People keep trying

I was in Forsyth this morning. I needed to search a title in Monroe County, so I headed out Georgia 16 to Interstate 75, then drove down the interstate to Forsyth. Exiting the interstate, I pulled into Hardee's for a sausage biscuit and iced tea. When she gave me my change, the lady at the window handed me eight passes to a drag race in Cecil, Georgia. I don't know where Cecil is and don't really have the desire to go to a drag race. Perhaps I can give the tickets to someone else.



At any rate, I left Hardees and headed up the hill to the courthouse square. It took me awhile to find a parking space. As it turned out, they have completely reconfigured the courthouse and you now enter from what they call the north entrance. My sense of direction was off, so I didn't really know where north was. As it turned out that is the entrance across from Grits Cafe, which is somewhat of a landmark in Forsyth.



Anyway, I went into the courthouse and had the deed record room all to myself. It has never been that crowded in the deed record room in Forsyth, but this was really spooky. And somewhat incongruous, since the square has really seen some renovations over the past years, as new restaurants and shops have opened up to handle the growth of Macon northward toward and into Monroe County. I counted three or four restaurants on the square and several new offices and shops along the square.

Now I have noticed that three or four new restaurants are opening in Griffin, as well. Even as a lot of restaurants and restaurant chains are closing. There is a certain spirit. The spirit of the entrepeneur. I have noticed that some such entrepeneurs seem to lose their spirit fairly quickly. It is sad.

People keep trying.

Esprit de corps

I have been utilizing facebook over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it takes some of the time I would ordinarily use for my submissions on this blog. We live in an odd world. We have so many ways to communicate with others, but seldom use the modes of communication we have for anything serious. With facebook, I have thrown a net out on the internet and have caught quite a few people who I knew in the past. On the other hand, I have been caught myself by people who are apparently connected to me, but whom I cannot remember to same my life. It is rather strange. It is like fishing. You never know what you are going to catch. Or for that matter, by whom you are going to be caught.

For example, I caught my former roommate at W&L who is now a surgeon in Arizona. I caught a classmate from law school at Georgia who now lives in Irvine, California, where Cindy's family used to live and where I was married. I caught two people with whom I went to high school, only to find that they both lived in Griffin for some time several years ago. I caught a number of people who I have not had any contact with over the years and probably had little contact with, even when I was in high school.

But we all have connections and facebook makes use of those connections in order to link us together. It doesn't mean we are any closer. I graduated with a guy from Dunwoody. We didn't really have much close connection when we were there. I don't suppose I spoke with him more than a handful of times in school. However, I caught him on facebook. Now he is a missionary in Benin on the west coast of Africa. He has been for twenty years. So now, someone with whom I had little contact when we both went to school together knows more about me than he probably knew then, yet lives on the other side of the world.

Odd indeed.

Still, it is nice to make contact with someone I knew before. It makes me feel like I am not alone, even though I am really not alone anyway. Still, the group to which I am attached, however tenuously, is now bigger. A large net of fish. And I can make us closer, if I so choose and they decide that that is alright as well.

On the other hand, we are not that much closer, in the real sense. No, we are still separated by time and distance and the years that have fallen between us since we inhabited the same high school or college or law school or little league football team. The connections sometimes are stronger in my mind and memory than in reality.

For I can still see Bud Schreiber in Fort Myers when we were down there in 1970, playing football against a little league team from Fort Myers and I can still remember the sadness of those little boys, thirteen and twelve, crying in the visitor's lockerroom after we tied the Fort Myers Rebels 0-0 on a cool night in December. We had not lost or tied a game the entire year. Going into the game we were 12-0. And yet there we were in the lockerroom in Florida, weeping for failing to win that last game.

And I remember standing on the field at North Dekalb Stadium talking to Bud Schreiber after we beat Chamblee High School in the final football game of our senior year at Dunwoody. And Cody Conarro and Eddie Jackson and Blake Mitchell and Gene Geeslin and Frank Hovey and Tom Schreiber were all there. All guys I played with in little league, who were now together on the opposite side of a high school football game, but brought together one more time. Before college and law school and work and marriage and children and whatever. Some of the same little boys who shared a good cry in a room in Fort Myers, Florida.

Esprit de corps, to some extent. I suppose.

A surprising Spring day and Lebanese food for lunch.

Today Cindy and Kate and I drove closer into town and Cindy wanted to eat at some southern/italian restaurant and Kate wanted to eat at Ali Babba's and I wanted to eat. We ended up eating at Ali Babba's which is a middle eastern restaurant on Kingston Pike in Knoxtown and seems very out of place. The owners are Lebanese and are very sociable and fun. Kate ordered shishkabob and Cindy ordered shishkabob and the owner told me he was going to suggest a special lunch for the boss. I ended up eating something called King Solomon's chicken, which was both breasts of chicken, served with a rice dish with peas and ground lamb and specie-spices and it was delightful. Cindy ended up changing her meal to stuffed eggplant which was also quite good.

I am going to tell you that their food is extra special and we enjoy it quite a lot when we come to Knox-town. It seems like it ought to be in New York or some other northen city rather than East Tennessee, but the experience is worth it.

Tonight we had pork tenderloin with ginger and rice and tomatoes and green beans and red wine and then we went out onto the back porch and enjoyed the last few drops of sunshine before we had to go back inside. It was quite delightful.

Today, I dropped Kate off in front of Target and noticed that the rain had blown pink petals all over some of the cars from some cherry trees in the parking lot. It was such a pretty decoration it reminded me of weddings and other such romantic things. Kate thought I was making fun of her. But not really.

Afterward, we went to Macallister's Pub and ordered three large cups of the finest iced tea in Christendom. Bar None. No Exceptions. Try It.

Anyway, tomorrow we return home and get to see a few of the nieces. It will be fun. And Cindy will finally get home.

The cat always gets the last word

You know, if you thought like that for real then you would soon lose your grasp and you might fall into the whirlpool. Forever.

There will come a moment tomorrow when I will feel differently. Hooray!

I wish I could quantify the difference. Perhaps then I could figure out whether I am an optimist or a pessimist.

As if that is a worthwhile endeavor.

Tex is my dog. Tex is old. An old dog. He growls and grumbles and barks at all of us, from time to time. But we still love Tex. Why?

Is it because he is soft and he allows us to hold him close to us and pretend that he is our pet, rather than the ownership being on the other foot. By that I mean, as with any pet, it is sometimes hard to determine who is in charge.

I don't think Tex cares. Tex is willing to put up with us as long as we feed him and let him poot and tinkle on a regular basis. He is even willing to put up with our desire to control him, to a point. He does this because he is a pack animal, meaning that he follows the pack, whether it is the one he was born into or one he takes on.

I have heard that at some point a dog left his pack and joined the human group around the fire. He supposedly did this because he could take advantage of the humans by getting a regular meal around the fire.

This concept does not feel right when you apply it to very small dogs. Yip! Yip! Yip! I guess they got to eat too. "She was the winner, that became the doggie's dinner." Thank you, Nick Lowe.

Anyway, that began all the connections between dog and man, healthy and unhealthy. So along with the saint bernard pulling the skiier out of the snowbed and Lassie pulling Timmy out of the well, we get my elderly cousin Minnie, living in an apartment in Jacksonville with toy poodles who nipped her hands and peed on her drapes.

I have loved all of our dogs, even the ones who were bad sometimes. I appreciate dogs enough to enjoy the mascot of my Law School alma mater. To whoof in a crowd of red and black.

But I am enough of an appreciant of cats to realize that everything has its limits, even dogs.

The cat says, "Get real."

