Up & Coming Weekly

4 UCW DECEMBER 16-22, 2009 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM PUBLISHER Bill Bowman bbowman@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Janice Burton Joy Kirkpatrick editor@upandcomingweekly.com STAFF WRITER Stephanie Crider stephanie@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING/SALES Tabitha Kidd tabitha@upandcomingweekly.com OFFICE MANAGER Suzy Patterson suzy@upandcomingweekly.com –––––––––––––– GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alicia Miller art@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Soni Martin, D.G. Mar tin, Pitt Dick ey, Margaret Dickson, Bob Cogswell, John Hood, Shanessa Fenner, Erinn Crider, Shannen Dill, Karen Poppele, Takeema Hoffman –––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan Street P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: (910) 484-6200 FAX: (910) 484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and infor- mation on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per per- son. Subscriptions can be purchased for $30 for six months or $60 for 12 months, delivered weekly by first class mail. ©2007 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. STAFF Internet Directory ............................ 12 Calendar ........................................... 16 Concert Connection ........................ 21 TV ..................................................... 22 Movie Review .................................. 24 Movie Schedule ............................... 25 Free Wheelin' Feelin' ....................... 26 News of the Weird ........................... 27 Horoscopes/Advice Goddess ......... 27 Classifieds ........................................ 28 Games .............................................. 30 Dining Guide .................................... 31 INSIDE A Wake-Up Call Everybody Should Get by JANICE BURTON JANICE BURTON, Associate Publisher COMMENTS? editor@upandcomingweekly.com. PUBLISHER'S PEN As most of you know, I work two jobs. During the week, I spend my days on Fort Bragg, and my evenings working on the publication. The two are as different as night and day. Working on Fort Bragg as a Depart- ment of the Army civilian isn't a whole lot like being in the Army. But, we do get our share of Army direc- tives to follow. One of the most aggre- vating of those directives is the annual training. We have all kinds of required annual training. It all has to be done by September — but we start getting nasty grams about it in February. This training is the same training that our military coun- terparts take. There's infor- mation awareness training, sui- cide prevention training, drug and alcohol abuse training, etc. Most of it is just an annual chore. I usually take one day during the holiday season and knock it all out, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Last week we were hit with the annual safety briefi ng. We all rolled our eyes and looked for a way to get out of it. And there was no way to get out of it. So, we headed off to the auditorium to sit through what we expected to be two hours of complete boredom. That couldn't have been further from the truth. The training was presented by the N.C. Highway Patrol. The patrolman who spoke that day was a former Marine. He had a wicked sense of humor, and a passion for his message. From the start, I knew that it wasn't going to be the same humdrum train- ing we've come to expect. He was up front. He let us know that his topic was serious and that the content was graphic. I still don't think that prepared most of us for what we saw that day in the auditorium. He talked to us about speed and about distractions while we're driving (and yes, he hit hard on the idea of texting while driving.) But he did more than talk. He showed us what really happens when we don't pay attention to the road, and it's not something I'll forget any time soon. His examples, for the most part, were pulled from our area. There were crashes that resulted from speed, from texting, from drinking and driving. The results were tragic. In one photo, there was a picture of a small car smashed into the size of a dining room table. In that car were fi ve people, who lay trapped, dying with no way out. It was a tangle of metal and glass, with body parts intertwined. Why? They were speeding. In another wreck, a mother, her daughter and her grandchild were all killed. The daughter and grandchild (who was less than 2-years-old) were ejected from the vehicle because she was not wearing her seatbelt and the child was not in his car seat. The mother did have her seatbelt on — incorrectly. It anchored her only at the hips and as her vehicle fl ipped and turned she was batted around the vehicle like a volleyball. It wasn't pretty. There was more, a lot more, that we saw that day. I haven't quit thinking about it yet. I was talking to my son about it, and pointing out things that people were doing that could cause wrecks. He asked if he could write a letter to the general excusing me from the train- ing from now on because he thought it really freaked me out. He was right. Having seen the damage that can be done out of carelessness, stupid- ity and arrogance, I received a wake-up call that everyone should get. As you travel during this holiday season, be smart. Wear your seatbelts. Plan your travel so that you don't have to go 90 miles per hour. Most of all, pay attention and be kind to others on the road. It only takes a second for your world to come crashing in around you. Don't be that guy.

• Cover