Bright light, big city, gone to my baby’s head Bright light, a big city, gone to my baby’s head I tried to tell the woman, but she don’t believe a word I said.
Jimmy Reed
Let’s talk about the future of our ’hood.
I believe the day has arrived for local residents to seriously consider creating a municipal corporation to govern the lake area. I’m proposing a municipality whose circular boundary will begin at the Lake Oconee Academy pitcher’s mound, travel west/southwest to the Harmony Church parking lot, then south/southeast to the last magnolia tree on the Lake Oconee Tree Farm and Nursery, then out to Millmore Mill on Shoulderbone Creek before curving back up to the pitcher’s mound. It will exist in two counties, just like Social Circle.
Well, I guess we’ll need a surveyor at some point who will draw up a document with language like this in it: “All that tract of land situate, lying and being in Land Lot 592 of the 13th Land District of Greene County and being more particularly known and designated as the Publix parking lot.”
(FYI: One of my weekly tasks when I first got into the newspaper business was proofing the legal ads. I’ve always believed forcing someone to read legal ads is much more effective than waterboarding. But I digress as usual).
Some have suggested we call our new city Lake Oconee, but I’m not convinced we should be so obvious. Some people don’t like lakes.
It’s a delicate business naming a city.
I mean, who wants to live in a place called Mold or Small Bladder?
Oregon actually has a city called Boring, and Scotland has one called Dull.
Imagine the following conversation.
“Delta Airlines, how can I help you?”
“I’d like to go from Dull to Boring.”
“You’ll have to buy a round-trip ticket.”
And even worse . . . According to Topdeck Travel, there is a little village called Niemyje—Zabki in Poland whose name translates to “I don’t wash my teeth,” which may explain why only 80 Poles live there.
The smarmy stinkweed who wrote the article about Niemyje-Zabki for Topdeck concluded, "If this were in the American South, we’d expect to hear banjos.”
I’d expect a beating if I were that writer.
Lemu, Poland, translates to “you stink,” but Americans would probably associate Lemu with Liberty Mutual Insurance.
My personal favorite city name is Middelfart, which is in Denmark.
Now you see why naming a city is a serious affair.
So, before we just arbitrarily choose to use the word Oconee in our city name, we have to make sure Oconee doesn’t translate to garbage dump or brothel in some European dialect.
Now, we could call it Stoneville if you like. A Stoneville in North Carolina is part of the Greensboro metropolitan area of the Piedmont Triad. Greensboro and Piedmont? Sounds vaguely familiar. Not only that, Stoneville was founded in part by a Thomas Stone. That “T” you see next to my name stands for Thomas and not “Tremendous” or “Treasure,” as some have suggested.
Or we could go with Costa del Stone, Marina Del Stone or Otisberg. (This is a bonus movie reference. Send me an email if you know it, and you’ll get this column for free next week.)
But while we’re talking about names, South Korean ballplayer Jung-hoo Lee plays for the San Francisco Giants. No big deal there, but his nickname is Grandson of Wind. Other players on the team will not sit near him in the dugout. Maybe his nickname should be Lemu. OK, so I have a juvenile sense of humor. So what!
Meanwhile, back in our city . . .
Once the Georgia General Assembly approves our new municipality, we’ll need to make many decisions.
Good Lord! We’ll have to have yet another election to decide who will be on our city council. Who will be the mayor?
Should we hold council meetings on a large boat or at one of the local golf courses?
Where will we get our garbage trucks? Will we offer recycling?
What color should our police cars be?
I know a guy with a nice pistol and a few bullets, so we’ll make him chief of police.
What about millage rates?
I’m in favor of adopting a Bernie Sanders approach to taxes that will drain away the savings of every homeowner in Stoneville (just using Stoneville as a placeholder). Then we can build a domed stadium like Mercedes-Benz for $1.6 billion. It will come with a scoreboard.
Selah.
(And yes, we said farewell to Star Wars this week.)