The cynic's weekend

Tomorrow is Friday. Which means the end of the week. Which means that Saturday awaits us after Friday, and a day of rest and recreation and doing what I want to do rather than what I have to do. Perhaps. Then comes Sunday, beginning in church, then a nap in the afternoon to regain my equilibrium and to finally feel rested. And the day ticks away quickly until I have to sleep hard in order to put off Monday and the beginning of the new week. And it starts all over again.

Thursday is pleasant because Monday and the new week are three days away and it feels safe, because there is enough time and enough of me time between now and the beginning of again. In my mind it feels restful because I can feel the end of week, but again is far enough away to feel far away.

So I cherish Thursday, because it feels safer than Friday, less foreboding than Saturday, and less of a waste than Sunday.

It is all ticking away and I can't do anything about it.

Bygones

I drove down Highway 18
All the way from Zebulon to West Point
And the gradual dissolution and erosion
Of grand, old cotton plantations
And peach groves tracked across the hills
Was evident in the knots of bushes
And pine groves entwining,
And the simple lack of use.

The old country stores on the side of the road
Sadly, were slowly falling away, brick by brick,
The evidence of sales, long past
Fading on the rusting signboards
The occupants moved to cities
And towns with a better chance of livelihood.
Even the train tracks have been removed
The abandoned ties lying in stacks;
No way out except the cracked asphalt beneath me.

Springtime and showers

The forecast for the next five or six days is rain. This morning when I watched a bit of the weather they were showing a radar screen which was covered with rain across the southeast from Texas to Georgia. It is supposed to be getting cooler and raining through the first of next week.

I don't know all about that, but I do notice that the sky in the west has been alternating this morning between a dark purple and a medium grey. I am waiting for the deluge. So far, it is still dry outside.

So many of the local trees are covered with blossoms. Fortunately, I think it is early enough so that the rain, unless it gets too heavy, will leave the blossoms on the trees. I know the dogwoods are a butter yellow right now. There is a dogwood tree outside my office window and it is covered with butter yellow blossoms. Two bluejays were playing among the branches the other day. Noisy birds.

I wonder what the state of Spring will be like in Knoxville this weekend? I remember when I was still in school in Virginia, when we came home everything looked so green and decorated with the pastel colors of Spring. Meanwhile, Virginia's decoration came several weeks later. Of course, that meant that Spring Semester at Washington and Lee was glorious. Watching baseball and lacrosse out in the bright sunshine. Sipping on bourbon and coke in the stands at Wilson Field. Travelling to Maryland and UVA for lacrosse games under the blue skies. Of course, it poured down rain in College Park when we saw the Maryland/W&L game at Scott Stadium. Freshmen in college are not so smart that they will avoid deluges for important lacrosse games.

Anyway, I still have a lot ot do this week, before I can leave to go pick up Cindy in Knoxville and bring her home.

The Spring flows through like a river

Kate and Idecided to buy shoes today. So we changed clothes after the work day was over and drove over to Tanger Outlet Mall where I bought a pair of Bass Weejuns and Kate bought some Nike running shoes. Afterward, we drove up to McDonough and after Kate shopped for some things at Target, we ate salads and sandwiches at Longhorn Steakhouse before returning home. Now it is time to go to bed, take the artificial eyes off my eyeballs and read before falling off to sleep.

This will be a long week, I fear. By Friday, we should head up to Knoxville and join Cindy at her parent's house in Concord. Hopefully, it will be as warm as it is here during the day.

Spring has really sprung here. There is an apple tree in the back of the parking lot behind my office and it sprang to life on Friday, full of white blossoms. The redbud and the dogwoods are in serious bloom. The grass is greening up from the hibernation of Winter. Birds are everywhere.

I have been listening to the Allman Brothers. They definitely sentinel Spring for me. The wail of the Hammond organ and the screaming of the twin guitars, backed by the drums and bass is truly something to listen and appreciate. The sound is blues, mixed with jazz, even some country from time to time and gospel. Everything is a wonderful, jazzy mix of genres.

I wanted to contact Winton Marsalis and see if he appreciated the jazz mix of their music. I really hear the jazz influences in their music, just like in Santana's music. You take different elements and mix them together and it turns out something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Cotton candy trees and pink fluff on the branches. Every shade of green from a tender, light green of the budding trees to the dark green of the grass. There is a constant breeze, coolness mixed with the sunshine. The lemon yellow sunshine, sweet and tart as its beginning. A perfect time for a soft, soft sweater to allow us to handle the coolness of the breeze and enjoy the life, the vitamin D flowing from the sky. The canopy canvas of baby blue. Painted with fleecey clouds from cottons balls across the sky. The world is opening. Opening. Opening. We open our arms and gesture to the sky and sun above, receiving as we are received. We are caught up in the arms of the early year, the infant year. A mother's love providing solace and peace and joy for the new world.

Springtime pursuits on Sunday

I understand that it is impossible to regain lost sleep. However, I did sleep late today after getting to bed relatively early, for me on a Saturday evening. I then went to church and sang in the choir, predominately at the request of several members of the choir. I say that not because I am so needed in the choir because of my talents, but because of the dearth of tenors available this morning.

After church, I found that Kent Bugg and LaGrange College were playing Centre College in baseball in LaGrange. So I went home, asked Kate if she wanted to go, and we drove to LaGrange for the game. Along the way, I ate a hotdog and drank an orange drink.

Thereafter, Kate and I sat in the stands in the bright sunshine, blue skies, and above the green, green grass of the baseball field, and watched the baseball game. We sat and talked with Bob and Roi Bugg and enjoyed the afternoon.

It is hard to get to a point where I could exemplify the All-American afternoon anymore. I forgot to mention the blooming of the redbuds and the dogwoods, the budding of the trees in Spring. Everything was soft pastel and softness of Springtime. It was a bit cool, but tolerable in temperature. There were parents who had driven down from Kentucky to watch their sons lose the rubber game against LaGrange. There were families who had driven over from their homes to support their sons at LaGrange. What better sacrifice could be given?

The only thing else I could do was to call my momma and then call Cindy and try to include her in the Springtime joy.

And that was the day we had, here in Middle Georgia. Hard to beat, I would say.

Friday and Saturday are gone now and Spring is here

Last night we drove up to Atlanta in two cars, because the ladies thought it would be uncomfortable to drive in one car, we ate supper at Six Feet Under, where I had catfish tacos with cheese and jalapenos and cabbage and green salsa, then went, en caravan, to the High Museum, where we joined and got everybody in for Jazz Friday and the Chinese Terra Cotta Soldiers and the final Louvre without additional payment for tickets, then wandered, like people who haven't slept for several days while trying to look at the exhibits through half-lidded eyes, then drove to the Varsity and ate hot dogs and onion rings and orange drinks, both frozen and otherwise, until it was time to drive home, which we did with half-lidded eyes and blood flowing through the veins therein, until I almost ran a red light near home and could finally get home and find a place for Kate's friend, Brandon, to sleep, only to find that Megan had not slept with her mother, but was sleeping quite soundly in the room we were going to use for Brandon, but we found a couch for him and went to sleep, then woke up at 9:30 this morning and Kate woke up and helped me fill the house with the smoke of cooking bacon and a ton of grits and toast and coffee, until everyone had awakened and eaten breakfast, with the exception fo Megan who woke up around 11:30, which killed any chance the girls had to leave for Knoxville so that Megan could get a good nights rest at home, until they had shopped at Perimeter for several hours and then at Trader Joe's so they could connect with their inner Californians, Megan being the only true Californian, but not really finding any real desire to shop at Trader Joe's, but they got home by 10:30 to Knoxville, when we were watching the end of Cat Ballou and getting ready for bed and now I am tired, as I have been all day, and my day is truly at an end since nothing else is worth watching anymore, unless there is more basketball, but I am not really worrying about that at this point, but to just quit this and finish turning off the lights and so the day has come to an end with somewhat of a whimper, even though Kate and I noticed that this is probably the first time when the two of us have been together when Cindy was away from home.

