The time is approaching for one of the long-standing, communitywide, whole family social events of the year. The 50th annual Kiwanis-sponsored pancake breakfast at the civic center is scheduled for 7-11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 24.

It's hard to realize this has been a community fixture for a half-century. Tickets are $5 from any Kiwanis member and at the door. Your boss, doctor, lawyer, merchant, employee, accountant, relative, all members will be greeting you and dishing you up pancakes, butter, syrup, fruit juice, sausage, milk, coffee and all the trimmings.

Members of the Kiwanis-sponsored Key Clubs will be waiting on the tables keeping you supplied as you eat and helping clean up when you leave. You'll catch up on the gossip and goings-on, meet and talk with in social settings politicians who wouldn't miss it for the world and make new friends. More than 2,000 will be served with others taking orders home.

Proceeds support the county's many Kiwanis-sponsored youth service projects ranging from more than $15,000 in annual college scholarships, support of a number of other youth-related projects, development and support of several temporary homes for homeless families with schoolchildren, purchase and distribution of dictionaries to every third-grader in the county, etc. Get to know your friends better and make new ones. Like the annual Wauka Mountain Chicken Pie Supper up in North Hall, this is one total family social event you don't want to miss. See you there.

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Longtime friends keep dying. I'll miss the likes of Rev. Vernon Grimes, a legendary Baptist pastor at a number of Hall County churches. Jane Plaginos, who remarried after her husband Paul Plaginos died, made her mark in our community in several ways. She was an attorney and avid civic worker. She and Paul owned the local theaters, Paul operating them. He was one of my first regular advertisers when I owned The Gainesville Tribune.

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First steps have been taken in trying to recall Hall County Commissioner Craig Lutz. I may not agree with some things he did, but I also don't agree with a lot of things other public officials do. Doing what they think is right under the circumstances during their terms is their sworn duty. Simple disagreement doesn't in my view reach the required threshold for recall. The best place to remove one from office in most cases is normal election time.

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This special bipartisan congressional committee named to find a solution to our country's monetary problems needs to devise a workable and passable solution, and Congress needs to adopt something akin to it that the president won't veto or by a margin to overturn a veto. To do it, the congressional spoiled kids need to begin to act like responsible adults. There are plenty in both houses and in both parties. This may be the last train out of town.

If something isn't done, expect many new faces in Washington, probably in both houses and maybe the White House. The American people are fed up and getting angrier by the day.

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Here are some IRS 2009 figures, the latest available, to ponder. The 2 percent of Americans who were millionaires paid 20 percent of all the 2009 income taxes. The 3 percent of Americans who have at least $200,000 of adjusted gross income earnings paid 54 percent of all income taxes. The rest of us who earn less than $200,000 paid the remaining 46 percent. Because of regular credits and refundable credits, etc., about half of the rest also paid no income taxes though workers did pay payroll taxes.

I'm among the so-called "hard hearts" who believe every active earning worker should pay some income tax, even if only a flat $100 minimum. That gives everyone a stake in our country.

Ted Oglesby is retired associate and opinion editor of The Times. His column appears biweekly on Tuesdays and at gainesvilletimes.com. You can reach him at P.O. Box 663, Gainesville, GA 30503.