Promises

There is comfort found in the cool breezes of Autumn
When leaves begin to turn and the world is painted
Orange and russet and yellow like a ripe pear
And the apple trees bearing their fruit to the fair, blue skies.
The nights grow longer as the days disappear
Into the dark purple of the year and the dying of our days.
We can find odd comfort in the process
As the cold winds bear down upon us
And draw us closer to one another;
There is a light born shivering in the darkness of the Wintertime
And this life will dawn anew with the daffodils we find
Springing forth through the hard crust of Winter
As sentinel of the new year to come.

What is the allure of manure?

Tomorrow is Wednesday. Actually, Wednesday arrives in about forty five minutes. It is time to go to bed, but I want to plunk away at this keyboard for a few more minutes. I walked Tex out into the front yard this afternoon at lunch. After we returned inside, I took Tex's chain off his neck and turned to try to warm a can of soup for my lunch. As I walked toward the refrigerator, I felt a rush of cool wind and turned to notice that Tex was nowhere to be seen. I stepped over toward the carport door only to see it ajar and Tex nowhere to be found. I looked outside and Tex was gone.

I walked out onto the driveway and called Tex with an imitation dog howl. He didn't respond. I stood out on the driveway and tried to find him trotting away from the house. Nowhere. I could hear some of the dogs tittering around the neighborhood, but I couldn't hear Tex.

Kate came home a little later. Ordinarily, when he leaves on a neighborhood jaunt, which happens every so often, he returns to the house in an hour, covered with deer manure, usually on his neck, and lies in the driveway in the sun. When lunch was over, Kate and I drove around the neighborhood trying to find Tex. He was nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, we drove around the corner to find about five police squad cars parked at a neighbor's house. It appeared like a repo wrecker was trying to remove a car from the carport. The police had someone in their custody. Another civilian was talking on the cellphone in the middle of the street. A city truck was stopped beyond the melee. We pulled up to see if anyone had seen Tex. The city worker said that he was just trying to figure out what was happening on the corner.

The police left and so did we. Kate and I pulled around the mess, and drove up our street toward the house. When we got to the house, Mr. Griffin, our next door neighbor, was standing in the driveway with his dog and Tex, waiting for us. Tex had apparently decided to visit Mr. Griffin.

We have never had a dog who roams too much around the neighborhood. Only Tex seems to like to roam around, find the deer manure, then return to the house. At this point, he ordinarily needs a bath to remove the pungent aroma on his neck. Tex clearly needs to find a different cologne.

Devotional thoughts from St. Paul

1 Corinthians 7:32-40

32I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, 34and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. 35I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

36If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his fiancee, if his passions are strong, and so it has to be, let him marry as he wishes; it is no sin. Let them marry. 37But if someone stands firm in his resolve, being under no necessity but having his own desire under control, and has determined in his own mind to keep her as his fiancee, he will do well. 38So then, he who marries his fiancee does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.

39A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Lord. 40But in my judgment she is more blessed if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

I read this passage this afternoon in the devotional prepared by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Louisville. It was a part of 1 Corinthians which I don't remember having read before. The message Paul preaches to the Corinthians is kind of odd to me. He contrasts those believers who are married against those believers who are not married. He illustrates that the unmarried believers in Corinth are more interested in what God wants for their lives; whereas, the married believers are interested in their spouses and the requirements of the world.

Now I suppose we could read this in the context of a letter to the believers in Corinth, and not necessarily applying to all believers all over the world. However, I don't find the sentiment about which Paul preaches holds true all over the world. As a matter of fact, I would say that most unmarried people seem to be more interested in the delights of the world than the married amongst us. Of course, there are many exceptions. Many believers, both married or unmarried, seem to be more concerned with the world than with the requirements of the Creator. On the other hand, there are some, a remnant perhaps, who honestly seem to be searching for what God wants in their lives.

Never leave it to me to edit the Bible or Saint Paul for that matter; however, I think if I had been the writer of this particular passage, I would have warned against those among us who are so involved in the world that the dictates of God are forgotten. I think I would particularly warn against the temptations of the world in the context of the young and the inexperienced among us. Surely, we are all tempted by the allures of the world, whether we are married or unmarried. However, while we often find ourselves caught up in the callings of the world, we should always seek to hear that 'still, soft voice' who calls us, as was stated in the old hymn, through the "tumult of our lives' wild restless seas."

