The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has known it needed a new visitors center on the North Carolina side of the park since the early 1980s. Finally, it appears the nation’s most-visited national park is going to get one, and the communities surrounding the park should be glad the time has finally come.

By Linda Watson • Guest Columnist

Recently, a member of my family was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease at Duke University. This diagnosis came after a nightmarish struggle to obtain proper diagnosis from local and regional physicians, all of whom (without exception) diagnosed her as having an anxiety disorder, prescribing anti-depressants. These medications only made matters worse and did nothing to advance a careful and thoughtful diagnosis.

I am a firm believer that the world would be a much better place if everyone just grew tomatoes.

This thought came to me the other night; I was making pizza for the family and wished I had some fresh tomatoes to slice for the topping. Earlier that day I was working in the garden admiring my tomato plants, the small green fruits were no larger than golf balls, and I was already anticipating the harvest of my first juicy, red ripe tomato.

You need some space. Believe me, I understand. The closets are so full, it takes two of you to press the doors closed — turn the knob to open one, and you risk a broken nose from the sheer force of stuff pushing out, like a dam bursting, unleashing a torrent of stuff. I know it’s dangerous. The shelves, all of them, every one in the entire house, are covered over with stuff. It is like kudzu, threatening to swallow the entire house by the end of the summer. Something has got to be done about it, all of this clutter. There is no room left for anything, not in this house, no space for a hairpin, no place to put a pocketful of change.

This is about war, but only from a distance. When I read about deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan, it mostly seems a world away. On the rare occasion it gets personal, I can’t help but be reminded that war, particularly this war, seems a waste of young lives.

We want the state Agricultural Research Station in Waynesville to remain open, but the Senate budget proposal that attempts to weed out duplication and conduct agricultural research more efficiently isn’t such a bad idea.

7:37 a.m. — Snatched out of sleep by the ceaseless opening and closing of drawers. Goodness, woman, what can there be in those drawers? I turn over and groan dramatically, and she laughs without sympathy. A long night grading papers and checking box scores on the Internet. Finally, I remember: Today is race day. I hear Jack chattering on the monitor, scolding his stuffed giraffe about something it seems. I’d better get moving. Coffee, coffee, coffee ...

The road, it appears, stops here. Now, elected leaders and citizens must demand a timetable for the $52 million settlement due Swain County.

A whole lot of residents and business owners are excited — and that’s putting it mildly — about Ghost Town’s May 25 re-opening. It’s probably the most anticipated business event in years in Haywood County, and there’s good reason to believe that the additional tourist traffic will have a positive economic impact on the entire region.

The kids are doing their best to amuse themselves there at the water’s edge, but they are past restless. Something needs to happen, and sometimes when you’re fishing, not much does.

“Dad, can we skip rocks yet?” Dylan wants to know. Seven years old in another five weeks, he’s the oldest.