I do remember that when Kate was small, that Cindy could not stand to be away from her, even though she could go with Kate to California or Knoxville or Dunwoody or elsewhere, whereas, the idea of me taking Kate on a trip of several days was out of the question. Now we are all adults and the circumstances have changed.

The comfort of my own bed in my own house is calling me.

Football lessons and anxiety

Well, it is 4:16 and I am back in the living room watching a television show and writing on this thing. I wish I could revive my situation quickly. I wish I could right myself. It is frustrating. I am writing my frustrations on this page. I am trying.

Opportunity comes at us. The difference is being capable of taking advantage of the opportunity. I see this. There are opportunities around us all the time. We are shuffling down the street. Grey shuffle down a grey street. Ashes around our feet.

From time to time, someone will have something they can share. Something which is good for both of us. Amongst the grey faces shuffling down the grey street, their eyes capture your face, light on your grey eyes.

And you must be ready. That is the trick.

I will say this: it is probably not easy when you are losing sleep, sitting in your living room in the early morning hours, worrying about it all. I acknowledge that.

Right now, the economic situation is bad. Even in a time like this, there are opportunities. The smart person keeps his eyes open and puts himself in a position to grab the possibility. When it happens.

When I was a junior in college, I was having a problem performing on the football field. I had developed a hitch where the play would start and the action would begin. As the action of the play would come toward me, I would freeze and try to think what I should do. I developed an infirmity where I was stuck with my feet frozen to the field, trying to figure out what to do. There was too much effort in the moment trying to analyze the situation and respond intelligently.

Between my junior and senior year, I learned something. In football, like most sports, you have to practice vigorously, so that when you play the game, you react to the action around you in conjunction with the lessons you learned in practice.

You don't have time to recreate what you need at the time of execution in order to respond to the action around you. If you try, you will miss the opportunity and the ballcarrier will be running past you down the field.

To complete the analogy, in football, the game is controlled by possession of the ball. When you are playing defense, you are trying to wrest control of that ball from the other team. When the opportunity arises, you have to be able to grasp control of the ball, or at least the ballcarrier. At that moment, you can't depend on your ability to react. You have to be aggressive and act, rather than react.

The difference is taking the offensive and being in charge, rather than reacting to what is happening. Being offensive allows you to grasp the opportunity when it presents itself. In that situation, your average will be higher, because you'll be taking the game to the other guy, rather than grasping at what comes your way.

All this to explain that you have to be ready to take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself. That, unfortunately, doesn't resolve the worry. It is still there. And so I am still up at 4:53. Being an adult can be so much fun.

The Beginning of Spring and March Madness

There is nothing like manning my office by myself. No one to answer the phone. No one to blame when you get stuck talking to someone you don't want to talk to. No one to gripe about the temperature.

It was a pretty day. There is supposed to be a chance of rain tonight, but I just walked the dog and it did not seem to be precipitous. Butler got beat. VCU is getting beat. Western Kentucky is not holding on to their lead. What is Cousin Jeff thinking?

Life in the loan lane is getting harder. Everyone is making it harder to do your work. Placing obstacles in your way. I got a lender excited today, but I am not sure I will be able to help them. Everything is getting harder these days.

Tomorrow is Friday. It would be nice to get some checks in the mail. The check is in the mail. Oh, is that right?

We had a good community group meeting at the Reahards. A good supper and good fellowship. It is good to have such a group meeting on a regular basis. It is like Wednesday night fellowship supper. It helps get me through the week.

This doesn't seem like a March Madness which is going to lead to a number of really good upset games. I always want upsets, particularly in the early rounds. Leading to a profound Cinderella in the end. Perhaps the best example was in 1979 when the ultimate Cinderella, Indiana State took on Michigan State in the final. That was Larry Byrd against Magic Johnson. Too bad Larry and the Sycamores didn't take it.

I remember when Georgetown took on North Carolina in 1982. Patrick Ewing against Michael Jordan, James Worthy and crew. That was a team. And Georgetown almost beat them. If they had, we would have shared a case of beer in celebration. Too bad Sleepy Floyd threw the ball away in the last few seconds.

Of course, I also remember when North Carolina State upset Houston and Fi Slamma Jamma. That was cool. And the final four with Florida State and UCLA or the year with Western Kentucky, Jacksonville and UCLA. Or North Carolina State with David Thompson. That year, the best game was the overtime victory of North Carolina State over Maryland in the ACC Tournament. Back then, only the winner of the tournament got to go to the NCAA's. After battling North Carolina State even for five quarters, Maryland lost and went back to College Park and next year.

Oh Well, enough of that. Go to bed, Thomas.

"Eat a Peach for Peace", Duane Allman

I woke up and the weather dude was saying that it would be sunny and warm, high in the low seventies today. However, when I took the dog out I couldn't see anything. The fog covered everything and it was cold. I went back inside and put on my white cashmere sweater.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, the fog had burned off and it was in the low seventies.
At some point in the afternoon, I left my office and realized that it was a perfect day. By four o'clock, First American was offering me a witness only closing in Lizella.

At first, we thought it was in Musella. So we looked on the mapquest and realized that Musella was about an hour down 341 from Griffin. That is where the good peaches are purchased, by the way. I told the witness only dude that I couldn't make it by 6:00 o'clock, so I told him maybe by seven. So the dude told me I could make arrangements with the borrowers.

So I called the borrowers. They said they were going to church and wouldn't be back until eight thirty. So I said, eight thirty would be fine. So I talked to the husband and he said fine.

So Kate and I went to church and ate supper and then brought Cindy's supper back to her (she was having minor health problems). We watched her eat for awhile, then decided we would go back to the office to download the package. When we got back to the office, Patti had downloaded the package and arranged it. There was nothing else to do but drive to Dairy Queen.

After buying our Dairy Queen, we set the controls on the GPS and drove down to Macon. When we got to Macon, I knew we had more time than we needed to get to the borrowers, so we drove into Macon and posted a couple of letters. We drove past the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. We noticed that the sign for the Otis Redding was showing that it had come to an end last year. So I drove Kate past the Douglas Theater where Otis got his start, then we drove up through the center of town. Finally, we started to head back to our ultimate destination: Lizella.

Then the GPS reset itself and directed us back into town, where we were directed to a u-turn on Mulberry Street and found our way back to our destination: The Macon Opera House. The Macon Opera House? Why did the GPS direct us back into town to the Macon Opera House?

We didn't know. So we asked the GPS to direct us back to Lizella, politely. And it did, ultimately, reluctantly. I knew we shouldn't have ignored the directions of the satellite. It was fun for awhile, until the GPS started re-directing us. You just can't play with satellites and computers.

At one point in our journey, Kate thought it would be appropriate to listen to a little Allman Brothers music. So we drove down past H & H and somewhere near the Big House and around near where Capricorn Records used to be located, listening to an Allman Brothers medley. With the weather the way it was, it was hard to beat driving around Macon, Georgia, with the ghosts of the brothers running around the streets. We even caught the strains of a concert in one of the parks near Mercer. It was part of what makes Central Georgia a cool place to live. Even in hard times.