Whether we are married, unmarried, young or old, we should take the time amidst the callings and needs of our lives to listen for that voice.

Tweed weather

I woke up this morning at 4:00. This is fairly typical for me when I have two cases to be tried within the next few weeks, not to mention a hearing in Superior Court. I woke up early, my mind racing over issues involved in the two cases, particularly the first one. I stepped out of bed and almost stepped on Tex, as he lay on the floor in the bedroom, on my side of the bed. I walked into the living room and turned on the television. After watching a little early morning television, I pulled a throw blanket over my carcass and fell asleep for about an hour.

After putting away the clean dishes in the kitchen, I showered and dressed for work. I had walked the dog earlier, so I knew it was significantly cooler this morning than previous mornings. In dressing, I put on a pair of flannel pants and a silk jacket. As I left the house and walked out into the morning, my outfit felt quite appropriate for the weather.

I am glad Fall has finally arrived. The fair will come in a couple of weeks. Friday nights under the lights of high school football fields will get cooler and cooler as the days go by. The leaves on some trees are already turning. The dogwood outside my window is turning rusty already, the berries are bright red. Soon, the Japanese maple outside our living room will turn a deep reddish purple and the wall opposite the window will turn the color of red wine with the combination of the afternoon sun shining through the foliage of the maple. Up in North Georgia, the sugar maples will turn bright orange. My front yard will be covered with pine needles soon.

Time to bring out the tweeds.

Funnelling thoughts

I just had the experience of going down a funnel. It is Tuesday. Next Monday, I will be in court. As I prepare for my case, I feel like the working room is narrowing like the walls of a funnel. I need to replace that feeling with a feeling of control. That is the key. At this point, I need to take control of the effort and do things which I know will give me the sense of control I need in order to actually take control of the case. That requires preparation, thought and a little bit of luck.

The alternative is waking up at 4:00 in the morning, going outside into the living room, turning on the television and writing on this computer. Killing time until I go back to sleep or until it is time to take the dog out, eat some breakfast, get dressed for work and go over to the office to start the day.

Which leads me to Wednesday.

Nothing worthwhile

It is very late. Or early, depending on what side of the clock you are looking at. The computer clock says that it is 1:21 a.m. Cindy, who is off, and can sleep late tomorrow, is sitting in the chair in a snooze state. I, on the other hand, am sitting here whacking at the keyboard, trying to come up with something which is interesting. My mind is not completely engaged. I had an idea earlier, but I don't feel up to putting everything in to it right now. It is really questionable as to whether I should be sitting here any longer. If Jimmy Fallon didn't have the guests he has on this evening, I think I would have to be laying in bed, trying to go to sleep. But I have got a thought about a case of mine rolling around like a ball in a pinball machine. I have got to get to the office with some time and try to figure out if it will work. It is hard to get my mind off of it right now. Perhaps I should quit. It is very dark. There is no rain tonight. Quite an accomplishment on the part of the weather. Sleep may come.

Magnolia grandiflora

We have a grand flowering magnolia in our front yard.
She spreads out her arms like a loving grandmother;
One cannot avoid the reach of her branches.
She is a tall, muscular wall of green
Which shields our house from the street
And fills the heavy air
With the fragrance of peppery lemons
In the early Summer morning,
Like the lingering scent of a lady you remember
From your childhood, who returns
To haunt you in the heat and humidity
Of a quiet June morning, on a sleepy Saturday morning,
An ancient, beloved spirit in the front yard.

Trying cases

I awoke to the beating of my heart and the knowledge that I had to be in court in Barnesville at 9:00 o'clock this morning. My actions were mechanical because my thoughts were on my presentation this morning. I had the first case, but I knew there was a likelihood that my case would be the last one of the day. I also knew that there was quite a likelihood that the case would last several hours in time.

Being in court is a stress test. I lose sleep because I am thinking about the case constantly. Everything else is placed on the back burner because the only thing I can deal with is the case at hand. I don't write notes, because it is more workable to work it out in my head. Its me. I don't recommend it to everyone.

So I drove down to Barnesville, taking a long route around the south end of Spalding County, trying to find my way back to the road to Barnesville (that's the Dixie Highway, folks) and leaving myself just a twenty to fifteen minute wait until the judge came up on the bench to consider the parties.

