Add horseshoe pits at Standing Boy

Sit beside a mountain stream, see her waters rise: It’s Monday Mail.

Mother nature

Today’s opening is from the Beatles’ song “Mother Nature’s Son,” and that’s because. …

Standing Boy

Today we have some reader reactions to a June 13 column about the extensive recreational development taxpayers could wind up funding at Columbus’ Standing Boy Wildlife Management Area if Georgia turns it into a state park.

The column reported on a June 6 community meeting where a consultant working with the state Department of Natural Resources said the 1,500 acres of largely undeveloped land could have a biking trail, a disc golf course, a boat dock, rental cabins, a pavilion with a kitchen, an RV campground and ample parking for concerts, movies, races, weddings, etc., and it could spur the nearby construction of hotels and restaurants and such.

And when all that’s finished, children can visit the park to learn about whatever nature remains, he said.

That might have been the funniest part: paving over nature so kids can appreciate it. Either that, or state officials saying they have to build that stuff so the park will produce enough revenue to pay to maintain all that stuff.

These reader reactions were left on voicemail, starting with this one:

Hey Tim,

It’s Cliff Tucker. I’m enjoying reading your article about Standing Boy State Park. I wonder what authority this consultant has about making changes, and I’m also concerned about decreasing the wildness of the park and paving things as you sort of alluded to. We’ve already lost so much green space — that little strip downtown in Columbus, they keep putting recreational things in there. I don’t know where we’re headed with all this, but I sure hope there will be some places left that will be natural. That would be my hope. Thanks.

Dear Cliff:

Another factor yet to be considered here is the duplication of services. Why waste a wildlife management area to build facilities we already have? And why rush to do it on the north side of town before we get a better gauge on our public investments in the south side, such as the Oxbow Meadows area? We’re supposed to have a festival field and pavilion there, among other amenities.

Why not?

Here’s another phone message:

Hey,

This is Bill Birkhead…. Liked your editorial about the Standing Boy Creek quote-unquote “state park.” My wife’s suggestion, and it’s a good one, is why not make it a natural area? It wouldn’t have any overhead costs, and so forth and so on. Goodness knows we need natural areas as opposed to all these artificial amenities people need to be provided with. OK? Thank you.

Dear Bill:

Why not make it a natural area? Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question?

It is not, to people who want to develop that park. They can come up with all sorts of reasons similar to the one mentioned above: You have to build a big state park so you can generate enough revenue to maintain a big state park.

Oldtimer

Here’s a call from a guy who attended that June 6 meeting. He’s joking about an overlooked segment of our population, and asking, “What’s in it for them?”

Hey Tim,

This is Bob Garrard. What? I didn’t hear it either. No lighted shuffleboard courts or horseshoe pits? What are these old farts like me going to do? What do we have in Green Island? A tiger by the tail.

Dear Bob:

No kidding. We should add that stuff to the list of things for which we’ll clear the trees and grade, pipe and pave the land.

Anything else you want? How about a bowling alley or a putt-putt golf course? We can’t have too many of those.

This story was originally published June 26, 2016 at 8:22 PM with the headline "Add horseshoe pits at Standing Boy."