting intent on helping form Peachtree City as we know it today. Well, it was 1971 and there were only 800-some residents here. Everyone knew everyone, and most everyone liked everyone. We all had something to contribute, no matter where we came from. My favorite claim to fame is that I helped put together our first celebration of the 4th of July in 1972. I was also helping build our fire/rescue department and it was thanks to those volunteers that we organized a parade, field competitions, and a fireworks show in the evening. (When I think now of the chances we were taking; amateurs doing fireworks, amateurs wearing a patients blood as a sign of valor; its a wonder any of us survived.) Maybe it was because we were just so grateful for having discovered this tiny patch of Paradise that we were not for changing what was here, and knew that when changes (real growth) took place it should happen very gently, very cautiously, to preserve as much as possible of what we fell in love with when we pledged our troth with a down payment. I think I was on City Council when we passed an ordinance to keep swimming pools fenced in and locked up for the safety of children. I didnt do as well on my no parking on the street if theres room in the driveway ordinance, my motive being to prevent blind spots through which children could run out on the street. And I was on a committee of two or three who could tell a builder he needed to stay within the guide lines of earth-tone paint and size in keeping with other houses on the block. That didnt get us kudos, but I think we made a few good calls. If there was a planning committee then, I dont remember. City Hall was a strip of small offices, cedar-clad as most public buildings were at the time, located roughly where the Japanese fountain is now. At various times the Post Office, the bank (Fayette State), the small-but-growing library, were there, plus Vialls Insurance office, and the city desk (more accurate than City Hall). When we first arrived, the west end of the building housed the predecessor to what most of us now call PCDC (Peachtree City Development Corp., which has since morphed into Pathway Communities). Did you know that a helicopter set down in front of the bank at least one afternoon a week, to fly the days take to the main branch in Atlanta? There was only one church. You wouldnt know First Presbyterian, either inside or out, if you saw it as it was then. Lying low on its sloping lot, it was easy to miss. Two (three?) building projects resulted in the magnificent edifice at Hip Pocket and Willowbend roads today. First Prez was nondenominational. If you wished to stay in Peachtree City for church, you gathered there, and the service was an amalgam of Reform traditions. When it grew large enough to call its first pastor, the congregation sort of picked Presbyterian. And I suspect thats when the Baptists said: We need to get a home of our own, and built across the street. There was: No Roman Catholic congregation. Catholic? Whats Catholic? ? until (Im guessing here) about 1980 when Holy Trinity organized; No place to eat except Pak-O-Chick, a fried chicken carryout. We never saw beyond Paul Sikes, owner and operator, who filled the narrow window he delivered through, and I guess we never thought about how it was cooked. Paul also ran the restaurant at Flat Creek Club. Our Mary worked there, while her sisters garnered a small fortune picking up and turning in soft drink bottles at the convenience store. No grocery store ? Tutt Larsen and I carpooled to Fairburn to shop each week. There was a gas station on 54 Highway, as everyone called it, and Arnold Cheeks TV repair shop. Dr. Henry Drake, the first doc in town, converted a motel near the lake into an office with the biggest exam room windows in the history of medicine. Our first dentist, Gordon Fleming, established his practice about the same time, and hes still boring patients. No hotel, in fact nothing but trees on the Wyndham site, as well as anywhere else on the east side of Lake Peachtree; No consistent path system. No Crosstown Drive nor Peachtree Parkway. No bridge on Kelly across Flat Creek. There was a fire department in the process of inventing and reinventing itself, but no ambulance, until Dr. Drake sent us off to EMT/Paramedic school to learn what we were supposed to be doing. I dont know how I got started on this, and I know a lot of events happened out of the sequence Im remembering. Guess Ive heard just one too many newcomers complain about this and that, when all they have to do is take a look at the zoning map that has hung in City Hall as long as I can remember. The sanctity of that banner should be upheld vigilantly. Its the only leg we may have to stand on one day. Come to think of it, there were no attorneys in town back then either. Guess we didnt need em.
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