At any rate, I was sitting around waiting and wondering and thinking about the case and waiting and then, finally, at 10:30, they call the case and we begin. Four and a half hours later the show was over. I lost and my body was cooling down and flowing away from my brain like toothpaste out of the tube.

Now, I am at the end of the day and I can feel the buzz remainder in my arms and I am aiming toward sleep even though my body doesn't feel like it is ready. I had the taste of steak in my mouth earlier today. I can still taste it. I could have used a beer. That would have assisted the unwinding. I lost today. Everyone needs an attorney, even the loser. Not everyone wins in this situation. You don't win them all. One of the deputy clerks congratulated me on my effort. He sees a lot of attorneys. That felt nice.

Tomorrow is another day, another trial. I lost more games than I won in college. I think about the games and I see the moments, just moments of victory, even if we lost the game. There are moments when I excelled or came close. Real close. You can't tell it by the scores. You can't tell it by the win/loss. Ultimately, you have to be philosophical about it. Otherwise, you would go mad.

Rain, rain, rain

For the fourth or fifth day in a row it rained off and on during the day and night. Once you get over the seasonal reactive disorder, the real problem with the inordinate amount of rain, which filled up the drains and flooded the streets and basements, mostly in west and north Atlanta. Down here, its wet but not that wet. The streets and the yards seem to soak up the rainfall relatively quickly, once the sun comes out. Which doesn't help when it seems to soak all over again every night.

I think we have had the equivalent of a hurricane at this point. I know a lot of people are sweeping water out of their basements today and a lot of schools are closing tomorrow. Some were closed early today.

Meanwhile, we got word today that they got first snow in Colorado. It is hot and sunny in California. Hot and sunny. Really hot and sunny. Somebody told me it was ironic that this amount of rain comes twenty years after Hurricane Hugo wreaked havoc on Charleston and the low country. Fortunately, those old colonial and antebellum and victorian buildings stand up pretty good after all the years. Charleston and Savannah do quite well.

Of course, they don't get it so directly like Mississippi and Louisiana got it from Katrina and Rita. It is a wild world. Thanks, Cat.

Georgia football

For the second week in a row, Georgia won in a game in which the end result was constantly in doubt until the very end. They were good games. Of course, Georgia won and that helped. But they both showed teams which were evenly matched, battling each other for the ultimate victory. Both games were fun. I suppose I might not like it as much if Georgia had lost, but that is not the way it turned out, so I will live with the consequences. Ha Ha.

Meanwhile, there were upsets; there were teams which rose to the pre-season talk and those that did not. In the unique American rhythm, we will go on to Pro Football today, then the rest of the secular week. Next Thursday, we will start the process all over again. Until some time in January or February, when the Super Bowl will come as some titanic letdown of flash and powder and a whimper of a football game which probably won't match the excitement of the playoff games that lead to it.

That is the same with college football these days. The bowl games, in their overwhelming numbers, will come and go. Some will be great. Some will be a let-down because some bowl committee didn't match the teams well enough. Ultimately, they will lead to the championship game which might be a let-down. And who knows when it will be played. They always seem to change the date on which they play.

But we are at the beginning of the process now and we can show our allegiances by wearing the team colors and watching the games, both on television and in person, and we can follow their progress through the long season.

Until it is all over, the champions crowned, the bowls won and we drift off into the enui of the sports season between football and the beginning of baseball and March Madness. Woe is to us.

Go Dogs. Go Generals. Go Wildcats.

Making beds

It rained again yesterday. The skies were grey all day and the rain came down from time to time, covering the patio and giving us no reason to leave the house, unless you just wanted to get wet in this time after the swimming pools of summer were closed. I had to take Tex out from time to time, but he didn't enjoy the wetness, shaking his paws off on the grass and stepping gingerly from spot to spot.

Meanwhile, we spent the day going from room to room, cleaning the dirt and grime from surfaces and if not for the fact that we had to live in this space and utilize and begrime it all over again, I think most of the area in which I sit and tap on this keyboard would be clean and straight.

But people aren't like that. We might stop from time to time, maybe even on a regular basis, and try to grasp the condition of our shelters and our little pieces of the pie, but we still have a tendency to mess it up quicker than we do the opposite. This family has a middling talent for keeping the space in which we live relatively straight and clean.

