Who thought it would be so much trouble punching in three additional numbers before every phone call?

I have become very familiar with an ear-splitting beep this week followed by an annoying mechanical woman’s voice:

“We’re sorry, when placing a call it’s now necessary to dial an area code followed by the seven-digit number. Please hang up and redial using the complete 10-digit number.”

When I ordered pizza. When I called the office. When I sent a fax. When I called home. When I called … anyone inside the 336- area code.

A frustrated caller to the newspaper office last week said she thought we had changed our phone number. She had at first hung up after the loud beep, not waiting for the message.

How much time has been wasted, how much frustration has built across our area code this week because of the change?

At my age, it’s hard learning new tricks.

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Does anyone else find it remarkable that two Davie County natives — more particularly two Center community residents — have had such a profound impact on Davie County High’s arch rival on the east side of the Yadkin River?

On Sunday, West Forsyth High School named its performing arts center for retired teacher Jim Anderson, who taught at West for 30 years. As he did so many times while helping direct plays and theater performances at West, Anderson packed the auditorium on Sunday as former students came back to say thank you to their old mentor.

On hand to participate in the program was another Center community resident, Jerry Peoples, a former West Forsyth principal whose name is enshrined on the Titan football stadium.

Peoples may have a Davie County address, but he may still be driving a Titan green pickup truck and has worn his West allegiance proudly into retirement. During a Davie-West football game maybe 20 years ago when the Titans had the War Eagles on the ropes at halftime, Peoples urged his troops, “Don’t let up!”

If Anderson brought good English, theater arts and culture to West Forsyth, Peoples instilled the will to win in athletics and academics.

• • • • •

It may be time to change that little ditty about April showers. This April was extremely dry. May, however, is off to a drenching start with three days of intermittent rain, sometimes very heavy. The Yadkin was at the top of its banks on Tuesday. The grass seed I spread in mid April may finally come up.

• • • • •

Three fired Mocksville policemen are finally having their time in court this week as a U.S. District Court judge and jury in Winston-Salem hear their stories of mismanagement and misconduct in the police department before they were fired in 2011. They have had to wait through appeals that reached all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Whether their complaints are true or not, the Mocksville force has undergone a drastic change since then with the appointment of a new chief. The three veteran officers, Lt. Rick Donathan, Maj. Ken Hunter and detective Jerry Medlin, knowingly put their jobs in jeopardy when they complained. We are eager to hear their stories under oath and the Town of Mocksville’s defense.

– Dwight Sparks