The McCollumn - 4/20: 'Happy as a herper'

An oddly cooperative Graptemys ernsti.

More Nerodia fasciata than you could shake a stick at (and I literally did at one point).

And, of course, the Drymarchon couperi, the most impressive specimen we came across all weekend.

Confused? Don’t worry; I was, too; just blame Carolus Linnaeus, that Swedish lothario.

For most of this last weekend, I listened to field herpetologists banter back and forth during the group’s trek into the Conecuh National Forest.

More than a dozen “herpers,” as they call themselves, descended upon the Conecuh area, and spent the better part of the weekend walking creek beds, pondsides and abandoned trails, turning up underbrush and logs, all in search of various rare or hard-to-find reptiles and amphibians.

Several had lists of creatures they “had” to see while on the trip, composing of relatively common yet still unseen animals like the barking tree frog to “lifer” finds like a coral snake or a rainbow snake.

Me ... well, I was there just to take it all in, really.

While this trip would be my second annual sojourn into the Conecuh Forest in search of snakes, I was not an official member of the group, made ever more apparent by my lack of understanding simple binomial nomenclature for any of the specimens found.

Folks would be rattling off statistics, distribution maps and behavioral patterns of various animals as if they were speaking about their only daily habits, and I was left to practice my “smile and nod” technique for most, if not almost all of the weekend.

These people not only knew their stuff, but could discuss in such a way to where only they truly knew to what they were referring, content area experts whose language barrier was nearly impenetrable, even to a vigilant English major like myself.

Were you there, you might have heard me call out “I think I found a frog,” only to have another group member call out a cry of “Bufo terrestris,” indicating both a Southern toad and the fact I lack the ability to differentiate between frogs and toads.

They were professionals; I, the very definition of amateur.

I spent most of my weekend watching and observing, taking in the masters as they practiced their hobby, and I was struck by one major thing:

I wish I enjoyed anything as much as these folks enjoy looking for reptiles and amphibians.

To see the joy and elation on people’s faces as they found their prey and began snapping dozens of photos to post to “the forum,” was to see a joy so pure, as one seldom sees it outside of children on the morning of any major gift-giving holiday.

It might have been just the small sight of a salamander, but these folks reacted as if they had just seen a movie star or a space alien.

While it sounds silly to say, I was almost jealous of their joy, angry that there was no similar stimulus to bring me happiness.

I should have known to wait for joy to come to me.

10:45 p.m., Saturday evening.

Standing in the middle of a series of small ponds, watching one of the young members of our group, clad in khaki shorts and sandals, wade into a pond where cottonmouths had been sighted a night before and begin pulling up banded water snake after banded water snake.

I look up to a moonless sky of bounteous, gleaming stars.

I hear a hectic cacophony of various frogs and toads surrounding me, putting Aristophanes’ croaking chorus to shame. Breke-kek-kek, my ax.

A slight breeze touches my face, cooling the beads of sweat attempting to escape down my forehead.

In that moment, there was some inexplicable feeling, a sense that all was right with the world and my place within it, however insignificant that role may be, a bit player in a cast of billions upon billions.

It was a moment that seemed to last a lifetime as I took in the spectacle of natural wonder and beauty around me.

I pick up my left foot to begin walking again, bringing it down with an unforeseen squoosh into mud and water that saturated my shoe and sock, breaking the thought and ending the cosmic moment.

Ah, well. Worth it, says I.

Opelika Observer Staff Editorial - 4/13: Why we can 'never forget'

Next Thursday, April 19, marks National Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time when as a nation we are supposed to come together to memorialize and remember the lives of the more than six million Jews (and five million others) who died in the terrible murders enacted by Germany’s Nazi regime.

Here in East Alabama, we have only one living Holocaust survivor: Opelika Observer editorial board member and longtime Opelikan Henry J. Stern.

Stern and his immediate family immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1937. While he and few others escaped the horrible fate of the concentration camps, other family members were not so lucky.

