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Today's Opinions

  • If you're not doing anything wrong, the ordinance won't affect you

    I don't see anything wrong with the proposed youth protection ordinance. In essence, the ordinance calls for a curfew and does not allow minors (people under 17 years old who have not been emancipated) to hang out between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

    The ordinance is partially the result of citizen complaints about kids roaming the streets at night, fighting and loitering around businesses. Police chief Ferman Richardson said the ordinance is also intended to protect minors from victimization and criminal activity as well as promote parental control and responsibility.

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  • Take a great big whiff of the best month of the year...June

    I discovered the wonderful month of June when I was 7 years old. We finished cutting out George and Abe’s heads in Miss Carolyn Blades’ first grade class in the middle of February. That was OK. But March must not have been a good month for presidents. We just did arithmetic and reading, and every Friday we lined up for those gosh-awful spelling contests. May was no better and it began to get insufferably hot in that small class room.

    “When does this thing end?”

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  • How different my life would have been

    I was thinking the other day about how different my life would have been had my mom not married my stepfather.

    What is a stepfather anyway? It’s just a new dad...not a replacement for the old one. Maybe, more like a supplement or an enhancement to the previous situation.

    Whatever.

    But in my case, my mother, my brother and myself were just getting by. Being a single mom is not an easy task, and it’s even harder when your “ex” is no help whatsoever. I can’t imagine what my mom dealt with on a daily basis.

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  • We appreciate all the dads out there doing their jobs

    My sister and I took one of our friends out to lunch Saturday. He doesn't have family here and during a recent conversation we thought it would be a nice idea. He selected the restaurant and we set out for a nice afternoon. First thing I noticed was that there weren't a lot of people out beating the rush, as they do for Mother's Day.

    We also stopped by a few shops and the shoppers were scarce. No one seemed to be planning a big day for Sunday.

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  • My wife and my truck...I love them both

    My truck and my wife quit in the same week. Can you believe that? That old Chevy had been with me since October of 1989. The old…the old…uh…uh…my beautiful wife has been with me since...uh…for a little bit longer!

    Whew!

    I lacked four months getting 20 years from the truck. It carried me a little over 279,000 miles. Most of them pretty smooth.  Josh was 14 when I wheeled up into the yard in the shiny new vehicle. Jesse had just turned 12.

    "Take us for a spin, dad.”

    “Can we ride in the back?”

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  • Some folks will just never understand that vet's Fourth of July tear

    The corn on the cob would stick to my teeth. The barbecue was accompanied with mild, hot, or sweet sauce. The potato salad was more than adequate if they went light on the mustard and the egg halves. The hot dogs were always a might over done. And the ketchup bottles were so sticky after the first five people went through that I wouldn’t pick one up for nothing! The drinks were iced down in No. 3 washtubs. And the dessert table took up a whole corner of the town square.

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  • Today's holiday is not the same as in years past

    In the distant past, the Fourth of July was a holiday of much fun and patriotic feelings. But the feeling of today’s Fourth is vastly different from that of yesteryear.

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  • Time for a change...or not

    Well...if there’s anything that’s constant in this life, it’s change.

    I was supposed to have started a new job this past Monday. It didn’t happen. I was promised things that, when it came time to sign on the dotted line, weren’t delivered. I politely declined, and came home to the Times. I’m a lot of things, but stupid ain’t one of them.

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