For the last hour or so, we have been cleaning up the middle bedroom upstairs. Or trying. Now we are watching a rerun of Daily Show. It is late. I am tired. I don't know why I am sitting here writing on this computer.

Kate wants the computer, so I will hangup now.

By the way, March 26 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Allman Brothers Band. The road goes on forever, dudes.

"Eat a Peach for Peace."

I still remember the trip

When he is playing Jack Bauer, Keiffer Southerland is awful mean and tough for a Canadian. I guess he is a Canadian. At least a part-Canadian. We ate ham and green beans and dressing pones for supper tonight. Yum. Hard to beat.

Even without gravy. Dressing pones go well with turkey and pork and chicken and probably even beef. I would like to have yorkshire pudding with beef and mustard. That sounds like a good English meal. Fresh peas. Trifle. Sherry. A good sharp cheese.

Then we would go into the parlor outside the dining room and smoke a cigar while sipping on a brandy. That reminds me of a supper I shared with my compatriots from W&L at the dining room of the Red Lion Inn in Salsbury. The Red Lion is an old coach inn with a central courtyard. We drove in in the afternoon and settled into our rooms. Later, we walked down into the dining room and I ate a nice meal of leek soup, Scottish roast beef with potatoes, a glass of red wine, followed by a selection from the cheese board. Later, we settled into the smoking parlor and enjoyed cigars and brandy.

In retrospect, it seems that that scene might not have happened after W&L went coed. The scene would definitely be different.

We also enjoyed a delightful breakfast at another coach inn in Yorkshire, this one outside of Harrogate. We had enjoyed a nice supper the night before, but the breakfast was truly sublime. I sat down with the early Spring sun shining through the windows. White tablecloths and flowers in the center.

They brought me a pot of good English breakfast tea. They even brought me a lemon. Then I asked for porridge, with brown sugar and real cream. I even had fresh-squeezed orange juice. That is far and away my favorite breakfast. It stood me in good stead as we walked around the grounds of the next grand estate we visited that morning. Later, we ended up in Thirsk, staying at a bed and breakfast. I think that was one of the few times I watched English television. We watched a bizarre program in which a family was depicted where the parents were going out for the evening and the Irish sitter arrived to care for the children. She brought the children a statue of a bleeding heart, wrapped with barbed wire. I never could quite grasp the tone of the show. It was funny and strange.

In the last few weeks in which we stayed in England, I spent a lot of time at the University of London, doing research in their drama library. In the evening, we went to pubs and just lived in Bloomsbury. If I had had a laptop computer with a wifi access, I could have sat in local pubs and written about my travels. Instead, I waited for thirty years and sat down in my living room and remembered the good times and the bad.

I will say this, by the time we got to the end of the six weeks, I was growing tired of England. I was ready to get back to Atlanta and the delicious humidity of Summer. I had to travel over to the American Embassy. I remember taking the underground to Grosvenor Square and popping up on the surface to see the American flag flying over the American Embassy. There was something cleaner and brighter about that flag than the Union Jack I had been seeing for six weeks. Then I went to the embassy and encountered the Marine guards at the entrance. That was impressive as well.

The night before my flight departed Heathrow and arrived in ATL, I shaved my beard. By the time, I could feel the humidity through the tunnel from the plane to the International Concourse, I popped up into the waiting area and there were my parents. It was good to be home.

Monday morning blues

The cars at the intersection have their lights on;
The raindrops are plopping in the rainspout
And the worms are crawling on the pavement
Trying to find some refuge
From the third day of rain.

Nothing like a Georgia Winter and a grey Monday morning.

David

I am quite sure that this week will bring conflict and struggle. I am watching 'Kings' on television. It is a modern retelling of the story of David and Saul, as found in 1st and 2nd Samuel. It is quite interesting how closely they are playing this story to the Old Testament story. It is a very interesting story.

It is a grand story.

Sunday morning blues

I woke up this morning. The dog was in bed with us. The morning was dark; we are on Daylight Savings Time. It was only 6:30 this morning. But I got up anyway and went out and watched television for awhile.

Now it is later and the house is still and lit by a grey morning light. I am sitting in this chair and I can hear the rain coming steadily.

Chris Isaak is on the television, talking to Trisha Yearwood. She is from Monticello, Georgia, just about forty miles east of here on Georgia 16. Now she lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Garth Brooks. I guess she lives in Oklahoma. She hasn't actually said.

Chris Isaak is interesting. He is a few months older than me. He was from Stockton, California. Which probably meant that he listened to country music as well as rock and roll as a child. He has an old fashioned sound.

I remember driving over to Monticello awhile back, before they expanded the old courthouse on the square by adding a whole other courthouse on the back of the original. At the time, they had a picture of Trisha Yearwood hung up in the front lobby of the courthouse. I have got to believe that is the only courthouse with a country singer's picture in the lobby.

I guess I will get up and get the coffee prepared so when Cindy and Kate get up they can start it up. It is still raining. I guess that will last for awhile today.

Why is it that I get to Sunday and always wish it was still Saturday morning?

The gift of St. Patrick

St. Patrick was taken prisoner by pirates
And brought unwillingly into slavery
To sit naked on a green hill in Ireland,
Wondering at the possibility
Of his deliverance
Until a voice came to him on the gaelic wind
And led him homeward.

At that point, Patrick did the unbelievable
And left the safety of home and hearth
And returned to the place of his captivity,
Unlike the ancient Israelites,
And made his prison his new home.

Perhaps that explains why St. Patrick
Did not find it necessary to God's plan
That he wander for forty years
In the desert of his own making.

First cause/response

Do you understand that there is nothing inconsistent
Between the concept of the "Big Bang"
And "In the Beginning, God created the Universe"?
Just the lay of the land and the route by which
The highways were laid.
And if I continue to consider the poetic explanation
Which lays the origin at the feet of a Creator
How does that effect you
With your books and beakers and scientific process?

Perhaps not a whit. Except to say that at the end of the long day
We sit together, side by side, staring at the selfsame stars
And I should be thankful while you have
Nothing you really need to say.

I suppose we both might appreciate the light of the heavenly bodies.

Angels and the problem of God

Man, and by that I mean, men and women,
Believed for generations
That there were angels amongst us
Delivering messages, watching over us,
Doing the dirty work of God,
Until the Fifties came and went
And all of a sudden with the B movies
And the conspiracy theorists
We started believing that these angels
Were actually aliens from some
Distant planet or solar system
Coming to earth, watching over us
Delivering their own messages
Basically doing everything the old angels did
Except representing God,
Who was strangely absent
In the new world of atom bombs
And Hiroshima and Nagasaki
And the ovens of central Europe.
Somehow it was easier to believe
In life from other planets
Coming to help us, experimenting on us,
Picking up a few good old boys
Out on the lake,
Dealing with our lives ,
Rather than continuing to accept that the God
We had always believed in and worshiped
Could possibly still be there,
Soaring above us, like a great raptor,
With his host of angels.

And yet the problems still exist
And God may still sit there in continuous thought,
Wondering why we don't just
Come back home to Him.

A relaxing morning

I woke up and you couldn't tell that it was raining, until you took the dog out. Then you found that there was a consistent mist and it really grates on you when you are trying to talk the dog into finding a suitable place and moment to relieve himself and he seems to be sampling every spot by smell. It makes you wish you didn't have a dog, or at least you had someone else who would walk the dog.

Nevertheless, that task was accomplished and the dog was back inside and you sat down on the couch and watched a movie and waited for everyone else to wake up. Meanwhile, the dog was scratching his itches and you found the other container of orange juice.

