George Fluker Jr. has trouble hearing out of his left ear.
All it manages these days is a buzzing sound. It's gotten progressively worse since the late 1950s, when a tree limb caught Fluker on the side of the head while he was operating a bulldozer.
And a few years ago, a doctor told Fluker he was experiencing the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
"It comes and goes most of the time," the 68-year-old Fluker said while perched next to a cooling fan inside the garage of his home on Rising Sun Circle. The doctor told Fluker that the best thing he could do to ward off the disease was to stay busy. So he does, operating the "shade-tree" mechanic shop that he has since 1970.
But his business is causing him headaches now. They're being caused, Fluker said, by the Leflore County Board of Supervisors.
On July 25 Fluker received a letter from Board Attorney Willie Perkins informing him that his business is in violation of the County's Residential Zoning Ordinance. The letter was one of four the board sent to landowners whose properties present "a menace to the public health and safety of the community."
"I don't know what the problem is," Fluker said. "Ain't nobody said anything to me. All I got was a letter, but I haven't heard anybody say anything. I don't know where the complaints are coming from."
Fluker conducts his business - carving up the insides of crippled cars - at two locations: at his home on Rising Sun Circle, or just around the corner, on County Road 245. Both spots are zoned as residential property. To operate a business on them, they would need to be in the commercial category. But that's not what has people complaining; it's the clutter accumulating around the properties.
Car shells and scraps are tossed around and abandoned, and neighbors - particularly on County Road 245 - have been making complaints, according to Zoning Enforcement Officer David Fondren.
Fluker's son, who works with his father and lives across the street from him, says the complaints are politically motivated.
"That's what's going down," said Darrell Fluker, 44. "It's just all political. It's election time, and you know what happens when it's election time. People try to stir something up.
"I tell you something else: Some of these folks we do work for, they don't like the price we give them. So then they want to do something to try and shut us down."
Jeff Reed, 76, said he has lived on Rising Sun Circle his entire life and passes both of the properties every day.
"They don't bother me," Reed said. "I ain't got no problem with them. I ain't even heard no one complain about either of them. All I can think is, it's the politics."
The elder Fluker says he wishes people would respect his privacy and "stay out of my business," just as he does theirs.
"I keep all my trees trimmed," said Fluker. "And I cut my grass every week at my house. I even cut the lot across the street where nobody lives, and I don't get paid nothing for it."
Fluker adds that every time it rains, the street at the end of his driveway floods.
"The county should do something about that," he said. "But I don't complain to nobody. I don't complain about nothing. All these other houses (on Rising Sun Circle), they got stuff out in their yards, but I don't care."
District 4 Supervisor Wayne Self, whose district includes both of Fluker's properties, said he believes Fluker will get the problems handled.
"He's really cooperative," said Self, who has described the property on County Road 145 as a "disaster area." "I really truly believe that he will do everything possible to get within regulations. I don't think it will be a problem."
The board of supervisors, on Sept.4, decided to give Fluker two weeks to get his property mowed. After that, the board said it would address the zoning issue.
"I just do the best with my situation," Fluker said.
