Big Brother can motivate a husband

Wives, are you looking for a way to motivate your husbands to clean up the yard?

David Lee, enforcement officer with the Decatur Community Development Department, has a solution, passed on by Catherine Godbey.

David reported during a meeting that a woman called the department’s weed, junk and litter hot line. Before supplying any information, she got assurance that she would remain anonymous.

People calling in violations don’t want their names listed for a variety of reasons. In this case, the woman was reporting her own home.

She couldn’t make her husband clean up the yard, and she thought a little urging from Community Development might inspire him.

White House thanks

Mark White, owner of Tortillas Blanco on Market Street in Athens, received a letter from President Bush thanking Mark for the tortilla chips he sent. The president visited Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant on June 22, and Mark sent a bag of his chips with Mayor Dan Williams.

“But the mayor had to give the chips to a member of the president’s staff, so I wasn’t sure if he ever got them,” Mark told Holly Hollman.

Mark mailed more chips to the president.

Celebrity autographs

Mark’s letter, which he plans to frame and hang in his restaurant, says President and Mrs. Bush “wish you well” and “may God bless you.”

The letter will hang with menus signed by people like former Alabama coach Gene Stallings, former Auburn coach Pat Dye and singer Billy Joe Royal.

Chief justice at Starbucks

Doug Greenburg, husband of ABC legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg, entertains their four children at her book signings, as he was doing recently at Brewer High School.

His wife, a 1983 Brewer grad, wrote the New York Times best-seller “Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.”

Doug told Ronnie Thomas about the book signing that ABC hosted at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, where the family lives. One of their three daughters, Louisa, 8, became restless.

“I went over to her and said, ‘Louisa, have you said hello to the chief justice (John Roberts) yet?’ Doug said.

“She replied, ‘Come on, Dad. I met him before at Starbucks.’ ”

Respect your mother

A mother in Sicily complained that “my son does not respect me, he doesn’t tell me where he’s going in the evenings and returns home late. He is never happy with the food I make and always complains.”

She cut off his allowance, took away his house keys and took him to the police station for a lecture. The son is 61 years old. Reuters news service reports that most Italian men live at home late into their 30s, enjoying Mom’s cooking, washing and ironing.

Send stories for You Don’t Say to steve@decaturdaily.com, or call Weekend Editor Steve Stewart at 340-2444. Or write P.O. Box 2213, Decatur, AL 35609. Daily staff members contribute many of the items you see here. This column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.

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