"Thespian" Moments Here in Dunwoody

 During the recent campaign season here in Dunwoody we had many what I call "thespian moments".  That's where people say whatever they feel, whether it's true or not, just to make the opposition seem bad.  Most of the time it was pretty simple, basic Campaign For Dummies type stuff. Sometimes it was worse.

I'm looking forward to seeing what type of "thespian moments"  we'll see with the run off.

For a little background, here's what Answer.com has to say about the original "Thespian Moment":

Part of American political lore is the George Smathers "redneck speech," which Smathers reportedly delivered to a poorly educated audience. The "speech" was never given; it was a hoax dreamed up by one reporter. Time Magazine, during the campaign, falsely claimed that Smathers said this:


"Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert?  Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapien and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy!"

Don't forget to vote!

Huh? Did he really just say that?

We live in a small neighborhood off of Mt. Vernon.   It’s a pretty typical Dunwoody neighborhood, built in the early 70’s.  It’s a combination of ranches, split levels and the archetypical ‘Dunwoody 5, 4 and a door’.

Over the last 2 or 3 years we’ve had 5 houses sell in our small neighborhood, some from the original owners.  Each of those houses now has new owners who are the typical young Dunwoody homeowners.  Three of the families have small kids; two of those have another on the way.  One of the other couples has their first child on the way while the remaining couple is still in their newlywed phase, no pressure, yet.

It’s been great for us. Ian and Nate have a few new friends and future classmates.  In fact, every time we hear of a new neighbor any place close to us we always hope for two types of people moving in, either young kids or new babysitters.  You can never have enough of either.

These new neighbors have all chosen to live in Dunwoody for the same reasons a lot of the families who moved here in 60’s, 70’s 80’s and 90’s.  It was a great place to raise kids then and it is now as well.

My family bought a house in Kingsley in 1975 when we moved here from NY.  My dad is from Macon so it was a bit of a homecoming for us.  After all the kids were gone mom stayed in the house until around a year after the tornadoes.  They were too close to home for her.   I moved back to Dunwoody when Amanda and I got married so we could raise our children here.

When we first moved here in 1975 Dunwoody was not a suburb, to many it was ‘the sticks’.  Dad had a friend from HS who lived around Chastain Park in one the modest ranches in a neighborhood just off Powers Ferry. To dad’s buddy we were way too far out to consider Dunwoody an Atlanta suburb.  

I’m not playing the “More Dunwoody Than You” card here, not at all.  Just laying a little ground work for my understanding of what Dunwoody was then, is now and some of the stuff in between.

So there we were this past Tuesday night at the Dunwoody Sustainability Candidate Forum when one of the candidates said something that made a lot of people say “Huh?”  But there were also a few of his supporters who actually clapped and cheered.  Double “Huh?”

A question was asked of the panel that related to ways of getting Dunwoody citizens to drive less and find others ways to get around town.  Walking was one of the options that had been suggested.

The candidate said that Dunwoody was a suburb and people tend to drive in suburbs.   “We choose to live in Dunwoody and that is the way it is. If you don’t like that, if you want to make some changes, you probably need to move because this is the suburbs.” 

Wow.  At first I felt bad for him for saying something like that off the top of his head.  Then I felt bad for some his supporters that I know who definitely do not feel that way. But lastly I felt bad for his supporters who were there who actually clapped for a response like that.  Then I realized that it was not something off the top of his head.  That was a prepared remark, waiting to be stated. 

With that candidate’s way of reasoning, we would never have become a city.  After all, when we moved here it wasn’t a city, if you want to live in a city move to a city. We didn’t have Brook Run Park, if you want a park, move to a city with a park. Not a very well thought out position for the candidate.

I also have to wonder who is he pandering to with a remark like that?  Who would support a candidate who neither understands nor cares about trends in transportation that have been very successful for our neighboring cities?  Neighboring cities that we compete with on a daily basis.  Trends that are absolutely necessary for any kind of Economic Development for our city.   Who could support a candidate who makes such a casual remark that tells our citizens to accept things the way they are today or just move!

