To Sell Or Not To Sell - The Debate Of An Open Road Resident.

Cars Back Up Daily On Bethany Since Milton High School's Arrival.

By Tim Enloe;
Accessmilton.com

I remember when my parents purchased an old farm house on Bethany Road- the year was 1978. My father's colleagues made fun of him and actually said "What are you moving to Alpharetta for? There is nothing but rednecks there!"

Growing up here was great. With only 3000 people in all of what is now Alpharetta, Milton, and Johns Creek,it truly was a rural paradise. Cows, Horses, Goats, Pigs, Chickens...they were a plenty and everywhere. Ever had goat's milk? I have - we used to purchase it from an old farmer on Brittle Road.

I went fishing on many of the ponds that newer homes now surround. All my parents had to do was ring an old cow bell and that was my cue to head home. Easy enough. In some instances, I cannot even drive by those old special places today due to private gates being erected when development came calling with "No trespassing / no fishing signs" common place.

I would ride my bicycle up to Crabapple with my brothers and sister to get a coke and some candy at the old gas station. Mom didn't worry; she new we weren't far and the odds of our seeing a car was rare.

"Shotgun" stars were a plenty at night. We called them so because the night sky looked like it had been shot with a 100 bbs from a shotgun. Today, the lights of development have chased them away.

We only had seven acres back then; small compared to the numerous 1000 plus acre farms that surrounded us. I remember names such as Black Angus Cattle Ranch, Diamond B Ranch, and Green Farm. Gone they are, for a more progressive state.

How times have changed in a mere 32 years. How our now nine acres is so much bigger now than back in the day. Especially in consideration of all the cluster homes and AG 1 properties covering the countryside in recent years.

Today, Bethany Road experiences 4500 cars a day with speeds in excess of 70mph. Cutting our property along the road requires two orange cones, good timing, and quick action to avoid becoming a number. Of course, we normally take about 20 to 30 minutes to pick up all the trash being thrown out - from cigarettes, to beer bottles, to personal hygiene products - we get them all and then some. How about you?

Our wonderful Milton Officers, try as the might to get ahold on the speeding, are so severly short staffed and over worked, it is a wonder they get to enforce our laws on any given road, much less Bethany.

Since the arrival of the "new" Milton High in 2005, obnoxious noise, trash, and wreckless driving is a constant affair. As early as 7:30am to as late as 11pm on any given day, this ruckus is easily heard in either of the two homes we now own on Bethany. Come on over for a listen if you like. Oh, did I mention that highschool ate up some of Milton's "rural character" due the them kicking out seven families who lived on the open roads of Birmingham and Freemanville to make way for that FBOE behemoth? Forget the belief that a larger parcel brings you peace and quiet. On Bethany, such a rule holds little weight.

We have also received the dubious honor of residents pestering and tormenting our horse by shooting her with paintballs, screaming at her, and throwing fireworks in one of our front pastures to scare her. She is so terrified now, she refuses to graze in the larger of two pastures. Due to this fact, we are having to supplement her food with extra hay and grain. To see her enjoy the larger pasture before the days of cruelty came to our street, look in the right margin of this screen.

Needless to say, it is times like those above that bring me pause. I love our nine acres that we have; especially the original property where I was raised - after all, it has been a part of me since I was eight.

To sell out and develop would be like losing a cherished loved one, but life is short and my family has no desire to continue to live in an area that no longer welcomes our type of living.

With that hard choice, we would want to get the most possible for our properties. Obviously, going the commercial route with sewer is the quickest way to come to that end and move on.

Some have said "stop development here" and "sewer is a bad word!" However, the majority of those saying such things don't deal with Milton High School nor do they take their lives into their hands when simply checking the mail or cutting the grass. They also live now on what was most likely a property like ours a few years back. If their belief system of today was in place back then, they wouldn't be reading this editorial.

Then again, if our fellow residents and goverment will work with us and other open road residents on such concerns and fix them, then we would of course like to stay until our final days.

It would be wise for such issues to be addressed before the economy returns, however. If not, watch for the world of Milton to turn as upside down as it did from my childhood to present day. Just be sure to change that borrowed horse logo to a town home.