Terry,

This is copied from a local column writer in the Desoto Sun Herald Newspaper in Arcadia, Fl.

Thought you might find some similarities with your area.

Jack

My editor and friend, Laura Schmid, last Tuesday used her column space to extend the topic of pet peeves that I'd talked about the previous two weeks. Her main one was her perplexity over why people in Arcadia choose to park in their yards, instead of on their perfectly good cement driveways. She even suggested that I might be able to answer her question. I'll give it a shot, Boss Lady.

First of all, I don't believe it's an "Arcadia" thing, but rather, lots of folks do it in rural areas and probably in cities as big as your hometown of St. Pete. I decided not to conduct a poll locally, because I might've been chased off by a pit bull and told to mind my own business, and I have an aversion to dogs chewing on me. Instead, I came up with my own ideas as to why.

First off, who wants to mess up a real nice cement driveway with oil spots from theirs or anybody else's vehicles? And that's pronounced "SEE-ment" in these parts. Another idea naturally springs from our Southern hospitality, wherein we save the driveway for company to park on, which is a right nice thing to do.

As far as parking on the grass, yes, it does create dirt patches if it goes on long enough in one spot. The upside of that is, it's a little less area to mow. Plus, the dogs can enjoy cooling off on a hot summer's day by knocking off the top layer and resting their bellies on the fresh dirt.

You described how your family had seven vehicles to rearrange every day or night there in the big city, so they'd all fit in the driveway, in reverse order of how they'd be leaving. Now that sounds like some serious engineering, and I applaud your victory in doing so!

No way would that work in the country, because somebody would take a sudden notion to go fishin', and they'd get all flustered because they were blocked in, and would call a buddy with a tow truck, who'd come

2x2 retail display GA press and make the yard look like

somebody had dumped out a bucket of giant Hot Wheels cars all over the yard.

You further inferred that you wouldn't have been allowed to park on the grass in the first place. Well, that's reason enough for me to not live in a place where folks try to tell me where I can park in my own yard, what I can drive, what color my house has to be, how tall my grass can get, or whether or not I can put up a flagpole and use it. I'll not live in fear of neighborhood "hall monitors," nor park association rules. I'll tack a possum hide to the side of my house if I take a notion to, alongside a collection of license tags. But that's just me.

When in Rome, park as the Romans. That's up to you, of course. For the record, I do have a driveway and I use it. Gotta get my money's worth out of it, you know! But my truck does like to park on the grass, just like I still like to walk through mud puddles barefoot sometimes.

Us rural folks ain't wrong, Ms. Laura, we're just different. Same goes for city

folks, I reckon.

Editor's note: This could

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have been written about

Colquitt, Donalsonville, press

Newton, Damascus, Blakely or Bainbridge.