I do like a made bed. I don't know what it is about it that gives me a sense of well-being. When you get back into an unmade bed, there is something slovenly about it. Maybe not so negative that it prevents you from resting in your bed. But the opposite, getting up in the morning and straightening out the creases and replacing the wrinkles with something more tailored, is comforting.

It is inexplicable. I don't know why it is. I just know that it is. I suppose there are differences between people as to what kind of relief or comfort we might receive from making a bed (an odd saying, we don't really 'make' the bed), but I can say that there is something different about just getting between the bed sheets and opening the made bed, opening up the package and sliding in between the sheets and blankets and comforters.

It is kind of like opening a package on Christmas morning or on your birthday and becoming part of the gift. I can relax my body and stretch my body between the sheets and close my eyes and turn my being over to Lethe.

Gosh, it almost makes me want to get back in bed. I guess it would be a bit neurotic if I expelled Cindy from our bed, remade the bed, and then pulled down the sheets and lay my body back into its place of comfort.

I think I would need to shower and shave before I did that. And if I did that, I might as well go to church and carry on with the day. Head my body down the road to whatever evil it might contain, only to return to the clean sheets, drawn tight and covered with the blanket and comforter and pillows, all piled up in their orderly piles.

Rain

We have had rain this week and the water has collected on the low spot on our patio, so I know we got plenty of rain yesterday evening. In addition, we are supposed to get more rain this weekend, the rain not supposed to end for some time. This is what happens when a low pressure system sits over Texas and blows the wet Gulf air up from the South and over the Southeast. We need it; I don't mind.

The sky was dreary and grey all day today and I drove through several showers on my way to the closing in Ellerslie and on up to Pine Mountain for lunch. When I got to the Country Store on the edge of Callaway Gardens, it was drizzling and I took one of the umbrellas into the store. I wanted to sit out on the outside row of tables and watch the rain come down and eat my lunch.

I ordered a vegetable platter from the menu. The menu is not much different from before, other than the fact that the prices are about five dollars higher per item. I am not surprised by this. I assume this is something they are having to do in order to keep the gardens going. It is clear they are not doing well. I am sad because this has been a place where my family could go throughout the year and enjoy the beauty of creation in its seasonal manifestations. Someday, when I look back on my life, I think I will look on our trips to Callaway as something quite special. I do now.

I enjoy traveling through the area west and southwest of here. The country in Harris County is very pretty. Pine Mountain stretches across from just west of Thomaston and stands as a mutable barrier when you travel south on Georgia 85 and US 27 toward Columbus, south toward Florida and even into Alabama. The land is forested and there are pretty houses, old and new across the countryside.

I had a closing east of West Point one evening when Cindy and I were travelling to Bayou Lacombe to stay with Cindy's Uncle Ray and Aunt Joan. We drove out into the country from Pine Mountain and headed off the main road to find ourselves in an antebellum plantation house, which the borrowers used as a place for people to be married. It was nicely restored and the lights were all lit up for us to find our destination. Cindy came in with me and we enjoyed our time with the borrowers before we headed back west into the night and on across Alabama and Mississippi toward Louisiana.

One of the last times we went to Louisiana, Cindy and I got to Mobile at suppertime and stopped at a seafood restaurant chain from the area. We sat down in the restaurant and I got to eat fresh raw oysters and drink a beer before we headed back on the road, west on I-10. It was twilight and the skies were clear and full of stars. What a time to need a chauffeur. It would have been nice to sit in a car with a big skylight and watch the stars as we whisked west beside the beaches of Southern Mississippi.

One of the times we were driving back from Louisiana, we stopped in Gulfport to see if we could find a seafood restaurant for lunch. I wheeled down toward the Old Spanish Road and headed east along the coast, slowly watching the destruction levelled by Katrina and Rita the year before. It was odd. The beaches were pristine, but no one was enjoying them. The road runs along the coast, and the old residences and other buildings along the north side of the road were mostly gone. You could see the remnants of the buildings about two blocks north of the highway. With the exception of a few fast food places, there was no place to eat.

