Interoffice memo last week:

"Sallie, would you consider doing a column on the occasion of our

10th anniversary (first paper published Feb. 10, 1993)? How ignorant we

were (are?), how we winged it for months, how you got involved (we begged),

etc. Irreverent, light-hearted approach appreciated, especially in regards

to current management. Cal"

Good gosh, have you ever heard

anyone leave himself wide open quite like that before? Maybe I'm being

set up, but I can't resist. What an opportunity.

You've heard the story before,

I'm sure. How The Fayette Sun, a pretty good free weekly in Atlanta counties,

shut down abruptly in January, 1993. It had carried my column for many

years, and at one point was edited by my friend Viki Brigham. We're still

close friends.

At the time The Sun set, I

think Hatcher Hurd was editor. We're not.

I'd had the heady experience

of seeing my own words in print nearly every week since 1979. Recognition,

even if it's only local, can be addictive. And now it was gone.

Before I could figure out how

I'd fill my newly idle hours came a call from Dave Hamrick. "We have

some people willing to start up a new weekly," he said. "Interested

in doing your column and some features? Cal's editor and publisher, and

I'll be managing editor. First issue will come out Feb. 10."

I was ecstatic. Beth Bostian

also wrote for The Sun, so she, Dave and I got together and divided up

responsibilities and discussed deadlines. I think that was the first time

I'd even met Dave.

And so it was that Volume 1,

Number 1 of The Fayette Citizen was in 24,000 residences and 1,700 businesses

on Feb. 10, 1993. Can't get much more "first" than that.

Last week I borrowed the bound

copies of every paper we published in 1993 and 1994. It was just too much

to read in detail, but I did read the first couple of issues and paged

hastily through the rest. Vedddy interesting.Let's look closer.

Vol. 1, No. 1 was a little

less colorful than No. 2, but little by little, the front page began looking

more and more like it does today. But the first issue lacks a masthead.

Who's who in this upstart paper? All the ink about how good the paper

is going to be had Cal Beverly's name on it, as editor and publisher.

You couldn't tell by the first edition whether he was going to write anything

else. Anyone so busy patting himself on the back isn't going to be able

to do layout, let alone take notes.

The bylines, then, in 16-page

Vol. 1, No. 1 are Dave Hamrick, managing editor; Garry Kranz, sports editor;

the Rev. John Hatcher, religion columnist; Beth Bostian; and me.

Beth and I got "Special

to the Citizen" under our names. I'm not sure why. Maybe it had to

do with the fact that we did not work full-time and go in to the office

to enter our material regularly. Also, I think we were both paid by the

piece and by the photo as published.

Besides being slightly off

with his history ­ Cal told me he didn't actually start for at least

six months ­ he also had the nerve to make some promises in print.

Possibly the first words he had to eat: "We promise not to clutter

up your lawn with soggy, plastic scraps ..." This newspaper was mailed

in its infancy.

He also challenged readers

to scrutinize our work: "Look for errors and typos ... I'll acknowledge

your copyediting skills in a special Readers' Box that will start in the

next paper." That didn't last too long either, although I assure

you, The Citizen was well done.

"It is our policy to print

as wide a variety of opinions as possible." That was one that got

me in trouble. My first column, in the second issue, was a warm-fuzzy

having to do with morning, spring, the whole "new beginning"

theme. The fourth, however, related to then-Gov. Zell Miller's proposal

that the state flag be folded.

Amazing ­ that issue remains

unresolved. I know my even mentioning it today will bring a new flurry

of letters. At the time, the responses ran about 10 to one: 10 lambasting

me for my anti battle-flag stance, to one who agreed with me.

I just knew Cal would give me the boot. Dave stuck up for my flag column,

although, he said, for different reasons.

Little did I know. Cal loves

controversy, and I played right into his hands. His first big flap. It

seemed to go on forever, week after week. One advertiser said he was pulling

his ads, and I believe he did ­ but by July he was back in.

Another reader wrote that my

recent columns "showed an ever-increasing bitterness in the words

expressed." She said the saddest part about this whole thing is that

I really believe what I write. That much she got right.

Sometimes letters filled an

entire page ­ and this was when you wrote letters on paper and paid

postage to have them delivered ­ that's pretty impressive.

I think that's one of the most

significant differences in the mere 10 years between Vol. 1, No. 1 and

Vol. 10, No. 459. No one adds an e-mail address, and except for a picture

of a small boy sitting at his school's computer (singular), their impact

on our lives was not yet evident. And telephone numbers: seven digits

long. No area codes needed locally then.

On No. 1's front page, the

color photo (without credit) was of Patsy and Ed Gullett painting the

downtown mural that is an integral part of the local landscape in Fayetteville.

Patsy was detailing the irises, Ed was on scaffolding painting the roof

of the railroad station, and "Tammra Minteer" was painting ground

at sidewalk level.

In the category, "The

more things change, the more they stay the same" (see above), here's

a piece on the redrafting of Peachtree City's golf cart ordinance. It

helped that I was on the committee.

I also covered the airport

authority meetings, managed to squeeze in a couple of stories about businesses

owned by friends of mine. One, the Wild Bird Store, bit the dust; Verlo's

mattresses are still going strong.

The Chamber of Commerce's annual

meeting generated a lot of copy and two full pages of copy and photos,

mostly lineups and grip 'n grins. Like I said, some things don't change.

The reason for no photo credits,

incidentally was probably that we did not have a photographer, and reporters,

sometimes an inept lot, usually took pictures to go along with their stories.

