CARLTON FLETCHER: Entitlement has replaced pride as Albany continues to diminish

“Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.”

— Simon & Garfunkel

I walked down to Riverfront Park the other day, and just visiting the landmark unleashed a flood of memories.

Of course, “flood” is an operative word here, as the park was one of  the landmarks completely covered by flood waters when the Flint River overflowed its banks in 1994 in what experts said was a “500-year flood.” That designation was rendered meaningless four short years later when a 1998 flood was only slightly less devastating.

But there were good memories at the park as well: Seeing one of my then-toddler daughter Jordan’s hand-painted ceramic tiles added to a park wall; seeing the joy on kids’ faces as they played on the Turtle Park playground; watching runners straggle in, exhausted but overjoyed at having finished one of the signature marathon and half-marathon races that ended at the park.

I remember talking to Albany State University students about how the completion of a walkway from the college campus to the park under a pair of busy bridges offered them opportunities that had always seemed closed to them, and I remembered one of this city’s greatest tragedies and acts of heroism, how D.J. Vinson had bravely jumped into the then-raging waters of the Flint to save two young boys who’d fallen in, managing to get one of them to safety, but succumbing, along with the other youngster, as the waters carried him under.

The wave of nostalgia during my riverfront visit awakened in me thoughts of an adult life lived primarily in this community. I remember coming here with Gary Owens (she’s a girl, by the way) on a crazy Saturday in which we went to some of the shops that weren’t available to us in small-town Ocilla, she buying a tennis racket, me a Charlie Daniels Band album. I remember coming here with Mike Shuman and Dwayne Josie to see “The Exercist” and riding back to Ocilla freaked out a little.

Then I came here to work at this newspaper and attend Albany State University. As I settled in, I heard from concerned friends and relatives who wanted to know why I would stay in a place where criminal activities and gun violence were the constant lead stories on local TV stations that adhered to that old “if it bleeds, it leads” ethos.

As I settled into this once-thriving community, though, I fell in love with its people, its history, its unique take on the issues that became part of the tapestry of its existence. And while I grew more attached to the city, some things occurred to me.

The people who call Albany home have changed over the decades I’ve been here. People who took pride in their community and its appearance either moved away or lost interest altogether. And gradually the beauty – both natural and man-made – of the southwest Georgia enclave was covered over by the litter of a population that became unconcerned with its appearance. Litter became an epidemic, and despite annual communitywide clean-ups and special efforts by some of the city’s top corporate citizens, the city is one of the trashiest in the nation.

I took a trip to Tifton over the weekend to see Brinley’s and Elizabeth’s dance recitals, and I noticed that when Tara and I crossed the Worth/Dougherty and Tift/Worth lines, the garbage that lay often in massive piles along the roadways diminished exponentially. When I returned home and took a walk around town earlier this week, I was amazed at the amount of trash piled up on city streets and parking lots just in the couple of blocks surrounding the Herald’s offices.

Such trashiness is a sign of a population that just doesn’t care, most people who add to the growing piles of litter displaying an attitude of “why should I clean up after myself when the city’s got folks who’ll do it for me.” That kind of attitude is evidence of a population that has gradually traded pride of ownership and self for entitlement and the idea that they’re “owed” the necessities and desires people with more pride get for themselves through hard work and fiscal responsibility.

It’s the same kind of attitude that has voters in Dougherty County turning out in totals that are less than 10% of the registered voting population. Sure, these denizens of the entitlement culture will complain – especially if they miss out on some service they feel they’re owed – but when it comes to helping elect caring candidates to represent them and spend the tax money generally collected from the working people who do not constantly have their hands out expecting some new freebie, they haven’t got the time.

The pioneers, business leaders and solid citizens who helped turn Albany into a thriving metropolis decades ago are mostly gone now, or they are living out their senior years in bewilderment, wondering where the great city they helped build went.

But that city built on the backs of hard-working people led by caring elected officials who had the best interest of the community at heart when they decided to seek office is no more. Now, there is enough corruption in local government to fill the Dougherty County Jail that is falling apart because officials have ignored its needs. And the glorious waters of the Flint that offer up natural beauty and recreation are only now being given the opportunity to flow clean after decades of kicking the need for improved sewer projects down the road, leading to numerous spills that filled the waters with waste.

Yes, those people who made Albany a vital part of Georgia are almost all gone. And the people who’ve taken their place have allowed this city to deteriorate from its position as a jewel of the region to a diminishing community whose best years are behind it and whose future is doomed to obscurity if things don’t change soon.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].