Stern searched for 60 years to locate any family members he could, sometimes flipping through phone books and calling any Sterns he might see in his journeys throughout the country.

Finally, thanks to the help of a website, Stern located a living relative, a cousin, Fred Hertz, living in Durham, North Carolina.

Stern and Hertz were able to meet and reminisce with one another, before Hertz sadly lost his life.

Now, there is one less person left to tell the tale of an eyewitness, one less one who was there.

We do an excellent job of educating the public about the Holocaust as a historical event, framing it through facts and figures and painting it as a major part of the effects of World War II and the Nazi regime.

Middle school and high school classes read pieces of literature like “The Diary of Anne Frank” or Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” providing narrative accounts of some of the atrocities committed on European Jews by the Nazis.

While this education is admirable, we feel nothing best resonates with people more than anecdotal evidence - having something happen to someone they know.

With his visit to Opelika Middle School this week, Henry Stern has insured another group of students will spend the rest of their lives knowing they knew East Alabama’s last Holocaust survivor.

They’ve heard his story, shook his hand and had him sign a memento.

Thanks to Stern’s generous donation of a DVD of his various interviews and other artistic materials, Stern has insured that future generations of Opelika students will have the same opportunity to “meet” Henry Stern, even if the man himself has passed on.

With each passing year, we lose more Holocaust survivors, finding fewer and fewer people left to tell the first-hand tales people so desperately need to hear.

There will be those who will attempt to deny the Holocaust, saying that such an evil would be unthinkable for man to commit upon man.

While such acts are inhumanely evil, they did happen, and six million Jewish lives lost can not and will not ever be denied.

If we are ever allowed to forget or deny those events happened, they might be allowed to happen again.

God forbid we ever forget. Never again.

We must fight prejudice and intolerance where we find it, and snuff out ignorance with knowledge.

We all feel blessed to know and work with Henry Stern, as many of you do, too.

He’s an Opelika institution, a friend and generous benefactor to numerous causes and charities.

He’s a self-named “good ol’ redneck from Alabama,” which ain’t bad for a boy born Heinz Julius Stern in Germany.

He’s a Holocaust survivor, one whose story will continue to ring out and be told long after he is gone.

We owe it to him and so many others who didn’t make it out to make sure such horrors will never reoccur.

Six million lives lost, and countless others irrevocably damaged by the loss of kin.

Never forget.

Never again.

Opelika Observer Staff Editorial - 3/30: 'Lessons to be learned from recent teenage deaths'

What began as a dispute over a relatively small amount of money ended with one young man being forced to pay the ultimate cost.

Late last week, 17-year-old Opelika High student Martin Frazier was  killed tragically in an alleged stabbing during a dispute over money with another teenager, Darnell McCurdy.

It’s the second time this month our area has seen the untimely death of a young person, as 15-year-old Jamon Baker of Auburn was the victim of an apparent accidental gunshot on March 16.

In situations where young lives are lost, there are often many questions, but seldom any answers.

We seek guidance and solace in prayer and quiet reflection, asking a loving God to bring peace and comfort.

Peace to a family who had their smiling, youthful son snatched from them all-too-soon.

Comfort to friends who will now be forced to remember the young man who was.

One often hears phrases like “What a waste” tossed around in situations like these, but that idiom doesn’t really hold true.

While these deaths are heartbreaking and tragic, they serve as a warning to those of us still here, a reminder to be watchful and respectful of one another.

There is no argument so great that the end answer must be death.

Passions may become heated and tempers may flare, but we cannot let rage take hold and end a life. To do so would be a lessening of our own humanity.

We must remind our children that violence only brings more violence and hate with it, that compromise and mutual respect are the tools we use to interact with one another.

No argument or conflict should ever escalate to a level at which a life is taken. We all know this to be so, and we have to urge our children to see it, too.

We may never fully be able to prevent terrible events like this from happening again, but we must at least try.

