“Mr. Ervin,” or Ernie, as many called him, died in 1998, a decade and a half after Perdue’s mother, Miss Ophie, died. In the late 1960s, as neighbors recall, Miss Ophie would sometimes halt traffic out on Ga. 96 in front of the Perdue homestead so her Sonny, returning home from the University of Georgia in a single-engine plane, could land and taxi into their driveway.Perhaps I'm making too much of a single story, but that feels like a window into the governor's mindset. There have been several instances the past eight years where it looked like Perdue was using state resources to better his situation, or his friends, or his businesses.
There was Oaky Woods, the retroactive tax break, the unexplained and generous loan one of his businesses received, this situation with the port in Savannah, the time he had a second control stick installed in a state helicopter so he could fly it and the way the governor inserted himself into the widening of Ga. 96 through his native Houston County — the very road where his mom used to stop traffic so he could land his plane.
To a certain extent, every governor sees the state's resources as his to use. How can you not? You are everyone's boss. You've got a state trooper to drive you around. You were elected to manage these resources. Most people around you act like they're yours, so in a way they are.
But if you learn, at an early age, to land your plane on a state highway and taxi right into your family driveway ... I don't know. That seems like a lesson that sticks.
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