Finally, we got to Biloxi and you could see the new Hark Rock Hotel built on the beach, and we drove down the narrow streets of Biloxi trying to find some place to eat. By pure happenstance, we found a seafood restaurant in an old store front, which had apparently had its original place of business on the beach before the destruction of the hurricanes. Now, the restaurant was in town and it seemed like it had been there for a long time. Despite the fact that I was just about to my ears in shrimp po-boys, I ate another and drank a Bark's Root Beer and enjoyed the downhome ambience. I wanted to stay.

But we never stay in Mississippi for long. The sadness of the destruction was hard to handle. Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' last home, was almost gone. They seemed to be trying to keep what was left standing like a skeleton on the coast. I think I would like to go sometime and stay for a weekend. It would be fun. Of course, it depends on how much of the coast has been reclaimed. It has been a long difficult process of restoration. There just isn't enough money out there to commit to what would take to rebuild. Especially in this economy.

I look forward to some day when the economy rebounds to strength. It will happen. It will just take awhile.

Meanwhile, the coast of Mississippi lies in a state of partial destruction. As does a lot of Louisiana. Life goes on, just in sputters and gasps some times.

Tuesday

It is Tuesday. It rained a bit. I got a couple checks in the mail. Still, I was tired from the night before and had to pick up Cindy in the afternoon, ran some errands with her, then took her home and ended up staying at home and taking a nap, which I really needed, obviously. Now it is getting closer to supper and Cindy has already stated that she only wants rice for her supper. Kate is feeling better from her previous condition and I suppose we will share the leftovers from last night. So the cuisine of Italy will continue for another evening.

I hope it will rain again this evening. We need some more moisture. September is not the best month for moisture. Unless we get some Caribbean weather up from the south. Some tropical surprise laying out some water from the sky.

I'm going to quit now. There are too many things taking my attention away from this. And I am getting hungry. Permanent state.

Crossing the desert

The sun is back in the sky and the clouds have disappeared. Despite this, there are rumours of rain in the near future. The meteorologists have rendered their opinions about the rain, giving us close to 50% chance or better for the next six days. What does that mean? I mean, I know that the scientists can only give us their opinions because the scientific prognostication of the weather is just an educated guess, using the findings of the past. And that is limited, because so many factors enter into the hypothesis: geography, humidity, pressure, the revolution of the earth and the pull of gravity and the ebb and flow of the tides. They all add up to an educated guess.

Still, when you are trying to cast your own activities, it would be nice to get a better handle on what is supposed to happen. I would look forward to several days of serious rain. I don't expect it. September is traditionally a dry month. So we don't have much to give us hope. Other than their opinions.

I don't know why I am writing about this. I guess it just shows the dry desert growing in my mind right now.

Modern Love

I don't understand what draws one to another these days
When it was such a simple act for me, one glance
Caught from the fifth row of World History class
Such history beginning so simply and offhand,
But today is more complicated, roles and whims
Playing across a crowded stage
Making one sitting in the fifth row wonder at the motivations,
The players taking on such parts
And hiding their own thoughts, deep within, like heavy cats
Lying slyly on throw pillows
Primly sitting with sly, winking eyes
Stating everything and saying nothing,
Leaving me to wonder at the purpose
And watching the actors, still lost at their meaning.

Play remembered

It is a puzzle how much is lost
Yet so much is remembered
At the smell of dying leaves
On a flat breeze in September
And the sight of lights on a Friday night
Glowing brightly against the purple sky
Breathing the scent of new-mown grass
And the sharp taste of lime chalk
Marking out the limits of my memories
Running headlong toward dark goals
Hearing the sounds of the crowd
Cheering from the circus gathering
All brought to the fore strangely
Because so many years have passed
And we are such different people
Playing new supporting roles
Watching these boys of Autumn
Finding their own ways across the chalk-marked fields.

Figuring out the seasons

Today is the day when pro football starts in earnest and all the teams, other than the two teams which started on Thursday, begin the regular season. Since college football started last week and my ardor for baseball took a nose dive when it was clear that the Braves weren't going to catch either the Phillies or the Rockies and make the playoffs, I think that I will declare that Autumn has officially started. I know that some people will say that Fall can only start on September 21st, but that is just an arbitrary date which can mean little when Indian Summer rolls around and you find yourself wearing shorts and a t-shirt in October, or even November. This aint Michigan or Wisconsin. We haven't started pulling out the sweaters and checking out our coats.

