Fact of the matter: Every morning when I get out of bed, my legs hurt.

The spot that has been on my leg for more than a year now has other spots to keep it company. Now I’m wearing leg braces to stop the spots from starting to bleed.

So after a night of sleeping in these leg braces, my legs are sore.

The good news is that for the past few days there have not been any new spots bleeding, and the older ones are finally healing. But until they heal completely, I will have to deal with pain.

Fortunately, my niece Rebecca has just finished getting her nursing degree, so she’s been coming by daily to change my bandage. She’s a lot better than my mother, who seems disgusted by the sores on my leg.

Saitta weighs in on long-term plan

Dear Editor,

The School District of Pickens County administration presented its long-term plan to the public and the board. While annual revenue is growing at a 4 percent clip, the administration still wants to spend more money than is coming in, so it is proposing two separate tax increases.

The first is a 4.8-mill property tax increase to borrow another $5.8 million each year for building needs, and the second is an 8.5-mill property tax increase over the next five years to fund two extra employee pay raises, more technology spending and boosting supplies. In total, it adds up

Last year I would have cringed when I heard “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” crooning out of the speakers in my car at the beginning of November. This year, I turned up the volume knob and starting singing along. Christmas seems to come earlier than it did when I was a kid, but I think I understand why.

I’ve been back in the full-time work-force for almost two years now. As a single parent to two precocious “tween” daughters, my day starts the minute my alarm jars me out of bed at 4:30 a.m. No matter how much I plan ahead, the hours of 6-7:30 a.m. are a whirlwind of breakfast preparation, wardrobe crises, hair styling, and the inevitable “Mom, I forgot I have to have (fill in the blank) TODAY!”

After I make it through the carpool loop relatively unscathed, I’m off to work for the next eight to 10 hours, depending

What’s the difference between gossip and news? Gossip is information about other people’s personal affairs which usually proves to be untrue and is often told with malicious intent.

There must be something about gossip that people become addicted to. Otherwise, there would be no explanation for the apparently unlimited appetite of the public for stories about other people’s tragedies and relationships.

How many times have you heard someone begin a conversation with the sentence, “I don’t know if this is true or not,

So Friday I reached what I thought was a milestone. After taking the bandages off my leg, the doctor told me that if I would get a leg wrap I would no longer have to wear a bandage.

I was ecstatic. Leg wraps would mean that the bandage would not need to be changed every week. I would be able to take a shower every day, which many of my friends were even happier than I about.

The agreement was that I would pick up my new leg wraps that afternoon. I was happy and figured it would not hurt if

Against all amnesty

Dear Editor,

I am opposed to any kind of amnesty for illegals. I think we should attach a provision that will charge illegals “rent” for being in our county illegally to any bill that will actually get through Congress.

Illegals cost us money in many ways. We should charge them rent for being here illegally. In fact, we could waive the rent if they leave our Country and do not come back. This provision must be designed by attorneys so that it does not

There was a thought-provoking news story on public radio the other day about gender-based pricing disparity in France.

It seems that many products identical in materials and ingredients are priced more for women than for men. For example, it was found that disposable razors identical in every way except for color are more expensive for women than for men. Pink disposable razors are priced a good deal more than blue ones. They are different only in color.

Do you think it really costs more to color razors pink than it does to color them blue? That argument doesn’t fly. And an investigation of this situation has resulted in sad news. Razors are just the tip of the

Thank you to veterans

Dear Editor:

To all our veterans who have served in our armed forces of the United States of America, our family salutes each of you.

We know that freedom is not free and that each of you were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice to protect this freedom we hold so dear.

Pickens County has a rich heritage of military heroes, and on this Veterans Day we wanted to say thank you and we

This morning when I took the puppy outside, I heard what sounded like a thousand birds all singing at once. Then with a whir like helicopters taking flight, hundreds rose from the field across the road and were airborne in such numbers as covered a large patch of sky.

At first I wasn’t sure what they were. They looked black from a distance but were much too small to be crows. As they whirled and flew across the housetop, I could see they were truly black.

I stood outside for perhaps 15 minutes just to watch.

They appeared to be migrating, and they had all the characteristics of blackbirds. A little research confirmed my guess. Blackbirds they were.

This made me realize that the predicted cold snap is really going to

Readers, you knew it was only a matter of time before this liberal Yankee from Miami reared her leftist head. Of course, I imagine you all know me well enough by now to know that I do so only to offer another perspective, not to create conflict or point fingers.

Covering the school board debate in Six Mile recently felt a trillion light years away — like I was completely out of my element. I haven’t covered a school board meeting in how long? And I had to ask intelligent questions about issues that I haven’t spent much thought on in quite some time.

Luckily, some issues remain the same regardless of the passage of time: poverty in Pickens County will, I fear, never be out of vogue when it comes to conversational hot-button topics.

I’m not certain who said this, and who said it doesn’t matter, but