America the Beautiful ~ IF WE CAN KEEP IT THAT WAY !!

America the Beautiful,
If We can keep it that Way !!


My family and I live in picturesque White County, Cleveland Georgia, Gateway to the Mountains. A beautiful little community, with a great history, and rolling hills leading into majestic mountains.

We have distinctive attractions like the rock face top of Mt. Yonah, Tallulah Gorge, Anna Ruby Falls, the Indian Burial Mound, the start of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the quaint Bavarian style German village of Helen Georgia and the arts and crafts stores of Sautee.

We also have a massive amount of summer camps, RV & camper resorts, Church camp meeting grounds, state parks & lands and just a lot of woodlands and rivers and places one can commune with mother nature.

When my family and I moved to this lovely area over 12 years ago, it was small enough that everyone you passed on the road gave this little half wave across their steering wheel. When we inquired about this custom, we were told, that it was because if you didn't know the person yet, the community was small enough you soon would.

Shopping at the local IGA or the local hardware store for items for your home, you soon got to know a lot or most of the locals, and we were quickly accepted into the folds of this tight knit community. In fact I started using one of the local garages for mechanical work on my car, Dalton's, and Bobby Dalton is as honest as the day is long, a rare find in a mechanic. He would not sell you service on your car that you don't need.

Well I had been using Bobby Dalton for about 2 years and was up at his shop talking with him about my car, when another one of his regular customers said "You don't sound like you from around here". Well at that moment I felt like I just stepped into a Soprano's episode because Bobby Dalton looked at this man and said to him "Don't you worry about it, Frank is one of US !" Well that really made me feel good, that a born and raised man of the area like Bobby Dalton consider me an equal.

Well in the 12 years since we have moved here I have seen many changes take place. This little community is not as little as when we moved here. Many new housing developments have rose up, lots of new people have moved into the area. Traffic has gotten heavier, our water and sewer system have been taxed to its limit, our school system is busting at its seams. All of the faces you use to know are getting fewer and fewer, sure you see all of the regulars you knew from 12 years ago, but now those faces are mixed into crowds of faces you don't recognize. The little home town feeling is slowly disappearing.

Although our area is still small in size compared to many around us. We still only have one High School servicing the whole County. We are still a DRY Town, serving no Beer, Wine or Alcohol We still have events like Eggstravaganza at Easter, Pastor Appreciation Day, North Georgia Bluegrass Festival, Fabulous 50's Festival, Gooseneck Pumpkin Festival, Joe's Rows Corn Maze and the Lighted Christmas Parade. All healthy fun filled family style events you can still take your whole family to, even your small children and not worry about, drunks or foul language or perverts.

Now because of the beauty of our area, from April through October the caravans of travel trailers and RV's and Motor homes and 5th wheels come riding up to our area, congesting our roads filling up our local stores and just cause outrageous lines and traffic on Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings. A normal 7-10 minute drive from Jacky Jones Ford at one end of our little town over to the Saint Paul Catholic Church on the other end of our little town, on a Friday afternoon could take you 45 minutes to an hour. These caravans start when the weather gets warm in in April and the spring buds start to bloom, until the fall colors fade in October.

Now don't get me wrong, I do not mind sharing our beauty and our area with visitors, and most respect our area and our locals. But there is a select few that come up here to visit, that I am going to address, and we could certainly do with out, and really don't need your tourism dollars if you are coming to our area to disrespect us and our community.

Like I said most of the visitors who come are great and we love them. But there are a select few who come up, and you know who you are. You are the ones that I ride behind and see throw your empty sack you just bought from McDonalds out your window onto the side of our roads. Or you are the one that I was behind and saw you toss that dirty used diaper on the side of our road. If you don't want me coming to your front yard and dumping out my trash can, don't come up to the beauty of my area and throw out you trash on my roads.

In Georgia, the license plates carry the county you are from on them. Just because we have local license plates, not all of us are in the tourism and hospitality industry and know all of the attractions and the whereabouts. Some of us are freelance writers, doctors, teachers, college professors or just plain work in some industry other that tourism. We are not you bag boys, luggage handlers or tour guides and do not deserve to be cussed out if we can not answer your directions question. You should have used map quest on your computer before you left for your trip.

Now Friday April 10th was the start of the holiday weekend, Easter Weekend. My son, works at the local chain grocery store. Like I wrote you earlier in this Article, we are a Dry Town, still even in 2009, we sell no Beer, Wine or Alcohol, it is sold out in the county though. When I went to pick him up from work at 10pm, he told me he had at least 200 people ask him where the beer/wine section was. I said no way, it could not have been that many, but before we got out of there another 15 people had asked him where the beer/wine section was.

One lady got so irate in fact upon finding out that her husband had brought her on vacation to a dry town, in front of my son, she started to berate her husband with such a flurry of cuss words she sounded like a sailor on a 3-day pass. If you need alcohol that bad to have a good time on your vacation, why bother? That just shows me that your going to park your travel trailer next to one of our beautiful streams, get drunk, and throw your Michelob bottles or cans into our stream and leave you trash in our woods, causing extra work for our already overworked DNR personnel.

White County Georgia. Cleveland Georgia. We don't mind all of the people who come up here and enjoy and respect our area, and there are many of you and we love you coming up here. We love you visiting our churches, our stores, our town events. We like meeting with you and talking with you and getting to know you. Heck if you like it here, we will even welcome you, should you decide to relocate here. And I realize that there are many of you who visit this area, that do enjoy and respect it and this article is not meant for you and you all should know who you are !!

This article is meant for all of those who come up to our area and disrespect it, our citizens and our resources. If you pack up your travel trailer, planning to throw your dirty diaper bombs or your empty food sacks on the sides of our roads, then plan on going someplace else !! If your planning to come up and buy alcohol get drunk and liter our national parks and recreational areas, causing extra work for our already over worked DNR personnel, then plan on going someplace else !!

America the Beautiful ~ White County - Cleveland Georgia, We plan on doing our part to keep it that way, and we invite everyone wanting to visit our area, respecting it and keeping it beautiful, to come and enjoy also. All others with other intention, like littering, disrespecting our citizens or our area stay home or vacation some place else.

Something to think about !!

Just one man's opinion. As always, put the wind in your hair and keep the sun to your back. Be good and stay safe. Peace, Love and prosperity to all.

Good Journeys !!!

Frank WOLF TM © 2005 April 12th, 2009

watchdog taking a BITE out of corruption!

Copyright © Frank J. Ball Sr.