For the families of Martin Frazier and Jamon Baker, we send our sincerest condolences and our prayers and thoughts are with you.

We know there is little we can say to bring you solace, but know that He is with you and that they are now safe in His eternal kingdom.

The McCollumn - 3/23: "A full circle reflection"

Several weeks ago, during a high-stakes assessment of our school system from its accrediting body, the accreditation committee’s chairwoman took time to explain the school system’s rating to the school board members.

In one area, stakeholder communications, she commended Opelika City Schools’ for “turning around in a complete 360 from where you were,” praising us for doing better in that area.

Or did she?

If the school system did a complete 360, as she suggested, we would have undoubtedly ended exactly right back where we had started. We wouldn’t have improved a bit.

Why she would commend our system for standing in one place and completing one full rotation, I couldn’t immediately ascertain, but, being from such an august and admirable reviewing body, how could I hope to quibble with her response?

Well, madame, I may have gone through a school system you reviewed as simply adequate in some performance areas, but even I know that 180 degrees gives you an opposing change in direction.

You may be in charge of accrediting us, but you did a severe discredit to yourself by not remembering basic math principles. A pity.

Opelika Observer Staff Editorial - 3/23: "We support buying local"

We were amused and somewhat puzzled the other day to see an advertisement in the daily paper extolling local business and the virtues of buying local.

We were amused, mainly because the Observer is a local business while theirs is not, being a wholly-owned subsidiary of a regional media conglomerate group with corporate headquarters in Richmond, Va.

We were puzzled because we’d talked about running an ad with them, paying them to say pretty much what they said for free.

Why run the ad?

They propose to run a special advertising insert in their paper featuring local businesses and making money from it.

We propose you send those ad dollars here, to support another locally owned business like yourself.

There are a few things the daily paper seems to do well, and convincing folks they are a ‘community’ paper seems to be one of them.

While they exist in our community, they seem to go out of their way time and time again to prove themselves not a part of our community, sometimes lacking sensitivity and good judgment in what they consider to be “news.”

A local paper should primarily feature local citizens on and in its pages, but our daily paper seems to be stocked with photos from AP sources.

This paper was founded by its all local owners to be a source of local news, something we weren’t seeing at the time from the daily paper.

Years later, the daily seems to do a more adequate job of covering local events, and there are now three local papers (counting our sister paper The Auburn Villager) to help give folks the news.

If you truly want to support local businesses, take a look at the ads that adorn our pages here.

A large majority of them are locally owned and operated businesses, manned by your friends, neighbors and other folks you know.

As much as we enjoy hearing y’all tell us you enjoy reading our paper, please do us the favor of thanking our advertisers for supporting our paper.

Tell them you like seeing all local news, and that you’re thankful they help to support it.

Do business with folks who do business with us.

And, if you frequent a place that doesn’t advertise with us, tell them about our paper. Take them a few copies; we’ll gladly give you some.

Tell them the Opelika Observer is the paper for locals by locals.

We firmly agree with the daily paper that all the folks around here should certainly buy local.

We just want them to take the time to remember what the word “local” really means.

The McCollumn - 3/16: " 'GCB' hits close to home"

This spring, ABC debuted a new primetime drama entitled “GCB,” a melodrama focused on the main character’s return to her hometown of Dallas and having to face the music with all the other women she wronged and tortured in high school, women who now seem to be pillars and strong Christians in their local church.

The show’s title refers to those seemingly kind Christian women, as the show’s name during its development phase was “Good Christian B****es.”

For all the controversy the show has garnered from religious groups and organizations over its name and its depictions of churchgoers, one is tempted to ask the question:

“Are you mad because it hits too close to home?”

While I find the show’s farcical and hyperbolic plotlines and antics to be more than a bit over-the-top at times, I can’t help but think the show’s producers did manage to capture some truths about a subset of some churchgoers.

I’ve been in the pews and heard Opelika’s own good Christian women start to snarl and tear into others around them.