And suddenly Kate was up and she said good morning to you before she stepped into the shower. Then Cindy got up and wondered what the Hell you were watching. And then asked you if you had prepared her coffee. And she mentioned to you that she had defrosted bacon and that would be good for breakfast. And then the coffee was made and you poured a cup for Cindy and a cup for Kate and then you brought them their cups. And Cindy mentioned that she needed toast.

So you went back into the kitchen and you put a slice of bread into the toaster and asked her what she wanted on the toast and she said cream cheese, so you put cream cheese on the toast and brought it to her. And she said that the cream cheese was too lightly applied. So you took it back and applied more cream cheese. And then the bacon was ready and you brought it to her.

Meanwhile, you were readying the dishwasher for another run. And finally, it was time for you to eat toast and bacon. And you sat down and Cindy squnched her face up and asked if she had drank Kate's coffee, because it had sugar in it. And she had. And you swapped the cups and everything was fine.

So you took the dog and bathed him and showered yourself and then you dried yourself and dried the dog. And Cindy suggested that you use paper towels to dry the dog completely. And you did. And Cindy took a shower and dried her hair and dressed and finally, it was time to leave for Atlanta and you turned on the dishwasher to run while you were out.

Then you took the dog out for a last time and pulled the car up so we could leave. And Cindy walked through the kitchen and remarked that the kitchen was a mess again.

But as you pulled out, she said, "Well, was that a nice relaxing morning?"

"Oh yes."
It got better with the Guinness and the corn beef and cabbage. Of course, I could have done without the stepdancers.

Rain, rain, rain.

Friday fell on the Thirteenth of the Month, again

Today was the second Friday the Thirteenth in the year. And it lived up to its billing. If we consider 13 to be unlucky because the thirteenth guest to the banquet was Judas Iscariot, then Judas arrived today. I followed the morning arrival of Judas by trying to keep my chin up. Above the level of the water. Now it is Friday night and I am sitting in my living room while Cindy watches a rerun of a show and Kate appears to be asleep. Tomorrow will be another day and tomorrow we get to visit dad in the hospital and then take care of the Miller sisters. Doesn't that sound like some sister group on Lawrence Welk?

I don't have an accordian so I don't know what to play for the girls when I get there. I guess I will just try to keep them moving and worked up until they get tired and decide that it will be ok to go to sleep. I know how that works. I have seen it before.

Meanwhile, Kate will try to have a good time with her freind, Beff. She, who is here from Charleston, will spend some time with Kate tomorrow afternoon. Where it goes from there is a guess.

Meanwhile, I just wish I was in Savannah, listening to Irish music in Kevin Barry's with a pint glass of Guiness.

But this is the Thirteenth Day of March, falling on a Friday. Fun.

Unexpected diversity

Again, Cindy and I went to our group meeting and I am thoroughly flabberghasted by the diversity in our little group. In our group, we have the following:

1) Retired Delta pilot, who is from Huntington, West Virginia, graduated from Marshall, where he was classmate with students who perished in a tragic airline crash, then flew fighter planes in Viet Nam as a marine pilot.
2) His wife, who grew up in a little town in South Carolina and has followed him around the world and raised two amazing children.
3) Retired pilot, born in Lima, Peru, the son of a Braniff pilot, who followed his dad into the airline industry.
4) His wife, who grew up in a little town in Georgia, one of two native Georgians in our group.
5) The other native Georgia, the only one who grew up in Griffin, who served in the Army in Washington DC and Atlanta, then worked as bank officer, accountant and teacher.
6) His wife, who was raised in Pennsylvania and Peru, then was educated in Switzerland and Hollins College, before coming to Georgia and marrying her husband.
7) My wife, who is from New Orleans, trained as a sailor, educated in California and teaches in technical college.
8) A retired English professor who grew up in Pittsburgh and Maryland, served in the Army and taught English in Georgia before retiring and serving on missions in Czech Republic and Rumania.
9) His wife, whose father was native of Russia, grew up on farms in Kansas, Colorado and Washington before marrying her husband and settling in Georgia.

And we are all living in the Griffin area, attending First Presbyterian Church and meeting on Thursdays at our hosts' house in the country of Pike County.

Huntsville, Alabama, 1965

In 1964, our family moved to Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville was a little town near the Tennessee border. In many ways, Huntsville was like any little town in Northern Alabama. I remember visiting the farmer's market and seeing turnip greens and peas and vegetable and fruits which I had never seen or heard of. Downtown Huntsville was much like any other county seat in the south. It could have just as easily been the scene for To Kill a Mockingbird.

Outside our subdivision were fields and fields of cotton. On the north of the subdivision were woods where we found sassafras. Suddenly, we were walking down the street and picking bolls of cotton of the plants and finding sassafras root for tea. Everything was old South and a skip back in time. Or so it seemed.

The difference was that in the 1940's, the U. S. Army had brought a bunch of German scientists, as prisoners, to the area, and these scientists had developed the rockets and spaceships which sent our Mercury astronauts into space. These scientists lived and worked in Huntsville.

When we moved there, NASA was working on the science which would send the Saturn V rockets around the moon and ultimately land a man on the moon. Our fathers went to work in the morning and worked on the science and technology which would slip the bonds of earth and send us to other celestial bodies.

So, for the year and a half we lived in the odd combination of the old south and the space age which Huntsville provided in 1965.

Unique childhood

A little more about my dad. Sometimes you don't really know what is going to catch your attention and let you know that your family is unique. For instance, when I was a young boy, my father used to drive a Hillman car. A Hillman was a small British-made automobile. The particular Hillman which my father drove was a small grey sedan, designed like a miniature panel truck. Two seats. No airconditioning, unless you count the vents on the side of the windows. No radio, unless you count the transistor radio with the grey leather case which he kept in the car to provide entertainment. I seem to remember my dad listening to folk music and the two of us singing "If I had a hammer," along with Peter, Paul and Mary.

When Frank and I were young boys, we used to play in the neighborhood with the other children just like everyone. However, when it came time to go home at the end of the evening, my father called us with a somewhat unusual instrument. When we travelled home to Tennessee to visit our grandparents at the farm, my grandfather polled the horns of the Hereford cattle on the farm. My father took a couple of the horns back to Indiana and cut the tip of the horn and polished the cut tip so he could safely place his lips to the horn. Suddenly, my father had a novel instrument with which to call us at night. So when everybody else was hearing their dads calling them by name from their homes, we could hear the mournful low of a cow horn coming from our front door.

When Frank and I were young, my dad got it into his mind that he wanted to breed beagles. We had a studly looking male, Jinx. My dad bought a nice looking female beagle and put them together, with dreams of little beagles running through his head. Unfortunately, it was not to be. So the hope of baby beagles passed on to the next thing. Which, oddly, ended up being calico cats.

We had an albino cat named Holly. She was sweet and deaf and had problems with her tail. However, after we had had her for sometime, somebody else dropped another albino cat at our doorstep. What are the odds? This albino cat was as skinny as a "bag of bones," so my dad called it bones. Bones was living with us for a few weeks, when we found that Bones, despite her svelt girth, was pregnant with kittens. Suddenly, we were covered up with tiny calico cats.

It turns out that albinism runs in calico cats. So we had two albino calico cats and a whole herd of little calico cats. Obviously, my dad was talented at breeding calico cats where he failed with beagles.

When we lived in Indianapolis, our neighborhood was on the edge of a lot of farmland. It was common for fieldmice to come into our house. One time, a field mouse came into the kitchen and my mother chased it out, but not out of the house. Instead, the mouse seemed to secrete itself beneath the blanket chest near the kitchen. Frank and I were keeping an eye on the bottom of the blanket chest for the mouse. Finally, I told Frank that Momma would really appreciate it if he took a string and a safety pin and went fishing for that mouse. Frank being the dutiful son, went and acquired a string and a safety pin and went fishing for the mouse. After an interminably long time fishing, my mother found Frank and told him to stop fishing for the mouse.

