Category Archives: Opinions
Courier Letters to the Editor 9-25-19
Panem et Circenses
Dear Editor,
The Latin ‘Panem Et Circenses’ is literally defined as Bread and Circuses; entertainment provided by government to appease public discontent.
That’s what three minutes will get you, when addressing county council.
Since council appears to have no interest in officially responding to my proposal at the Aug. 12 meeting of council, regarding a resolution titled, ‘Declaring Pickens County a Gun Sanctuary County,’ it is my duty as a concerned citizen to inform the people of Pickens County that our government places tourism, taxation and fee-in-lieu-of-tax incentives above our country’s Bill of Rights, specifically the Second Amendment, which is a reminder to government, regarding
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Descended from royalty
According to my doctor, there’s a weird virus going around, and apparently I got it.
So I have been in bed just about all the time for the past three days, although I’m starting to feel a little better after I 
broke down and went to the doctor and got some medicine.
Meanwhile, however, I haven’t been completely idle. I’ve been doing genealogical research, and I have some big news for you.
If the calculations done by the minions on FamilySearch, the world’s largest genealogical database, are correct, I am the 12th great-grandson of King Henry VIII.
That explains my portly physique. And my gout. Thanks, Grampa!
I told my wife she could start addressing me as “Your Majesty.” She just rolled her eyes. But now she has a way to manipulate me. “Would your majesty please bring me a slice of watermelon?” What benevolent Royal Personage could deny such an humble request?
She, however, is the real genealogist of the family, and she has a pretty
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Prom night
Having lived well beyond the half-century mark, I have met a lot of women and have had the good fortune to have dated a few of them. But not many stand out in my mind like the one I took to my first junior-senior prom.
Women just don’t realize how much pressure, how much torment and anguish we guys go through simply trying to build up enough nerve to ask a girl out the first time. As was the case with my first junior-senior prom date at Pickens High School in 1963.
I remember her quite well. Her name was Carolyn. She and I exchanged pleasantries from time to time, and eventually we started talking with each other about the third month after we first met. We were classmates and sat near each other in history class. As time rolled by, I started looking forward to seeing her each day. I also noticed how pretty she was, and she seemed to like me.
Being involved in many other school activities, I lost track of time. Here it was springtime already, with the
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When summer was neverending
Mama would sing to us. Lots of different songs, but always at bedtime and during car trips. Sometimes she’d buy sheet music for the piano. And she’d play and sing.
I remember “Frankie and Johnny,” a song we loved, “The Abba Dabba Honeymoon” and “Carolina Moon.”
She also loved to listen to the radio, and sometimes in the kitchen after supper when we were washing the dishes, some tune with a good beat would come on and Mama would dance with a damp dishtowel in one hand.
She was a great dancer. She used to tell us about the dances she went to when she and Lilly were girls in Washington, N.C. This was during the big band era, and they would dance from the beginning of the evening until the end.
She’d talk about the evening dresses they’d wear and the boys they danced with.
She had an album of Duke Ellington and Louis
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Medicare open enrollment
It’s that time again. Every year we have the opportunity to make changes to our Medicare plans between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7. We have the option of changing from original Medicare to an Advantage plan, or vice versa, or changing to a 
different Advantage plan. We also can change our Medicare Part D drug plan. The decisions aren’t easy. After all, we have to live with them for the next year.
We’ll soon receive a new Medicare & You book in the mail, as well as notices about any changes to our current coverage. While we can usually stay with the plan we have if we don’t want to make any changes, it’s important to review everything we’re sent, because there might be new information buried in the
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Are we all alone?
File this one under the category of columns you never expected to read in a weekly community newspaper.
You know I love writing about the people and places of Pickens County.
Table Rock Mountain is one of the biggest things in the universe to me.
But an ant can’t tell how big Table Rock Mountain is, even if he can climb it.
Likewise, I can’t tell how big the universe is, without scientists figuring it out and telling me.
When I was a kid, I liked to lay on my back outside and look up at the sky and try to figure out how space can go on forever. It has to go on forever, I reasoned, because if you got to any point you thought was the end of it, there would have to be more space on the other side. But it seemed impossible.
It was the same thing with time. How is it possible for time to go on
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BC and the mule
I was sitting in the kitchen basically doing very little that you could attach a work sign onto. Looking through the window, I noticed Mr. B.C. walking toward our house. He appeared to be in a bit of a hurry. I surmised from his walking pace that he wanted to borrow something. Apparently I guessed accurately, because he eyed me through the window and motioned for me to come outside.
Not knowing exactly what he wanted, I very quickly began to utilize the extraordinary memory portion of my teenage brain. Let me think, have I done anything to Mr. B.C. that Daddy doesn’t know about? Do I owe him any money? I really cannot think of any monetary reimbursement that might be in arrears.