I’ve heard women delight in playing fashion police with the other parishioners, and have heard phrases like “tacky ho” and “skank chic” been used in describing the outfits and general demeanors of their victims.

Woe be unto you if you be a member of the famed Christmas and Easter Club, for, lo, your attendance at only the highest of holy days will surely set their jaws to motoring for tens of minutes.

No secret is too juicy not to be shared; no gobbet or factoid will go unturned if you happen to fall to the wrath of “gli Scorpioni Cristiani,” the ‘Christian’ Scorpions.

And, beware, they don’t limit their behaviors to just the church pew. You aren’t immune from their gaze from scorn anywhere in the community: not the grocery store, the movie theatre or even awaiting for primary elections results at the old Johnson Galleries’ building.

These people seem to only want to go to church in order to see and be seen, completely oblivious to the fact that what the religion they claim to love preaches ideals of forgiveness, kindness and tolerance.

If these folks read their Bibles as much as they loved their time “sharing and caring” (the Southern manners-infused way of saying “gossiping”), maybe they’d remember the opening verses of Matthew 7:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

I’m not attempting to paint every churchgoer as a rigid, judgmental and embittered person. I’m not talking about true believers here, and I think y’all know that.

But, to me, these women are to true Christians what Al Qaeda is to true Muslims: a wicked perversion and complete misunderstanding of what should be a peaceful faith.

Beware il Scorpioni, folks, and try as best you can to escape them and their poisons.

We all deserve better.

**Author's note: As people of faith, we ought to spend more time building one another up and encouraging one another. The world is already filled with enough negativity and anger; we don't need "Christian" people adding to that mess.

The McCollumn - 3/9: "You are 'here' (just tell us 'where')

“If your house has no street number or name, please draw a map of where your house is located. Please include roads and landmarks.”

Those are the sentences located within section No. 12 of Alabama Voter Registration Form, the form each citizen must fill out before they are allowed to vote.

When this was brought to my attention a few days ago, my immediate reaction was to want to mock this mercilessly.

What sort of Ted Kaczynski wannabe would be so far “off the grid” that they wouldn’t have an address, the “street number or name.”

Maybe they were like Chris Farley’s failed motivational speaker character Matt Foley, spending their days “living in a van down by the river.” 

Who doesn’t have an address these days?

I came into the office Monday morning, ready to share this discovery with Observer Editor Fred Woods and share a good laugh with him about the silliness of such an option on a state-created form.

Instead, Woods looked it over and said “I don’t see anything wrong with this,” and proceeded to explain several ways in which an option for drawing such a map could prove helpful.

Some roads throughout the rural areas of the state aren’t paved or clearly marked, so a pictorial proof of residence could prove more effective.

There could, in fact, be some tar paper shack-dweller somewhere who prefers his non-addressed abode and simply uses a post office box for his mail.

And, yes, even my go-to absurd answer of our friend living in the van down by the river was deconstructed as a worthy, legitimate voter himself.

All of those possible scenarios illustrate examples of people who are, despite their interesting living situations, legitimate voters.

And, not only that, but the map would allow county elections officials to accurately place these residents in their proper polling place for voting day (municipal, county or otherwise).

The man living in the Ford Aerostar parked down by the river might be in Ward 4; his neighbor in the Winnebago could actually be in Ward 5. Since most voting districts nationwide look like something Jackson Pollack threw up on, this could easily be possible.

But, they do all reside within the state of Alabama and make some sort of living here.

They are guaranteed a right to vote as citizens of this state and this nation, and the map option on this form gives them the opportunity to register just the same as anyone else.

For so long, this state used extraordinary exclusionary measures to keep some of its citizens, namely the black ones, from registering to vote.

Now, with options like the “Map/Diagram” section, all Alabamians can register, regardless of their situations. All citizens have the right to participate in the political process, knowing their vote will matter and be counted,

What seemed like absurdity or just another bureaucratic form running amok became a real-life example of our promise to provide equal opportunities for all.

Huzzah for that.