There was still no hospital in Fayette County, and controversy about how

best to bring that about or even whether to build one, controversy carried

over from many years before.

Beth covered then-Mayor Bob

Lenox's address to the Fayette County Exchange Club, announcing plans

for 1993. Talk about irony. "The highway projects Lenox said he hopes

to at least get started include the four-laning of Highway 54 to Highway

74, at the Coweta County line, and the stretch between Highway 54 to Georgia

85."

This is interesting: I looked

closely, and admittedly hastily, but guess what? Mayor Lenox's picture

made the front page one time, in a series I did on Peachtree City's mayors,

and showed up only a few times inside. I'd be willing to bet our current

mayor's been front page and in color at least 75 percent of the past two

years' issues. Hmmm.

The front page of both Nos.

1 and 2 look pretty good, but the inside of No. 2 has a little better

look to it. I'd have preferred a tabloid style but there was some good

reason why we didn't. Money, no doubt.

From time to time, we carried

a brief index on the front page. I'd like to see that revived, with columnists

included.

Ah! At last, in No. 2, a masthead

that identifies our staff and what they do. In addition to those named

earlier, we have Sam McCormick, advertising director; Diann Cupertino,

classified director; Angela Bean, advertising sales; Leslie Watson, office

manager.

If you look at today's masthead,

with its 31 employees and "regular contributors," you'll note

that of the 10 listed above, only five are still associated with The Citizen.

Cal, still High Caliph, and John Hatcher, Diann, and Angela.

I wish you could see No. 3's

front page photo. Here's this huge shaggy dog named Blue, eyeball to eyeball

with his owner, Anne Schlenkert of Peachtree City. The Irish wolfhound

with the enormous feet resting on Anne's shoulders had won Best of Breed

at the Westminster Kennel Club a week earlier. My story and my photos,

and they're pretty good a decade later.

In about a month, Lee Howell

was writing political stories, Garry Kranz became news editor while still

writing the occasional sports story, and Steve Belli was aboard as sports

editor.

The Citizen was there in April

when a car flew across Ga. Highway 85 from Wendy's to the Fina station,

where it wedged up under a tanker delivering 27,000 gallons of gasoline.

Dave Hamrick grabbed a camera and got a spectacular shot of the column

of fire and smoke boiling into the sky behind McDonald's golden arches.

If memory serves, it was later determined that the 55-year-old motorist

had had a heart attack, stroke or seizure that jammed his foot on the

gas.

Ted Meier writes a nice golf

column ­ he actually makes the game sound like fun. Johnnie Mack

was turned away from his senior prom because he was wearing kilts. That

was one of those stories that grew legs and was picked up in Scotland.

Suddenly, as that first year

flew by, computers appear. Or at least I finally began noticing ads for

repairing and selling computers. The May 26 issue shows young Miles Bryant

getting "hands-on experience" on the Hood Avenue School's computer.

AIS was promoting a Mac as a graduation gift: $1993 for 4 megabytes of

RAM, an 80-megabyte hard drive, and a 2400 baud modem.

a 286, I think ­ but I still had no way to get my copy to the office

except to put everything on disk and carried the disk to Diann Cupertino,

who lived in Peachtree City. My first modem ran at about 2400 baud, if

it ran at all. I pine for those particular "good old days" not

at all.

Fayetteville's Melissa Segars

needed a heart/lung transplant. The Citizen ran a regular calendar of

events trying to raise $1 million. The effort had earned well over $600,000

when Melissa died of complications following surgery late that summer.

Reighard, then of New Hope Baptist Church in north Fayette, occasionally

contributed a column. The Rev. Hatcher and, later, the Rev. Bob Tyler

were our religious mainstays.

In July, Cal writes a whole-page

letter "from the Publisher to You," and it reads like those

late night commercials that add on a free set of ginza knives if you buy

their grill, and an automatic trout blender comes with it FREE! Again

he promises no tossed papers.

He also introduced The Citizen

Weekend, which I loved, but which, apparently, was not so loved by readers.

It was, however, a precursor to The Peachtree Citizen Review, The Coweta

Citizen Review, The South Fulton, etc.

At the end of the year, the

masthead still included Cal (now just publisher), Diann, Angela, Dave,

and Garry. Shortly after start-up, Leslie Watson, office manager; Sally

Hope and Debra Colson, advertising sales; Buddy Grizzard, sports editor;

Judy Kilgore, production assistant; and Lesley Beverly, classifieds. Carolyn

Cary was adding historic notes whenever she could. Ad director McCormick

was the only one missing from among the start-up crew.

Christine Peters became responsible

for special sections. But Beth and I remained personae non gratae ­

rating only "Special to the Citizen," which sounds like someone

who occasionally drops off prom pictures and club doings. Eventually I

got up the nerve to point this out to Dave, who mumbled something I no

longer remember, but not much later, we got identified as "Regular

Contributors" in the masthead, and "Staff Reporter" in

our bylines.

Fourteen churches advertised

in the "Religion" listings in the first issue; 62 advertised

in last week's paper. Either we're getting more religion, or they're making

enough money to advertise now.

Checked up on a few of the

names above. Garry Kranz is apparently still writing, but mostly electronically,

in Virginia. Beth's teaching school in Winston-Salem, N.C. since her son

and daughter are old enough to look out for themselves. Cal's still here,

now with a wife who keeps him a little mellower. He's grown a beard since

the early days, and I'd advise him to keep it. Those first mug shots ....