I loved Indianapolis. I had a lot of friends and we had snow in the Winter and sunshine in the Summer, a short Spring and leaves and apple cider in the Fall. Not to mention, football, basketball, circuses and the Indiana State Fair. Indian Guides. Mercury astronauts orbiting over our house. Laying in the grass, watching the clouds.

When I look back at my growing up and I see the Hillman car and the beagles and albino cats and catching mice from under the blanket chest, it was just ideal. Hard to beat. And Huntsville, Alabama and Dunwoody, Georgia were just around the corner.

Paternal iconic moments

I was thinking about my dad today and came across some fairly iconic moments in my life which involved my dad. For instance:

1) My dad told me that, "Goats is good people." I don't know what that means or if it has a meaning beyond the surface. Does it refer to the differences between the sheep and the goats as referred to in the New Testament? Does that mean that the goats are as good as the sheep? Who knows? Maybe God. Maybe my dad. Maybe both.

2) My dad told me often, "Don't stick beans up your nose." I never knew what that meant, until one day I said, "Dad, I wouldn't do that." And he replied, "Exactly." [Aha moment]

3) When I was in college, I found a stray cat which I named General. About the first day that I brought him home, he decided to climb up in a pine tree in the backyard, from which perch we were all trying to coax him without success. After several hours of effort on our part, my father called home to check in and I told him the whole story about the cat in the tree and our unsuccessful efforts to remove him from the tree. After listening to my story, Dad paused and said, "Son, have you ever seen a cat skeleton up a tree?"

4) The very first day that my father met my best friend, John Boswell, we picked John in the driveway of his parent's house. I exited the passenger seat and attempted to try to get John situated into the backseat of my father's Ford Pinto. As I maneuvered the front seat to allow him room to get in the back, my father said, "John, do you suffer from hemorroids or piles?" That was John's first introduction to my father.

5) One summer, Frank and I brought some bottle rockets home from Tennessee. One evening, about ten of us were standing in the front yard trying to launch a bottle rocket into the sky. As we lit the wick and watched the bottle rocket shoot off into the sky, we noticed its trajectory was aiming over toward the house across the street, which was owned by the neighborhood crank. It disappeared behind the house and we could hear the report of the gunpowder inside the rocket exploding somewhere behind the house. Everybody scattered to the four winds. Frank and David Balfour and I quickly ran into the house and slid into the den where my father, mother and sister were watching tv. We slid into the group, panting like puppies from the exertion. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Without a pause, my father, who never answered the door, got up from his chair and answered the door. It was the neighbor. The neighbor started the conversation by saying, "Your boys set off a rocket and exploded it in front of our kitchen while we were eating supper." My father stood there staring at the neighbor, then replied, "How many boys were there?" The neighbor said, "There must have been about ten or twelve." To which my father replied, "I only have two boys," and closed the door.

6) Finally, when I was a young boy living with my family in Indianapolis, my mother looked out the kitchen window and noticed that I was chasing some of the neighborhood kids around the backyard with a lead pipe. She quickly ran out the back door and took the lead pipe away from me. A few moments later, my mother looked out the same window and noticed the same kids dragging me around the back yard by a rope tightly secured around my neck. Again, she ran out, chased the neighborhood kids away and removed the rope from my neck. Later, when my father called from work, she told him the whole story of the lead pipe and the rope. After a pause, my father said, "Perhaps you should have quit while you were ahead."

There were probably other moments, but those are the ones I remember.

Monday gone

It was warm again this morning, but the skies were dark when I first took the dog out. Surprise, we had an early Daylight Savings Time. That meant that Sunday morning came way too early and that when it came time to get up and start the day, the day wasn't waiting for me.

On the other hand, the day drifting longer than previously so that when Cindy and I ended our little errand with the Chinese Restaurant and returned with our supper, it was still quite light outside.

The economy is still drifting down like a leaf in November. We are past the time when the leaves are pretty on the trees. Now they are brown and crusty and sometimes they linger on the tree and let us know that the tree is dead.

I know that companies and businesses come and go and many of the businesses that I remember from my youth have been gone for a long time. However, these days I seem to take note of some of those companies and businesses more accurately than normal.

I was never much of a fan of Circuit City; however, they are now gone after sixty years of business. Of course, Lums has been gone for some time, limited down to one or two restaurants in South Florida. You don't see any Howard Johnson's restuarants anymore. Those orange and blue roofs are no more. You don't see many Holiday Inns on the highways. I distinctly remember staying at Holiday Inns all over the south when I was young.

I remember stopping at a Holiday Inn in Manchester, Tennessee, on our way from Atlanta to Clarksville, back in the days before I-24 was completed between Chattanooga and Nashville. I used to love stopping at Holiday Inns. There were simple ones and fancy ones, depending where they were located.

Maybe Kate will get to see that old Holiday Inn in Manchester when she goes to Bonaroo this summer. Something tells me the place they celebrate Bonaroo is not as pristine as the fields aroung Manchester were back in the early 70's.

But I am looking forward to sunny days when we can go fishing and enjoy the morning. It would be nice to find a spot in North Georgia and spend the morning trying to coax a little trout to the surface, then sit around the cabin with a glass of wine and a steak, watching the sun go down behind the mountains in the west. That sounds relaxing.

Speaking of relaxing, why am I still awake? It is 11:47.

The sweet joy of Spring

Last night we drove up to Atlanta and we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, then to the parking lot for Trader Joe's on Monroe Drive. What a disaster of people trying to all occupy the same space at the same time. That was fun.

In the midst of that I just wanted to leave. Even as nice and cooperative as everyone was being, or trying to be. And I could feel all the people squeezing together and looking into their faces and seeing fun or concern or joy or sullenness or nothingness. And trying to avoid or join in for a second. Just a second.

And people were walking around. All around. In different directions. Like a basketball game without a ball and no patterns. No baskets. No goals. Just movement together and not.

After we left, we were trying to figure out where we would go for supper. And I told Kate to pick heads or tails. She chose heads. So we drove over to Virginia Highlands and I dropped Kate and Cindy off in front of Osteria 832 and went down the street and turned and found a parking space and walked back up to the restaurant and we checked in at the front and then went over to the bar and ordered a bottle of good red wine from Spain. As we drank our wine, they finally called us over and took us outside to sit down outside for the first time when the end of Winter seemed within our grasp.

Then we relaxed and ordered crisp salads and a bowl of mussels, in a white sauce with garlic and tomatoes and basil and a bowl of bread. It was delightful. The pizza with olives and capers and eggplant and red peppers was good too. The flavors were savory. We ordered more bread after the mussels were gone so we could dip the bread in the sauce.

Later, Kate bought us gelato for dessert. What a night.

Then we had to lose an hour.

