Sometimes, I fail to anticipate the consequences of my actions. Once, my ‘72 Jeep Commando popped out of gear and rolled backward away from the rented single wide trailer my wife and I shared as newlyweds. As virile young king of the aluminum castle, I believed raw strength and power could halt that runaway steed, and I threw my shoulder against the open door, expecting it to stop in its tracks. It did not. Sometime later, at our rambling old house in the country, a snake crawled through a crack and parked its slippery self in a corner of the bedroom. I figured lightning fast reflexes, three beers and the herpetological knowledge gained from watching “Mutual of Omaha’s… Read more...
Hanover County and Mechanicsville got some good news last week. When Money magazine released its yearly list of the 100 best places to live, Mechanicsville snagged the 54th spot. And Hanover picked off two achievement awards at the NACo (National Association of Counties) convention in Richmond, one for its new Veterans Memorial and a second for the Sheriff’s Office’s Crime Management Initiative. All in all, not a bad week for the area. There was no complaining in the local media this year about supervisors wasting taxpayer money by going on junkets to exotic locales in faraway places, as there was in 2005 when NACo’s convention was held in Hawaii.Read more...
Is what the governor and the Republican majority in the General Assembly have been getting on the so called “abuser” fines for lead-footed motorists. Their basic argument in defense of the hefty extra penalties is that if you don’t commit the crime, you have nothing to worry about! A pretty astonishing argument in defense of a theory of punishment. I wonder if the ACLU would accept that line of reasoning if the GA adopted, say, beheading as the mode of capital punishment? Hey, if you don’t commit a capital, crime, you got nothing to fear, right? It also brings to mind the blue law that snuck by a few years back that had to be repealed. … Read more...
Published Jul 17, 2007 Tomato Wars Guest column by Terry Taylor
Inside the mouths and bellies and minds of Southerners, a war has been raging for years. Okay, the conflict has mostly been in my own mind, but I did my best to start a bigger fight. The object of contention involves regional pride, a little Solanum lycopersicum hubris and the third cousins of chili peppers, potatoes, tobacco and eggplants. The Tomato War was fought mostly in my own imagination, because I could find few people willing to get into a seed-spitter over the differences I was trying to point out: Texture, earthy complexity, pure old tomatoey taste. Being from LA (lower Alabama to those of you unfamiliar with the Wiregrass area of that state), I pitted South Alabama… Read more...
It’s been a little disconcerting to read some of the letters for the last few weeks on the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s primary and the results. Although it was a hotly contested race, proven by the 50 percent higher turnout compared to four years ago, once it was over one expected things to simmer down and folks to adjust. The Local did not endorse a candidate, choosing instead to cover the race with a series of profiles and other articles to help Hanover citizens cast an informed vote. After it was all over, we did attempt a little analysis as to why things turned out the way they did. In a three way race it’s always tempting to speculate as to why… Read more...
A few weeks ago I thought I’d find out if anyone else was as annoyed as I was at the all the hootin’ and hollerin’ at high school graduations these days. So I wrote a little snippet in this space asking for a little more decorum at the yearly rite of passage that I genuinely enjoy attending, save for the assault on what’s left of my hearing. I thought I’d side with the principals, who always beg the crowd to hold their applause until all the grads get their sheepskin. I’d heard the plea every year, and every year I’d seen it mostly ignored. No letters to the editor were forthcoming on the subject, but the comments on the mechlocal.com… Read more...
This year the annual July 4 holiday could be more difficult for some of us. The nation is embroiled in a long, difficult, as yet unresolved war in Iraq, with many citizens unsure if the conflict is worth the cost. In congress, the two major political parties seem more at odds than in many years, and a defining presidential election looms in 2008. The progress of the War on Terror seems hard to measure. Opinion polls show the public unhappy both with the performance of the president and the congress. Love of country and patriotism are not defined by labels such as liberal or conservative or political party, but when the nation is at war and divided as it is today, the… Read more...
