Dear editor,

Now I understand the Nuevo carpetbaggers want us to have a gazebo built on the square in downtown Covington. After following the trails of these folks for a number of years now, it seems that rather than an enhancement of our precious antiquities, they are more interested in showing off their "talents’"to the world.

Our beautiful downtown square is already being trashed with the concerts which are going quite the distance to destroy our magnolia trees, albeit it may take a while. The compaction of the soil is killing the trees. I honestly believe they would just go ahead and cut them down if it were not for the possibility of being lynched, so they have taken a more clandestine approach. It takes a few minutes to cut down a tree, but it takes scores of years to replace it.

Why is it that in many towns, there are signs which say, "Keep off the Grass" on the square? Well, the answer is quite simple; they don’t want their beautiful trees killed!

Maybe we should just buy these people some of Donatello’s, Michelangelo’s or DaVinci’s greatest works and a can of paint. There is no difference in defacing our square with anything that is not a part of the original art. If you are an attendee at these concerts on the square, you are an active participant in destroying out magnificent trees.

Just remember this isn’t Paris, and this isn’t the Louvre and you aren’t I. M. Pei. Leave our stuff alone, move the concerts off the square, or go somewhere else where maybe people would welcome your ideas for transforming their antiquities into something they aren’t. Fukushima comes to mind.

Samuel M. Hay, III

Covington, Ga