Saturday at home and beyond

I got to drive back to Columbus this morning. Woke up way too early and then drove in to the office to download the loan package, then drove back down U.S. 19 to Ga 18 to Ga 85, on to Pine Mountain and U.S. 27 to North Columbus. Only to find that the borrowers were supposed to give me a check for $1300.00, which they weren't prepared for. So they couldn't get back in touch with the loan officer, so they decided to hold off on the loan until they talked to her. So I got back in the car and drove away, and called my contact person, and he said that was a mistake and they weren't supposed to give me a check and that they would correct that later. So I drove back and rang the door bell and the husband was talking to my contact dude and so I sat down while they tried to get the dogs back into the back room and quiet them down to prevent the twin toddlers from waking up. And then they debated closing or not until they could talk to their loan officer. Then, finally, they decided to wait for Monday. So I picked up my paper and headed back to Griffin. Then I ate a can of canned chili and took a nap. Now I am a little bit more awake and Kate is bothering Tex and he is making noise and we are waiting for Cindy to dress so we can drive to Atlanta, which is not necessarily something I want to do, since I drove to Columbus twice in the past twenty four hours. But it is so pretty out now and the sun is out. And Kate keeps bothering Tex.

When will it stop?

Tex is the dog.

Leave him alone, Kate!

Bloomsbury memories

Umbrella in hand,
Topcoat draped across the arm
Walking through the grey mist of a London Spring;
Heels clicking on the cobblestones
Stepping smartly between the columns
At the entrance to the British Museum
On my way to University College London
And back to Goodge Street.

The bright sunshine of May
Springs forth through the clouds
And the flowers wear their finery
From the gardens of Russell Square
While the tall-hatted gentleman
Ushers me in to his hotel's lobby
When I am late for lectures, museums and plays.

Sharing a pint in a green velvet pub
Decorated with portraits of Dickens and Woolf
And Yeats and Darwin
The echo of their footsteps lead us onward
From Victoria and Albert
To their grandson, King George V,
Who honored his duty in response
To his brother's flight
With the woman he loved
Shedding the flesh and blood behind
For the marble statues of Buckingham and Trafalgar Square .

Good old Jeremy
Is sitting in his box
As an example for the generations to follow :
Let us gather together
And ponder his lesson
Or follow Oscar's example
And appreciate the beauty
Of a simple Easter lily,
Warding off the Phillistines,
Waiting in the groceries and gas stations
And airports of America.

The waters are deeper than you think

You just don't really know what you are going to find when you sit down in a group and the members of the group start talking about their lives. Several weeks ago, we had a group meeting from church and found that one of our hosts was born in Lima, Peru. Last night, we found that one of our group members, while being born in Pennsylvania, had also lived in Lima, was partially educated in Switzerland, received a college education in a women's college near W&L, then found her way down to Atlanta. You just don't know how deep the water lies around you.

It is important to show interest in the people around you. You never know what you might find. I always thought that Cindy was exotic for being from New Orleans. I guess there is exotic and then there is exotic.

Influenza and the limits of sickness

On Sunday, we drove throught the cold and wind and snow back home from Knoxville. Kate was driving her new Ford Explorer, which was a gift from her grandparents in Knoxville. Kate had purchased a Georgia license plate with a Georgia Bulldog head adorned on the plate. Unfortunately, Kate left the plate behind and we drove up to Knoxville.

When we got there, Cindy's dad had removed the old Tennessee license and we had to affix a piece of cardboard with notice of "tag applied for" so she could drive the car home. Interestingly, he had refrained from removing the two Bush/Cheney stickers on the front and back. He did let Kate know that she could remove the stickers with a hairdryer.

At any rate, we left and Kate seemed to be coming down with the flu. This impression grew stronger as the week has progressed. She drove for some foreclosure sales in Forsyth and LaGrange; however, she has been staying at home ever since. Sleeping most of the time. She doesn't feel very good. She hasn't been back in to the office to work for me during the week.

However, she felt up to taking a hairdryer out in to the snow and wind in order to remove those two Bush/Cheney stickers off the car. She also felt up to placing an Obama 08 sticker on the window. And finally, she felt up to placing a Presbyterian College Alumni sticker on the rear window.

It reminded me of a story my father in law told me about my sister in law, who is suffering from the the flu herself. He called her last week and found that she was driving to work in the morning, drying her hair by rolling down her window and hanging her head out the window. Which might account for her present state of health.

Playing around in the snow and wind with the flu in order to show political allegiances is a little suspect. However, I can't blame her for wanting to place the PC sticker on the window. There were a lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into that show of allegiance.

Similiarities and oddities

We got to eat at church tonight. Even with a lot of my friends missing, it was still a lot of fun to break bread with my friends again. Now I am watching a replay of the Jimmy Fallon show in which Van Morrison sang "Sweet Thing." Jimmy's dad worked for IBM in New York. My dad worked for IBM and used to travel to New York. We have so much in common.

Van Morrison is an Irish-American. I have some Irish ancestry. We have so much in common. Earlier, Justin Timberlake was on the show. He is originally from Memphis. That is in Tennessee. My dad is from Clarksville. That is in Tennessee. We have so much in common.

Jimmy's first guest was Robert DeNiro. He is a man. I am a man. We have so much in common.

It is perhaps important to see what we have in common. On the other hand, it is probably important to retain some sense of individuality. Even though I am the third person with my name, I am still the only Thomas Elliott Baynham, III. That is pretty good, for me.

Silly stuff.

Today, they showed "Oliver" on television. Cindy and Kate and I were watching a bit of the beginning. I was waiting for Oliver Reed to appear as Bill Sykes. He was my favorite. Cindy did not like me liking Bill Sykes. He is the "heavy" in the movie. The bad guy in the black hat (although I don't remember him wearing a black hat during the movie [although he could and that would be quite in character]). I remember watching the movie in the theater when I was a child. I enjoyed it. London was quite a character in the movie. From the down and dirty and nasty sections to the royal crescents to the workhouses.

In the United States we didn't have workhouses; we had Georgia. As a place to dump the working class people and as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. This provided a tremendous place to stage a war known commonly as "The War for Jenkins' Ear." This is probably my favorite part of Georgia History from way back in Third Grade at Dunwoody Elementary. Jenkins was a ship's captain who found his way into Spanish territory. The Spanish took him prisoner and tried to teach him a lesson by cutting his ear off his head. Instead, Jenkins took his severed ear, placed it in a jar of alcahol, and transported it to London, where he exhibited the ear to the members of Parliament. Parliament took this artifact as an excellent excuse to declare war on Spain.

Now this was something which was not unusual in English history. It didn't take much for England and Spain to go at it. For instance, Henry VIII became King of England and inherited his brother's wife, Katherine, who was Spanish. Later, when Henry decided he wanted to choose his own wife, which was a trait of Henry's, the Spanish took umbrage, which led to quite a few battles over the next few years. Later, Henry's daughter, Bess, employed some sailors to captain ships and steal gold and other treasure from the Spanish possessions in the New World. In exchange, the Spanish sent their brand new boats to the British Isles, where they left their boats on the rough rocks along the northern shores of Scotland.

Later, after Parliament decided to take revenge for the loss of Jenkins' ear, the Spanish decided to attack his majesty's possessions on the southern coast of Georgia. They dropped their soldiers on the beach at St. Simons only to lose their soldiers in the salt marshes of St. Simons Island when the King's Scotsmen surprised them amongst the tall grass.

The Spanish weren't far from Gnat's Landing, one of my favorite places on St. Simons Island. Kate and I ate lunch there after playing golf one April. It was fun.

After the battle, the Spanish quit trying to take over Georgia. Apparently, the gnats, marsh gas and sandspurs didn't provide a sufficient reason for coming back. They also refrained from cutting the ears off the British sea captains for sport. Ultimately, they sold their possessions in Florida to the U.S. and Georgia was no longer a buffer colony, unless you want to count our being a buffer to the snowbirds who settled in Florida during the twentieth century.

The War for Jenkins Ear is only a bit above when Georgia had three governors at the same time, in my opinion, for interesting moments in Georgia history. Although I do like when the Creeks in Muscogee County tried to put off their transmission to Oklahoma by playing lacrosse for the white citizens of Columbus. It didn't work for them then and probably wouldn't work now.

