Don't you just hate it when someone you don't recognize walks up, calls you by name and then waits for a response?

It's almost as if these folks take pleasure in watching people like me suffer the embarrassment of not knowing who they are.

Sometimes, they'll break that silence by saying, "You don't know who I am, do you?"

The silence is rather awkward, so after suffering years looking stupid, I just decided to be honest.

"No I don't. Refresh my memory." Nine times out of 10, the person says their name and I immediately remember them, thinking, "No wonder I didn't recognize you, what with how much different you look now than you did in high school."

I'm thinking the same thing about myself. "How in the world did they recognize me? I don't look ANYTHING like I did in high school."

The situation becomes really awkward when the person identifies him or her self and I draw a complete blank in that I don't have the foggiest idea who they are or where I am supposed to know them from.

Maybe that's never happened to you, but it sure has to me on more than one occasion.

Such was not the case this past weekend, as I did recognize a high school friend once he told me his name — Steve Crocker.

Steve lives in Newberry now and plays golf at Newberry Country Club, which is where I ran into him. I haven't seen him in, oh, 40 years or so. We graduated from Gaffney High School in 1969, but had known each other since grammar school at Central, where the Cherokee County History Museum is now located.

The one thing I remember most about our younger days is going over to his house on Chandler Drive. We'd light cherry bombs and use slingshots to bombard the neighborhood behind his house. I think his older brother, Larry (a.k.a. Bowser) was the instigator or it could have been Jimmy Masters, who lived across the street. I'm sure neither Steve nor I came up with that idea.

Something else we used to do for fun in those days was ride our bikes behind the "Spray Man."

That's what we called the city employee responsible for mosquito control. He drove around town in a jeep with tanks on the bank spewing huge clouds of some sort of chemical that killed mosquitoes. That had to be REAL healthy, but we were just doing what our parents told us to do: "Go outside and play."

I don't think the city has any kind of mosquito control program in effect these days, and what I hear from some city residents, it's quite evident. They say you can't go outside near dusk without getting eaten up by the bloodsuckers.

Things have certainly changed since those days what with all kinds of laws and codes and rules various governments have enacted to keep us all safe and sound.

That's probably a good thing — in most cases.

Sometimes those same rules and regulations designed to "protect the public" and make everything safe end up with the opposite effect.

Denise Ferguson, owner and operator of Sadie Mae's Cafe, was close to realizing her dream of moving her establishment from a little hole-in-the-wall miles from nowhere to a larger, more convenient location in the City of Gaffney.

She was scheduled to open up her new restaurant on Meadow Street tomorrow. But as she has discovered, there are numerous building codes that must be followed before that can happen.

For whatever reason, she wasn't aware of all that was required by the city and state and much more work must be done from bathroom size to parking spaces to architectural drawings.

I'm sure the city inspectors are just doing their job, but surely something can be done by their bosses at city hall to waive some of these requirements that won't endanger the safety of her customers.

I don't care about how big the bathroom is or how far away I have to park.

This is a woman who just wants to cook good food and make a decent living doing it.

I talked to her Tuesday morning and she thought she had everything worked out so that she'd be able to open in a couple of weeks.

She called in tears Tuesday afternoon after a visit from inspectors who outlined what she'd have to do to open. She's already spent most of the money she had saved and borrowed for this venture.

Sure, she erred because she did not know what she had to do. She's not a part of a national chain with corporate lawyers to direct her. She is not even an experienced business person who understands government red tape.

She's a woman who settled in Cherokee County and came to love this place she now calls home. I'm hoping the powers-that-be at City Hall can figure out a solution that will enable her to open and at the same time satisfy any safety issues.

Our leaders say they are business-friendly. Here's their chance to prove it.

If riding a bike behind the city spray man didn't kill me, I don't think eating dinner in a restaurant with a smaller-than-code bathroom is going to.

Cody Sossamon (cody@gaffneyledger.com) is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.