Hmmm! I don’t think I have been up to his house for quite some time. Mr. B.C. lived less than a quarter mile up Shady Grove Road from our house. He and his wife, Evelyn, along with their two boys had been our good neighbors for a number of years. In addition, B.C. had been one of
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It could be you
We are always searching for heroes. Real ones — not the superheroes in comic books or movies, but real people who do heroic things.
The people who qualify as heroes are not those who perform a single act of bravery, although those are legitimate heroes. They are the ones who over a period of time face overwhelming and sometimes hopeless circumstances and persist in trying to accomplish what may seem impossible.
It takes enormous moral courage to do this, and there have been a few of our countrymen who meet the criteria.
If we look at past presidents, there are a handful who fit the description.
George Washington was one. No, he didn’t chop down a cherry tree and confess, nor did he throw a coin across the Potomac River. But
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Courier Letters to the Editor
Automated answering systems
Dear Editor,
Anyone out there hate those things companies have these days known as automated answering systems that tell you what to do to get through to speak to a human? I don’t. Actually, I throughly despise them!
You just call with a question and end up feeling like you would have done far better to have dropped by and talked in person. So many questions before you get to speak to someone. It’s extremely aggravating!
I once tried for two days to get through to ask a little bitty simple question. I finally had to get a friend to use a high-tech super computer to get through. Even that took more than 20 minutes. I’d bet it would be easier to break into Fort Knox than to get through on one of these demonic things!
I once got a message on my voicemail to call a business I deal with. Yes, of course I got one of these systems. Took 20 minutes to get through. Not so bad. Well, maybe not. I was put on hold for 10 minutes to go with the 20 I’d already spent trying to get through. Bad enough not knowing what problem or problems I might have had, but then I had to listen to mind-numbing music waiting to talk to a human. Turned out it was about wanting to know if I needed more of what they sold!
When you get these automated answering systems on the phone line, they ask so many questions that it seems like you’re taking a college entrance exam. All in the world I want is to speak to a human being. Not too much to ask for, is it? At least they will communicate with you.
It would be a good way to get enemy spies to talk, I’d bet. “You tell us, Bullnip, what we want to know or we’ll hook you up with an automated answering system. Then you’ll talk.”
I can just hear it now — Bullnip screaming, “nooo, not that, not one of those automated answering systems! Water board, electrical shock — anything but an automated answering system!”
Does anyone else hope these infernal systems will be thrown into the deepest, darkest, hottest pits of hell come judgment day? I do. So how’s your week so far?
Eddie Boggs
Westminster
Addressing a range of letter topics
Dear Editor,
Recently I went to the Pickens CVS store. I told the kind, Christian lady cashier that I liked her bracelet. I thought nothing of it until I got home and noticed the bracelet was in my bag. I thought she accidentally left it in there. Then I noticed a note that said, “With love from Jesus.” I thought that was so swwet and kind that I was moved to tears. I put it on and am still wearing it. It reminds me that kind people are in Pickens and why I love living here. That was such a sweet and very rare selfless act for these days. I felt so blessed, and the next day I went back to the store and told the manager and cashier and told them to thank her.
If you have setbacks in life, move on and trust God — life is good. If somebody needs help, help them. One day you might need someone’s help. In life, stuff happens. Remember, this too shall pass. Try to please God in everything you think, say and do.
Remember, don’t leave your kids in your hot car. Leave your purse or your left shoe in the backseat so that you don’t forget them. You’ll be glad you did.
The three people who usually write letters to the editor, especially Alex Saitta, make a lot of sense. We should follow his suggestions.
We should outlaw football at the middle and high school level because of concussions and injuries. I’ve heard that in the first high school game that Easley High School ever played, someone died. Every tackle causes traumatic brain injury. Kids that young don’t have the good judgment to know better than to play this life-damaging sport. I have two brothers who had life-changing injuries playing football. They suffered concussions and knee damage. Was it worth it? Of course not. I did not let my son play, but he didn’t want to anyway. As parents, we need to make wise decisions for our children.
Diane Finley
Easley
Working hard for our county
My first summer job was as the groundskeeper at Flat Rock Baptist Church. I had a Sears riding lawnmower to cut the 
lawn, a Briggs and Stratton push mower to cut between the cemetery plots, and an International Cub Tractor to bush hog the field between the church fellowship hall and the parsonage. I had different tools to accomplish different tasks, which allowed me to get the job done more effectively. I remember it as being hard work, and thinking back, I hope I did a good job for the church.
As the years went on, my jobs changed, and so did the tools I used. I used hand trucks to move refrigerators when I worked for Nalley’s Furniture. I used a soldering iron when I worked for Sangamo on the mini shift. Once I entered college and law school, I traded in those tools for books and libraries. And my senior
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