Driving through the falling blossoms of April

This was a grand day to drive around Georgia. The early morning was suspect, the grey light of morning reflecting on the wall of the living room, as I sat in the darkness watching the early morning news. I held off from taking Tex out for his morning constitutional until the last moment; I really waited until I heard his first rustling in the kitchen. Then, when I opened the door, the sun had risen high enough to light the morning with a golden glowing and the fair blue skies and the remainder of the dogwood and azalea blossoms hanging from the trees caught my heart square in the fleshy center and I felt much better about the day.

I made it into the office and waited around for a new client who never showed, then left Kate in her area, playing solitaire on the computer, and headed over to McDonough to buy gas and head up to Doraville and parts to the north.

"Doraville, a touch of country in the city." Those were the song lyrics when I was in high school. Now it should be "Doraville, a touch of Latin America and Asia, intermixed in an odd stew, in between the bustle of Atlanta and the population exploding in Gwinnett County." I winded my way from Chamblee, down Clairmont Road past the old Vanover barber shop, now a hair salon, to the general location for the Georgia Department of Vital Statistics, housed in an old elementary school, abandoned by the Dekalb County Board of Education over to the State of Georgia.

Inside, a nervous lady sitting at a table guarding the door didn't know what I needed and directed me to Window 4 inside. As I opened the door to the main room, a cornucopia of people and their children crowded around, staring at my entrance. If 'Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world', then so must the Georgia Department of Vital Statistics. There were children laying on the floor, playing with each other, sitting in their mother's laps, sitting in their father's laps, toted in a sling around the shoulders of their mothers, laying in infant seats. They were squealing with delight, crying, speaking in various tongues, making noises both joyous and terrible. And that was just the children. I made my way to Window 4 and turned and stared into the eyes of a hispanic woman. There was no look of recognition in her eyes, I didn't trust her ability to communicate in English, nor mine to speak in any latin tongue. Four years of German study seemed unavailing in this regard.

Before me was a series of glass windows, behind which the employees of Vital Statistics showed varying degrees of inaction. I am sure that the multitude gathering outside their window was not very inspiring, but their attempts to ignore us was quite effective. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" could have been written over the front door.

Finally, one of the employees glanced at me and approached me and asked me if she could help me. That, at least, was the message I assumed from her attempt to speak to me through the glass. I positioned my ear to the small circular portal in the bullet-proof glass so that I could hear her, then turned and spoke through the chink, like Pyramus, and asked for help with a putative father certificate. For the first time, a note of understanding passed through the eyes of someone with an official capacity inside this building, but unfortunately, the person who could help me was apparently out. I looked at the clock on the wall and realized that I had made my way to this building during the first moments of the lunch hour.

She informed me that the person who could help me was out and would be back in a little bit. I was told to sit and wait until he returned. Unlike everyone else in the waiting room, I was not given a piece of paper with a three digit number on it, so my optimism was at an all time low, slowly being replaced with its opposite.

But after forty five minutes of sitting, trying to make myself as small and unobtrusive as possible, a gentleman arrived within the offices on the other side of the windows who, being told, apparently, of my needs, caught my attention and directed me to a closet next to the windows, within which was another bullet-proof window. I closed the door behind me, thus shutting off the noise from the outside room, and I could speak with the gentleman, who turned out to be the acting head of the department. He initially informed me that he couldn't help me because the computer was down. However, he allowed me to fill out a envelope and promised me he would mail the certificate I needed.

This was a might pump to my joy button, and I thanked him and left the closet, to vacate the waiting room, which had filled with more screaming children to replace the ones who had exited while I was there, found my way back out to the parking lot, which was relatively quiet, its peacefulness only broken by the sound of birds singing their Spring songs, and the dull roar of traffic on Clairmont Road.

After a short trip to the Fulton County Deed Records Room, which is much higher on the business-like scale from the office of Vital Statistics, I re-entered my car and drove through the baby blue skies, among the other speeding cars and trucks, back to Griffin. As I drove through Central Georgia from downtown Atlanta to Griffin, I was able to stop and purchase a Starbucks grande London Fog, which cured the pains throbbing in my throat from the pollen. I took a shortcut from Ga 81/20 down past Del Webb Peachtree in North Spalding County, and through the country to downtown Griffin (which is much preferable to downtown Atlanta or, especially Doraville, as far as mental health is concerned) and was able to come back to my quiet office on the second floor of the house at 329 South Hill Street, overlooking the cars driving through the sweet, cool streets of Griffin toward their homes, families and the weekend.

Soon, I will join them.