I think I would like to list my favorite moments in Georgia history:

1) The War for Jenkins Ear

2) Georgia has three governors at one time

3) Nancy Hart holds off the British until her rescue

4) Muscogee Creeks play lacrosse to unsuccessfully placate the white citizens of Columbus

5) I think I am going to have to think about the rest of the list for awhile. I believe it is time to go to bed.

By the way, remind me to show how little it took to get England and France to go to war for one hundred years.

Creation

I need a stool
From which to sit
And allow my mind
To drift and find,
To cull and differentiate.

I need a sunny day
On which to stroll
Among the wildflowers
And consider the beauty
And the diversity
Of the world we inhabit.

I need a clean slate
Which offers no clue
But provides a clean canvas
Upon which to offer up a word
That might depict my tender heart
And replicate His creation.

We are all little gods
Looking for the new morning light
And a fresh universe upon which to tread,
To win someone's love and grudging respect.

Walden II

As I drive around North Georgia, from courthouse to courthouse, selling the homes of the unlucky, many things occur to me in my travels. North Georgia is pretty. I enjoy the scenery. I often think it would be nice to live in one of these towns: Gainesville, Greensboro, Canton, Cartersville, etc., etc. But I always return to Griffin.

A common thought: There but for the grace of God, go I. Life is so tenuous. What is to stop me from being the recipient of one of these foreclosure sales? Is the sale I cry the key to keep me in my house for another month?

The irony is that I often cry out foreclosures for my own personal mortgage-holder. As I read the foreclosure notice, I wonder what it would be like to receive a request for a foreclosure cryout from my own mortgage holder on my own house. I assume that the company that sent the notice to me would not send me a request for a cryout on my own home.

Today, I finished early and drove home. I checked on Kate and went back to the office. I waited on a client. Two clients; one didn't show. One did. I sat at my credenza and considered the growing piles of paper on my desk. I wondered at the things I do not know. The items I have not handled.

Tonight I picked up Cindy at work and drove home. I wasn't feeling well. I wondered if I was coming down with influenza. I drove home and changed clothes. I watched the news. I listened to the news of economic hard times and near disasters. I looked for good news among the bad.

I lay down in my bed and picked up a copy of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. When I was in the eleventh grade, my English teacher, a graduate of UVA, assigned us to read Walden. I will admit that I did not read the book. I took good notes in class, but I did not read the book.

Eleventh grade was an unusual year. Many good things happened to me in the Eleventh Grade. I was captain, MVP and Benny Morris Award winner in football. I was elected Student Body Vice President. Pictures of me look strong and more adult than my Tenth Grade pictures.

But at the same time, I was pushing the limits. I was refusing to read assignments. I was testing the limits. I acted presumptious and thought highly of myself.

In some sense, I was emulating Thoreau. I was testing the limits. Looking deeper. But at the same time, I was only scratching the surface.

In the early part of Walden, Thoreau states that most men live lives of quiet desperation. Thoreau posits that at Walden pond, he will simplify his life and find a deeper meaning in his life. This is the desire I have for my life. This is the part of Walden that I have taken to heart.

Last year, in the late Winter/early Spring, we drove to Callaway Gardens and I borrowed a pen to draw some wildflowers. This year, Cindy bought me a gift of some drawing pads and some pens and pencils. Earlier last month, I took my pad and pens and took the time to draw some wildflowers at Callaway.

I needed more solitude. I needed to find a place, like Walden, where I could take my pens and pencils and pads and try to replicate what I saw, without someone looking over my shoulder. Perhaps when the crowds die down at Callaway or when the wildflowers sprout at Indian Springs or some other location, I will find some time to relax and draw what I see.

Some people thrive in crowds, need others. Others search for a place of quiet where they can enjoy the solitude and grasp the world in which we are placed. I am such a person. From time to time, I need to allow Cindy and Kate to go to their beds and leave me in the quiet of the evening. To find that spot of reflection and see where my mind will take me.

Where am I going?

Court day and snow days

This morning I could sleep late, because the temperature last night was so cold as to allow the ice and snow to stand rock-like on the streets and sidewalks of the morning. It was only later when the snow began to melt and the driveways and sidewalks were covered with the melted snow and ice.

This afternoon, one of my clients said that he would swing by my office and pay me some money. When I was sitting in front of my credenza, waiting for him, I called him to find that he was coming tomorrow. So, now I will drive to Greensboro and Winder and Gainesville and Canton to take the houses of those who could not make it over the last few months with their mortgage-holders.

I get some friends telling me they don't like what I do for a living. It is hard on me sometimes. I am a barometer. When I am real estate closings and serving my fellow man, things are going well. When I am taking advantage of my fellow man through foreclosure and eviction, things are going poorly.

Of course, those things happen all the time. Just more often some rather than others. At different times. Some more than others depending on the times.

Disaster.

March snowfall

We drove to Knoxville on Friday, with the understanding that it was supposed to snow (possibility) on Sunday. It was supposed to snow in Knoxville, with a possibility in Georgia. When we decided to drive to Knoxville, we understood that the snow possibility was slight and was not supposed to stick, so as to cause us difficulty in driving on Sunday. So we decided to drive to Knoxville anyway.

When we left Griffin on Friday it was sunny and warm. The temperature was in the 70's. We drove up to Knoxville and it was drizzly in North Georgia, but the weather was dry by the time we got to Knoxville.

The traffic was mild all the way through Atlanta and on through Chattanooga. I wasn't feeling very good while I drove, but by the time we got to Knoxville I felt pretty good. When I found what we were eating for supper, I felt even better. White Chili with chicken and rice. Quite delightful. The beer for beverage wasn't bad either.

The bread pudding with bourbon hard sauce was way too good, as well.

When Saturday rolled around, we drove downtown to Old Town and ate lunch at an English pub, "The Crown and Goose." The food was good and the beer as well. As we ate, and our meal was quite long, a rain kicked up and the wind was blowing the rain sideways across the street. As a result, we relaxed in the pub and ate dessert (or rather, drank dessert). It didn't help. It was still raining when we left. Quite hard.

For the rest of the day, we sat around in the house and watched the rain come down. It was rather dreary and was a wet, grey day. We all went to bed early.

This morning we awoke to snow flurries. We were going to eat an early supper, but Kate felt bad and we ended up driving home earlier than planned. By the time we filled the cars up with gas in Lenoir City it was dry, but colder and more windy. As we pulled on to I-75, the sky was light, but still cloudy and the wind was whipping the cars across the road.

Everything changed when we got to Georgia. I called dad and he asked me where I was. I told him southeast of Chattanooga. He warned me that it was snowing in Atlanta and was expected to continue for some time. By the time we got to Marietta, it was snowing steadily. As we drove through Atlanta, the snow continued on its steady fall.

But by the time we got to Jonesboro, the snow was large, like quarters or large buttons. The roads were wet but clear. But the snow was steady, steady. I stopped at the Kroger in Jonesboro and bought some provisions for the evening. I continued on my route to Griffin. By the time I got to Griffin, the sides of the roads were collecting snow and ice.

At the same time, the temperature was falling as we moved south. By the time I reached Griffin, the temperature was on the edge of 32 and the time of day was around the time of day when you can normally expect the temperature to have already achieved its high.

Meanwhile, I understand that the skies will grow clearer as the night continues its falling. Tonight it will fall into the low twenties.

Now I understand that court has been postponed until 1:00 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. So I have a few extra hours tomorrow morning.