Think of all of the recent additions to your own neighborhood.  Are they young families like our new neighbors?  If so you’ll know that young families expect different things than families did in the past.  Just as the young families who moved here in the 80’s expected different things than the ones from the 60’s, as did the new people in the 90’s did from the 70’s.

We need people in office who understand that.  We need people in office who will continue to help Dunwoody to grow and change by ensuring that we have the type of city that can attract the new families we need to keep Dunwoody alive and vibrant.  If not, our property values will drop and Dunwoody will decline.  We won’t have to worry about crowded schools, parks or the traffic that is associated with any of those.

Another thing that comes to mind is do we want a ‘leader’ who is so hurtful and dismissive to our citizens who have positive ideas for our city?  We want everyone to be a part of helping our city move forward.  Perhaps if this candidate had spent some of his own time on committees or panels in the last 3 years since we’ve become a city he would get to know some of these dedicated people and understand what is in our currents plans and why our citizens worked so hard to put their ideas into formal documents and plans for our leaders to use to keep us moving forward.  It would not be so easy to dismiss these good ideas from dedicated people as opposed to some who choose to sit on the sidelines and just complain. 

I am reminded of the old saying:  if you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind.  When I look back I see DeKalb County.  When I look ahead I see the City of Dunwoody, a city whose best days have yet to be seen.  That is, as long as we choose the right leadership who can get us there.

Back to the 80’s for Dunwoody

Check! Check!  One Two, One Two.  Check! Check!

This was a great weekend here in Dunwoody.  Not only did we have gorgeous weather we had the Dunwoody Music Festival to keep us entertained.

Saturday was a packed day.  Amanda and I took the kids to the Dunwoody Library in the morning for their “We Love Our Library Day”.  It was a blast.  We hit the Story Time, made Pirate hooks, played games outside, saw bees in their hive and Ian and Nate both had swords and belts made out of balloons for them.  We ran into friends and neighbors as well.  A great morning.

Back home for a quick lunch and the baby sitter got there.  Amanda and I headed out to the Dunwoody Music Festival for the afternoon.  Good music, lots of booths and again, running into more friends and neighbors.  I even bought a Cigar Box Guitar, now I need to learn how to play it.

Back home a quick dinner and then to movie night at the church.  Wallace and Grommit were the featured entertainers for the evening.

I had pre-arranged to sneak out of the movie and head back to the Music Festival for the headliners.  One of the other dads at movie night was my accomplice.

Once there we ran into a lot of folks.  People from the CVB, the Chamber, friends and neighbors and then what?  Two of my best friends from high school were there and didn’t even call.  What’s up with that?  They were there with some friends from the old neighborhood, Kingsley.  It’s always good to run into friends from the old days.  They keep you grounded.  It makes sense now, they helped to get me grounded in high school a few times and same stuff now.

The headliners were a band made up of people from some of the biggest bands from the 80’s.  The lead singer and guitar player from 38 Special, the drummer from Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow’s guitar player and another guy from Survivor and others.  Really good music.  The best part was watching the band interact.  They were having a great time.  After trading guitar licks one of the guys gave the other guy one of those “Did you really just do that?” look.  The smile back said “Yes I did!”  These guys were rocking!

While listening to the songs it reminded me of some of the candidates running for office here in Dunwoody.  Some seem to want to take Dunwoody back to the 80’s as well. If you listen to what they are saying and look at the people who are helping them to say the things they say, it’s there.  There is a large contingent of people who raised kids here in Dunwoody in the 70’s and 80’s and believe that if we can just do now what they wanted to do with the city to be back then that everything will be better.  The only problem with that way of thinking is that we’ve already attracted all of those people, back in the 70’s and 80’s.  Dunwoody needs to continue to grow and evolve to attract new families to move here to raise their kids and keep our property values high and provide our kids with great friends and classmates.

Back to the 80’s is great for a music festival, but it’s a really bad idea when it comes to building a future for our city.