Scattershooting on a Friday

Random thoughts on a Friday from the blogosphere.

• It’s September 1 and today is "Emma M. Nutt" Day. OK, who was Emma M. Nutt? Give up? She was the first female telephone operator, and her first day on the job was Sept. 1, 1878. Before Miss Emma launcher her career on the switchboard, the phone company would only hire young men. That hiring strategy ended after the young men bickered with each other and were rude to the customers. Sweet Emma to the rescue. Now most of the “operators” are automated voices. It’s hard to find a “live” person at the other end of the line.
• Gas prices keep tumbling down, which is a welcome relief. For the past several weeks, I’ve found prices to be even lower in Milledgeville than in other places in the midstate. The prices in Milledgeville have routinely been 20 cents a gallon cheaper than in Macon. On Thursday, I stopped at an Exxon station on Highway 49 across from Baldwin High School. The sign said $2.49.9 for regular, which I thought was a good deal. But, at the pumps, the price had been dropped to $2.44.9, which is even better.
• I spoke to the annual Meals on Wheels banquet Thursday night at Vineville Methodist Church. Good crowd. Great folks. Lots of volunteers were recognized. Winnie Hinton, the executive director, reported that a record 217,000 meals were distributed last year. I’ll never forget what Winnie told me a few years ago about the program and the clients it serves: “These folks only need a litte,’’ she said. “But they need that little a lot.’’
• Ah, football season has started. All is right with the world. College football is by far my favorite sport to watch.
• In my recent post on the “Dames at Sea’’ musical being put on by the Youth Actors Company at Theatre Macon, I mentioned there will be 8 p.m. shows tonight and Saturday. I failed to mention they also will be going on the road for an Oct. 7 performance at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville. On Wednesday night, some special education students from Howard Middle School attended the performance. To the right is my son, Jake, and Kailey Rhodes with Leon Alexander, a special ed student from Howard. Leon absolutely loves the theater!!!
• In a column earlier this week, I suggested the mayor might want to reconsider his proposal to re-name the Terminal Station after William Sanders Scarborough, a little-known African-American scholar of the 19th century who was born in Macon in 1852. Of course, he could propose re-naming the annual Georgia State Fair , which will celebrate its 151st year from Sept. 25 until Oct. 1. Re-naming the fair after Scarborough would be nice. Hence, the question: “Are you going to Scarborough Fair?’’
  
  (Photo courtesy of Telecommunications History Group of a scene from “Bold Experiment – the Telephone Story” depiting Emma and Stella Nutt, the first women operators, working alongside male operators in Boston in 1878.)