Oh, there's been a little progress since I left dear Moreland nearly 30 years ago. 

There's a new brick post office, for instance, that succeeds the old wooden one. 

Somebody even built a couple of tennis courts in Moreland and there actually is a Moreland exit sign on Interstate 85, which missed my hometown by three miles to the north. 

Still, after all these years, Moreland has remained a quiet little blip on the map, a haven for those who have no use for city lights. 

So you can imagine just how shocked I was after reading a letter I received from Alan E. Thomas, who works in Atlanta. 

Alan E. Thomas wrote to tell me that he and his wife have spent the last three years constructing a new farm home in Moreland. 

"Like so many others," he wrote, "we're leaving city life and beginning to experience the wonders of the country. 

"At night we can step out on the deck and actually see stars again and hear the crickets, frogs and whippoorwills and spot herds of deer crossing from one tree cluster to another." 

Ah, such splendor. Such peace. 

But Alan E. Thomas and his wife and other Moreland citizens suddenly are faced with a problem I never thought could happen there. 

Jet noise. 

I can recall the noise of freight trains rumbling through Moreland nights during my childhood, and once a local turkey farmer got upset because he said the Baptist church's chimes made his turkeys nervous. But jet noise? 

Alan E. Thomas writes that the Coweta County Airport Authority wants to expand its little facility, which sits just on the outskirts of Moreland, so it can accommodate corporate jets. Corporate jets? 

I doubt any corporate jets would land there to do any business in Moreland. There is the expanding county seat of Newnan nearby, but any corporate jets with business in Newnan simply could land at Hartsfield. It's only 25 miles away. 

Alan E. Thomas wants to be able to continue hearing the rural night sounds and not have them drowned out by the menacing roar of a jet engine. 

He and others have suggested a new airport be built somewhere else. But the airport authority has explained that the Federal Aviation Administration will grant funds for a runway extension but not for a completely new airport. 

Governmental red tape and bureaucratic bumfuzzle strikes again. 

Mr. Thomas has suggested I become an ally in the fight against jet noise in Moreland, and I assure him he now can count me on his side. 

Moreland and Newnan need a place for jets to take off and land like they need a MARTA station, and rural nights should still belong to the crickets, frogs and whippoorwills. 

Fight like hell, my fellow Morelanders, and save the sacred quiet. 

Once that's lost, God forbid, a traffic light is sure to follow.