Patrick Donahue

Editor & General Manager

Now that I’ve been back about a year, maybe a little longer, I can reflect on the changes — and those elements that remain the same.

As Hinesville kept growing, one of the hot questions before I left was if we would ever get a Chick-fil-A. Now, we’re about to get a second one. Shoot, we even got a Longhorn now.

And sadly, we’re on the list of Southern towns, small, big and in-between, without a Hardee’s. That used to be a staple of stops along the way. Seemed like every town at least had a Hardee’s, long before it got a McDonald’s.

There are homes getting built in places I never thought there would be. And as we get more and more subdivisions, it seems we have fewer mobile homes than before. There was a time when Hinesville and Liberty County were the mobile home meccas because of the number of mobile homes per capita.

I won’t cast aspersions on mobile home owners or residents. It just seems we don’t have as many as we used to.

When I left, the county was working on getting the land for the Justice Center. It’s been there now for more than a decade.

Veterans Parkway was widened. We still have plenty of traffic to go around. And I know everyone is aware of the backup that happens in the afternoon on 84 inbound into town from Flemington into Hinesville.

It’s interesting seeing the traffic at 84 and MLK Jr. Drive/Fraser Drive.

Lot of folks anticipate the guy on the other side of 84 is turning left. That doesn’t always happen.

How there isn’t an accident or two every day there is amazing, even at the breakneck speeds people drive around town. And yet, when you’re trying to cross Main Street or MLK Jr., people will stop and wait for you to step across the pavement to the other side.

I do like the light at the end of what was Washington and is now Memorial being staggered with the light on the other side by Zaxby’s.

I’d like to see that happen with the light at 84 and MLK Jr/Fraser Drive too.

If the state will relent. I also had a friend inquire about paying actual money, instead of having to use GoFan, to get into a high school football game. Some fans who have been to a lot of high school games — i.e., they’re a little older these days — may be less inclined to get a ticket on their phone and more inclined to reach into their pocket, or pocketbook, to pay for one.

Not long ago a friend and I played the “what was there” game, trying to figure out what establishment had been where in our childhood, namely Friendly Grocery. I remember the post office being on Main Street, before it moved to Memorial Drive and now it’s on 84. We even recalled the TG& Y opening and a couple of years later, K-Mart opening.

Other things are gone, wiped off the face of the earth for good. Our old quarters, for instance.

Both of them, I think.

Neither of those tiny residences — when you’ve got nine people in them, they get tiny real fast — exists. Nor does the school I went to first. I still run into my second grade teacher quite often, though. Helen Stripling was a treasure then and remains one now.

A lot of folks I knew back then have gone on.

Some to their heavenly reward, some to other locales to live. Many more, thankfully, are still around.

I left a good job in a beautiful city. No, I wasn’t working for the man every night and day, but I’ve never lost a minute of sleep on the decision to come back. There are those days when I wonder if I truly knew what I was getting myself into coming back. And then a rumble of artillery rolls through the air.

Yep. No place like home.