From the AJC...

The remains of an Air Force pilot from Decatur who died during the Vietnam War have been recovered and will be returned to his family for burial 35 years after his death.

Maj. John L. Carroll was flying a mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos, on Nov. 7, 1972, when his small observation plane was hit by enemy fire and forced to land, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.

Once on the ground, Carroll, 32, radioed search-and-rescue helicopters that he intended to stay in the aircraft.

Two helicopters attempted a rescue but were turned away by intense enemy fire, the DOD said. Another recovery attempt was also unsuccessful due to enemy fire. That pilot, however, was able to see that Carroll had been fatally wounded, according to the DOD press release.

I bet InDecatur will be able to provide good additional insight into this story…until then…

• Here’s the DOD’s official release, which indicates that dental comparisons were used to identify the remains

• Here’s a bio of Maj. John L. Carroll

• Here’s the official Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Website 

Oakhurst’s Bridgette Vassar ranks 7th among the Creative Loafing feature: Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People (“a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city”).

Vassar’s “Silk: A Smoothie Cafe“, which is located on West College at Feld Ave, has struggled to lure in customers due to lack of foot traffic and a marketing campaign. And if it seemed like things couldn’t get more bleak…

Judgment day may come sooner, however, as she recently found out that a Boise, Idaho-based coffee house and bistro, Moxie Java, plans to open its first metro Atlanta store on the opposite end of her retail strip.

“They have smoothies on their home page,” she sighs. “It gives me pause. I don’t think two places like that can survive here.”

An excellent review on Yelp mentions that in addition to smoothies, teas and coffee, there is free wi-fi, boardgames, books and magazines available to all customers.

Hopefully Silk can hang in there and not go the way of recently evacuated Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Decatur loves its little independent places, hopefully we can keep this one going.
Spend locally!

Born and raised north of the Mason-Dixon, I was brought up to believe in a few certain basic “truths”. Like that the tooth fairy would always leave money under my pillow, or that the Red Sox were forever-cursed by the sale of Babe Ruth in exchange for a crappy Broadway play, or that a yellow traffic signal meant “proceed with caution”. One by one, all of these wonderful fables have come crashing down upon me. First the tooth fairy refused my request for more than a quarter, then the Red Sox crushed the Cardinals in four games, and finally this morning I was nearly T-boned by a jacked-up Ford F-150 at the intersection of Hill St. and DeKalb Ave under a flashing yellow light.

How I long for the time when I could revel in my hatred of the Sox and believe that a flashing yellow meant “proceed with caution”. However, I will never experience these feelings again, because its no longer the 2004 post-season and because I live in Atlanta, Georgia.

In Atlanta, a flashing yellow to some means “do the courteous thing and stop for the poor souls stuck at the flashing red”, while to others it means “slip into the slipstream of the car in front of you and blow through the intersection”. While option 2 is certainly less safe, I would argue that its the well-mannered drivers in option 1 that really put paint jobs at risk.

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