But there again, with all this global warming, Summer weather can appear almost anytime, so you just can't depend on weather patterns and arbitrary dates to define your seasons. No, the only way to define Autumn is by the sports activities in the season.

For instance, the beginning of football season and dove season bring us Fall. When you suddenly wake up, look at the sports page and acknowledge basketball and hockey are playing in earnest, its Winter. It's not that they haven't been playing hockey and basketball since August. It's just that you have been programmed to notice when Winter arrives. Spring starts when March Madness is over. Summer actually begins with opening day of baseball, even though you actually start with Spring Training, which sounds like you are in training for Spring. But this is just a misunderstanding, because Spring Training is actually training which begins in the Winter in most of the states, but is the beginning of Summer in South Florida. We just call it Spring Training because of of the confusion.

So you see, you can easily define the seasons if you pay attention to the sports page. Of course, you can't do that as easily these days because most newspapers have shrunk to the point where your sports page is now part of the business/style/local news page. You just have to be more observant.

The icing on the cake

Georgia wins on blocked pass by linebacker on 4th and four on the eight yard line with 27 seconds on the clock. That was sweet. After all, W&L won against Sewanee in Lexington, 31-13, then Georgia and South Carolina play one of the best games I've seen, other than Georgia vs. South Carolina 1980 and the game a couple of years ago, when David Pollack jumped up and took the ball away from SC's quarterback, simultaneously scoring the winning touchdown. This game had everything: 100 yard kickoff return for touchdown, 60 yard end around for touchdown, plenty of interceptions to stop drives, a blocked extra point to preserve what became a four point lead after a field goal, and then the suspicion hanging over my head the entire evening that SC just might score a touchdown one of these times rather than being forced to settle for field goals. But the best moment ended up being a side show to the actual play on the field. As Rene Curran, linebacker for Georgia was blocking the pass from Garcia to his giant tight end in the end zone, thus ending South Carolina's chances to win the game, one of the ESPN cameras was focused on Steve Spurrier on the sideline. As the ball fell awry, Spurrier jumped up, spun around and fell to his knees. As he displayed these histrionics, the Georgia State Troopers who were standing behind him as his security guard were clapping, smiling and doing fist bumps literally in Spurrier's face. If only there had been a fist bump cam to allow us to see Spurrier's face when he spun around and saw his security detail celebrating his team's loss. Very sweet.

Dove season and the Dawgs and Generals

Today pointed another way in which I miss my father. Today, Washington and Lee beat Sewanee in Lexington, 31-13. As I worked in the yard and checked the score on line from time to time, I thought about who I could share it with. In the past, I would have called Dad and discussed the game. Tonight, Georgia is beating South Carolina 38-26 in Athens. The game has included quite a few amazing plays like a 100 yard kickoff return and an end around for a touchdown. It would have been nice to call Dad and hear the excitement in his voice when we discussed the plays we were watching on our respective televisions. We would discuss the upsets and the near upsets of the day. Even the Braves beating the Cardinals and the Phillies losing to the Mets (if they couldn't just defeat each other at the same time, which would have been the best).

Oh well. There are always other games and opportunities to share the excitement with others. Tomorrow I will see a lot of my friends at church. I am sure I will get the opportunity to discuss the games of today.

College football is the only thing that comes close to March Madness.

Why I like Thursdays

Thursday is one of my favorite days of the week. Thursday has all the anticipation and possibilities of the weekend, without any of the letdowns that come with Friday, Saturday or Sunday. On Thursday, you get the idea that the weekend is just around the corner. On top of that, sometimes you get a long weekend and the weekend actually begins on Thursday night. In addition, now that it is football season, you get Thursday night games under the lights, like tonight's game between Georgia Tech and Clemson. I love watching Georgia Tech play at home on Thursday night. They always seem to play better on Thursday night. And I really dislike Clempson, so you get a double whammy. Meanwhile, beyond the extra football on Thursday night, there is a lot of good television on Thursday night and Cindy doesn't work on Friday, so everyone can sleep late on Friday and I can go in to the office as early as I want to. Finally, you can think about the fun you might have on the weekend without thinking that the weekend is almost over, like you do on Saturday or Sunday.

Yes, Thursday is a good day.

