A friend phoned me after reading Greg Edds’ special and Rodney Phillips’ letter to say she thought Greg had written the perfect Rowan County plan, but after reading Rodney’s letter, she had “High Hopes” by Doris Day stuck in her head.

I told her Greg hadn’t written the perfect plan because he hadn’t said anything about littering, releasing balloons or banning tobacco in the parks. The song spinning in my head for Rodney was “I’m Your Puppet.” And he also used the word “recreate” that I didn’t understand, so I had to reach out to a wise man to get its meaning.

The sage told me it was when two people come together to have the most fun they will ever have and neither one of them has a smile on their face.

We then discussed branding, logos, acronyms and visions. About daylight, it dawned on us that  Greg and Rodney could use a good theme song to play on their way to get on top of old smokey RoCo.

Here’s our plan.

To get the entire county excited, we need one volunteer from each town and a 15-passenger Chevy van to carry us to Cabarrus County for a retreat. They have a beautiful park with real log cabins and a lake where the air is fresh and clean.

Once the song is chosen, we’ll head out for that great big mall to shop, and when it’s 5 o’clock, we’ll dine somewhere.

We have some guidelines for applying:

1. Do not apply if you are a preacher, etc. We are a non-prophet outfit.

2 No politicians. We already know your favorite song, “Two Faces Have I.”

3. If you’re planning on buying a mattress or ordering fries with your footlong, stay in RoCo.

4. If you don’t have money left from your fixed income, and just want to recreate, you can stay at the park.

If you like to smoke after you recreate, you better stay home, too.

— Whitey Harwood

Rowan County