Columns

I was sitting in my living room the other morning, gazing out at the fog that softened my ridge-top neighborhood. Suddenly, a bit of motion caught my eye, shaking me out of the morning mist that had also overtaken my brain.

A garden spider, golden orb or writing spider, as some people call them, dropped gingerly into one of my azalea bushes, then rose again, placing an anchor line for a more complex structure just out of view.

A lot of people don’t like spiders, but I’m not one of them. 

If I had time, I could watch them all day.

By RON WOODY
Roane County Executive
In October of each year, your county and city governments sends out the annual property tax bills.

As citizens and property-tax payers, we generally hate to see these bills and often think, “what benefits do we receive for these taxes?”

This column will deal primarily with the property tax levy for the county government; however, before we address the property tax we will try to address an overview of the county budget as a whole.

There’s an ugly knot on my right shin and a bruise the size of Texas on my calf.
I earned those injuries over two days of noise, fumes, heat — and fear — at a Motorcycle Safety Foundation riding class at Pellissippi State Community College’s Hardin Valley campus.
And as a result, I now have an “M” for motorcycle operator on my driver’s license.
For a while now, I’ve been thinking of learning to operate a motorcycle.
I do a great job as a motorcycle passenger, but, recently, I decided I wanted more.

As this column is being prepared for submission to the publisher, the Democratic National Convention is just getting underway, and the Republican National Convention has been concluded five or six days ago.

Due to these circumstances there is as yet little that we can say about the Democratic get-together in Charlotte, and a very great deal about which we could comment arising from the Republican assembly in Tampa, including addresses by Mrs. Romney, Mr. Ryan, and the Governor himself; not to mention Clint Eastwood’s performance.