The effect of flowers blooming on a gloomy day in September

I dropped Cindy off at the front of Griffin Tech this morning and sipped on some herbal tea as I drove through town towards my office. The skies were overcast and grey. It had rained last night and there was a bit of moisture on the ground as I drove. I finally pulled through the intersection at 8th Street and College Street and drove down the last block before I got to the small parking lot in the back of the white Victorian house in which my office is located. I pulled into the lot and parked next to an old white frame garage building behind the house. I removed the key from the ignition and stepped out of the car.

As I walked from my car to the front of the building, I passed a number of bushes and plants planted alongside the drive and the house next door. Both houses are former residential houses, altered to house commercial enterprises. The landscaping and plantings remain from the days when people lived in the houses and planted for their enjoyment and the beauty of the greenery.
But I stepped under the porte cochere and suddenly the fragrance emanating from one of the bushes, blooming at this time of late Summer hit my nose and it was such a delightful smell. It being this late in the Summer, I didn't expect to smell such a fragrance as I walked through there. But the effect on my mood was elevating. I was happy and suddenly glad to have an office in this old residential building.

There was a bit of a jump in my step as I entered the front door of the building and ascended the steps to my office. Simple pleasures. Simple pleasures.

Sun among the clouds

We went to church tonight and we got to sit down with our friends and eat a nice meal of pasta and green beans and salad, washed down with iced tea, and then sit together with some of the church members and talk about the fruits of the spirit. Tomorrow, Cindy and I will eat supper with Kate, then go to Williamson to have dessert and a study with our community group from church. This group is made up of five couples, two of which were connected enough to want to attend the memorial service for dad back in July. Connections are important in many ways, but when you are suffering from such a loss it is so tender to see friends with whom you have taken communion for many years now take the time to drive up from Griffin to do nothing but give you support. I really appreciated that. Of course, Mike McNeil came down all the way from Lexington, Kentucky. Allison and Brad Howell came down from Alpharetta, even though our connections were so new. Friends of my mother, friends of my father, friends of brother and sister. John and Joe. They were all appreciated.

The summer was tough. There were times of real fun and relaxation. I remember Kate and I went to see the Braves sweep the Phillies on July 2nd. It was a great game and the Braves went way out to celebrate our Patriotism on the verge of July 4th. It was a lot of fun and the Braves won and it was a great time to share with Kate.

Then came July 3rd and we drove up to Dunwoody to enjoy the weekend with Mom and Dad, and then Dad had to go into the hospital and he soon began the long descent toward July 13th. Of course, we had the Dunwoody parade and tried to celebrate July 4th without dad there. Later, Cindy and I had the following weekend we spent with our community group up in the mountains. We watched the sun go down on Brasstown Bald. I saw a bear skitter up into the trees. We enjoyed fellowship and a trail walk around the lake at Vogel State Park and Bill and I waded into a river and went after trout with fly gear. On the way back, we stopped at the hospital and saw dad and he seemed to be doing better and the doctor said he would be going home the next day....

Then came Monday, July 13th. We begin our lives with this concept that the world is this way, populated with certain family and friends and when you are very small, the loss of family members is not so personal for most of us. One of my grandfathers was gone before I was even born. Although I lost one grandfather when I was a teenager, it was a long time before my grandmothers passed away and Kate could know them both, although she was young when they passed.

But when dad passed away, it was different. Perhaps it was because I am fifty two and feel my own mortality. Perhaps it was because I have always depended on him to be there. Perhaps it was both. We all felt the loss in such a significant way. Still, I think we were all amazed by how many of our family and friends came to our side. Aunt Meg and Uncle David were there. All the cousins came. Then the IBMers, the Women's Club members, the friends from high school, the friends from church, the ladies from Mount Vernon, Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Honeycut, Lee and Pete, Jeff Rummel and Mrs. Rummel. It was amazing.

Then Aunt Meg. And the trip to St. Pete and sitting in the hot sun at the military cemetery. Of course, we could go out to the beach and watch the sun go down again and enjoy family members and friends and it wasn't all gloom.

At this point, we need to keep our connections. We need to work harder to show we matter to each other. In a lot of ways, we are doing that. In some ways things have worked to make this more of a reality. Kevin and Susan live closer to mom. Maggie is at Emory. All of those things draw us closer together whether we started that way or not. Thanks to our friends. Thanks to our family for making it easier to handle. All we can do is come alongside of each other and make sure they know we care.

