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August 20, 2001
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And the beat goes on. Protesters at the adult entertainment smut
hovel in Peachtree Corners are not giving up. |
Impressions from the picket line: Neighbors are meeting neighbors, walking with homemade picket signs and cameras, from widely diverse neighborhoods and even other small towns, as well as from next door. They are allied in their belief that obscenity, pornography, video-viewing booths, which should rightly be known as pest holes, and the clientele these things attract, have no business being in a community that was founded 34 years ago on family values. The Love Shack, with its ghastly purple neon, has unfortunately opened on the main parkway, and at the very entrance to Peachtree Corners. It is smartly in everybody's face; there isn't a good way to avoid it.
Business is light when the protesters are walking with anti-smut signs, but some dedicated customers just cannot wait until the demonstrators are gone. Many who do brave the gauntlet are from other counties, or even other states. Precious few pull into the parking lot with a Gwinnett County license tag. Protesters are now beginning to mark the repeat customers. Pornography appears to be pretty time consuming for some of these pitiful folks, obviously some have a heavy addiction to this dirty little habit.
The people that have been observed entering the building seem to span all ages, but the preponderance are mostly young. On Saturday night, a young couple, if they were 18 years old it was only just, looked like they might have been on a date. It was clear that the young man was the instigator of the activity and that the young woman was unhappy about being observed going inside the place, but she followed. Neither of these young people had any self esteem, that was evident. The boy had not been taught to respect himself or the girls he dates. The poor girl thought she had to go along with this crummy idea for a date. Neither one could come up with the mature emotional answer.
The saddest and most poignant episode of that evening was watching an elderly man in a recent model white mini-van hesitate on the access road, trying to decide if he should really go in. He finally decided to do it, pulled in and parked the van, and slowly walked to the door. He was in the Love Shack so long some of us forgot about him. One wag wondered if we should call 9-1-1 for grandpa. He emerged at last, carrying no bag of purchases, and slowly got back in his car and drove away. There was some kind of personal desperation going on there. So sad. He could be somebody's grandfather and probably is.
United Peachtree Corners Civic Association (UPCCA) is hosting a general meeting on August 20 at Simpsonwood Conference & Retreat Center, in the old chapel, at 7:30 p.m. Here's another chance to get an update on the demonstration against the Love Shack and the Centex Homes proposal for the Lindsay property that is across the parkway from Ingles, extending to Bush Road.
Folks have been living in this section of western Gwinnett for a very long time. The Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church on South Old Peachtree Road celebrated its 175th year as a congregation on August 19, 2001. The Reverend William Justice (Billy) Parks first came to Mt. Carmel in 1829 as pastor of the Gwinnett Missionary Circuit. The first church had been organized in 1826-1828 by lay leaders on land that was donated by Daniel N. Pittman. Mt. Carmel Church is still located on those same acres today. The churchyard is a mute testimony in gravestones of pioneer names that modern folks will recognize around the county today, such as Medlock, Simpson, and Ivy. The church has gathered all of the historical documents still existent, thanks in part to
Harold Medlock, and dedicated a room off the vestibule of the main sanctuary as a History Room.
Hope all is well.
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