Taking to the driving range yesterday to snap some pics of Zebulon's golf clinic for children, it dawned on me that the ball was going straighter for some of the 12-year-olds than it frequently does for myself.

I remember that age. If you don't like school, you don't do good in school. But if you like sports like golf, and practice, you can leave the course rich in many ways.

Naturally, like most guys, I fancy myself a good golfer. But I also fancy myself a good 24-year-old — I feel there are things on my plate that hinder me form the full concentration of an 11-year-old, nonetheless. 

So when I went to the  golf clinic, I noticed a bitter taste in my mouth. It was the taste of someone who no longer has time to sit around all day on the driving range Happy Gilmoring Slazengers until the sun goes down. It was, yes, the taste of envy.

Adding insult to injury, I decided to pick up a club and give pride its chance to hit the fan. Big Mistake.

My swing looks fine — it always has, but being a lefty and playing righty, things tend to get weird in the wrists and I have been know to put one on the kids in the play-pen just off of four fairway.

I guess bottom line is I set myself up for disaster going and watching those kids swing the sticks without a care or responsibility in the world. Personally, I am always too busy worrying about work while not even at work, or growing sick from the first-hole jitters as an under-practiced golfer. 

I used to be one of those kids, one day, but I vaguely recall when and where that was.

After a tour of the to-be Zebulon Municipal Complex, it occurred to me the offices will be large enough for the town to get work done comfortably and still have room to grow in the years to come.

Although there is no real office for the mayor as it stands today, there will be a very roomy space set aside for the mayor in the new building.

Of the four main corners of the building are the planning, finance, and parks and recreation departments, and the other corner is designated for a break/conference room and the mayor's office, meaning the mayor's office is pretty much half the size of the total areas allotted for the town departments located downstairs.

Since the mayor currently has no shift behind the desk, and isn't signing papers in the current town hall on a daily basis, I can't help but wonder where the need is for such a spacious room.
I know i saw the room without furniture, so it looked a lot larger than it will be in the end, but like I said, compared to the space of one entire town department, it is significantly large.

I can understand the use of the room for public affairs, like a meeting with a citizen, in which case it would be nice to have a comfortable area for the citizen to sit in or wait in, etc. And maybe that's enough to justify its size.

But since I've never actually seen the mayor in an office, I suppose only time will tell if having an office, and one of that caliber, will be merited through actual time spent in the office for the purpose of doing town-related work — other than meeting with a disgruntled voter.

One of the most festive holidays of the year is just around the corner. Independence Day, which every calls the Fourth of July, is a week from Friday.

 Most folks get the day off, so if you're looking for something to fill that extra time off, you've got plenty of options.  The folks in Archer Lodge start the day off with activities all day long. They begin the day with a road race at 8:30 followed by a children's parade at 11 a.m. Free kids games start at 11:30 a.m., which, coincidentally, is the same time they start serving free homemade ice cream.

Barbecue lunch plates will be for sale for just $7 until 2 p.m., then its back to the fun and games.

July 4 doesn't end in Archer Lodge until the fireworks display is over that night. You can make a full day of it.

In Wendell, the Fourth of July is making a return. Thanks to Nora Cambiere and the members of the Wendell Historical Society, Wendell folks can celebrate the holiday without leaving town. Events begin at 4 p.m. at Main and Depot streets with the unveiling of a historical marker. A children's parade will move the show from there to the J. Ashley Wall Towne Square where there will be refreshments for everyone.

Zebulon gets into the act after the Mudcats game that night. Fireworks are an every Friday night occurence, but they go all out on the Fourth. If you're not going to see the fireworks in Archer Lodge, consider making the trip up NC 39, take in a ball game and watch the show afterward. It doesn't get much more American than that.

An astute political friend once observed that North Carolinians were a bit schizofrenic when it comes to elections. What voter, she asked, would vote for Jesse Helms for U.S. Senator and Jim Hunt for Governor in the same election?

It's an interesting question to ask in Wendell these days, in light of the town board's decision to appoint both Lisa Sanderson and Charlie Kramer to the Planning Board.

Sanderson and her husband, Steve, have led an effort to remake Wendell Boulevard, a move that struck a nerve with some of the more conservative folks in town. Lisa Sanderson, daughter of former Mayor June Perry, is smart as a whip and always does her homework before she opens her mouth.

Kramer has been the silent giant behind the Wendell Community Coalition. He's an astute researcher who's inclined to follow a leave-it-alone course of action. Commissioners may have believed Kramer was the lesser of two evils in having to choose between him and Dan Edwards, the much more vocal opponent of developments like Pepper Pointe. But they have appointed a big dog to the board.

Sanderson and Kramer ought to be wonderful foils.