RAINER'S RAMBLINGS
By RAINER ARNOLD Union Sentinel Publisher

I was in the shower the other day and while washing my hair with hot water I began to recall the events of the past two weeks which included among other things, a three day stint without hot water.

My water line from the meter to house burst and I had to call a plumber to fix the problem. While that was being fixed, some of the other lines froze unknown to me. So, when I turned the water back on, I had cold running water. The hot water heater in the meantime burned out its element and I could not get hot water. When I tried to refill the hot water heater, I found out that the pipes running to it where frozen and had burst.

So, I went to the hardware store and bought what I needed to fix the break in the line. But when I cut out the part that had broken both ends were still frozen. So I waited until that afternoon and crawled back under the house and fixed the leak.

The next morning I called another plumber and he got me the element and the thermostat and fixed the hot water heater.

So, this whole scene got me to thinking how good we have it up here. After all, look at the rest of the country. They are suffering through 80 inches of snow, tornadoes, excessive rains and mudslides or sub-zero temps for weeks.

The look at us. We have nice weather. We have four seasons, sort of. At least three good ones.

In addition to much above average weather, we have very few problems. Our state is solvent as is our county. Yes, we have crime, but it is not as bad as it is in many other places. Our community reaches out to it's needy residents and local businesses do pretty well.

We have nice churches and community oriented banks and other businesses. We have civic organizations and we have politicians that sling very little mud. We even have job available to most people that want to work. Now, if you don't really want to work, that is different.

Our schools are good and are not overcrowded and the test scores are not too low either. Our taxes are lower than most in the state and generally people are nice to one another.

We have a lake, even if it is lower than we want it to be. But we still have one, and water sports are available for almost any budget. And, a traffic jam is having to wait your turn at a four way stop sign.

So, if I look at our community I can honestly say, this is a really nice place to live. At least my grandkids think so as they love it up here. The cost of living is relatively low, we even have a local technical college and a regular college around.

So, I just thought I might share this with you to let you know that I am a happy camper up here in the mountains of North Georgia. As a matter of fact, I really can't think of many places in the world where I would rather live. Except of course in a really cool castle in Austria.