Health issues

My laptop computer is programmed to have CNN news as my homepage. This evening the CNN homepage led with a story about a doctor from Ohio who refused to give his patients a chicken pox shot because the insurance companies would not cover the cost of the shots. The teaser on the article said that this was an "alarming" trend.

This past weekend, my father in law, a quite serious conservative Republican, and I were discussing health care. My father in law, who has medicare and other coverage from his former employment at UCLA, to cover his medical needs, mentioned in our discussion, the need for tort reform, as part of the solution to our health care needs.

But I think the ultimate answer to our problem lies in the story about the doctor from Ohio and his decision to not offer the chicken pox inoculation because the insurance companies would not cover it. I find it difficult to assess the cause for the insurance companies' unwillingness to cover chicken pox inoculations against the lawyers trying to make doctors and hospitals live up to their responsibilities. No, the problem with chicken pox inoculations is the cost they bear in relation to what the insurance companies wish to pay. I would assert, strongly, that that is the same reason why insurance is so difficult to come by these days.

The insurance companies want to make a profit. We don't begrudge them that. The doctors wish to treat their patients and make a profit. We don't begrudge them that. The patients wish to be healed of their ailments. Their wishes are not based on profit. They just want to be healed and healthy. But when matters stand between the insurance companies and their profits, they wish to reduce the factors which reduce their profits.

If they make bad investments, like most of us, the easy answer is to raise the premiums, reduce the amount of care available and blame their problems on others. We need better regulation because the needs of the patients need to be addressed. The doctors want to help. The insurance companies should want to help. But sometimes the desire to make a profit stands in the way.

We shouldn't begrudge the insurance companies their profits. We should just make sure that their desire to make a profit doesn't stand in the way of the need for medical care and the doctor's desire to provide that care. When a doctor won't provide the inoculations which can make his patient's healthy, then someone should give. I think it should be the insurance companies.

Just my opinion.

Fall, the beaches and the peaches

Tuesday morning rolled around about 3:30 this morning and then restarted about threes hour later and I was able to eat my new favorite breakfast of blueberries and greek style yogurt with a sizeable glass of orange juice. This breakfast is good and it keeps me strong for the entire morning and I think it is a good breakfast for someone who doesn't drink coffee or eat eggs, so that my best breakfast is a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal and a glass of orange juice, even though I really like country ham biscuits and good grits from North Georgia and it would be something if I could get those North Georgia grits with Broadbents' ham with the biscuits that Grandmommie used to make. That would be way too good with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea and a glass of orange juice.

But with this gout I have to adjust my diet a bit and stay away from sausage (and Octoberfest coming upon us) and probably lower my beer diet (see note on Octoberfest) and lets go onto something else, like the new L L Bean catalog came today and I had a real rush of Autumn clothing zeal hit me and this is the time to think hard on tartans and see how close they got to McKay tartan in the catalog, and they really didn't get close at all. But tweed is here and sweaters and it makes me wish I didn't have the gout because the air will get cooler at night and I will find myself, I hope, in Helen or Blairsville or elsewhere, and the air will be cool and the hops will efervesce into my nostrils and will remind me of how much I enjoy the taste of beer. And a nice wurst.

Aghh. I need adjustment. I am working on it. I promise. That promise is meant for all my ladies: Cindy, Kate, momma, even the nieces. All those nieces. Lil Maggie and all her Peaches.

I got a picture which shows Kate laughing from the seagulls flying around her, juxtaposed with a picture of Cindy at the beach on Hilton Head, with camera in hand, laughing at Kate in the water. They are so beautiful. In so many ways.

ESPN, thirty years

I woke up this morning around 3:30 and went into the study and watched the sports news on ESPN and found out it was the thirtieth anniversary on ESPN. It happened when I was in the first few weeks of law school at Georgia and I don't think I was thinking much about sports, but on the other hand, it was quite a first year for the city of Pittsburgh. The Pirates beat the Orioles in the World Series. The Steelers beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, Mario Lemeux was probably just a teenager otherwise the Penguins might have won the Stanley Cup. That would have been quite a year for the city of Pittsburgh.

It was only a couple of years until ESPN would take over sports from CBS and ABC and NBC. I do remember the advent of MTV and VH1 and all of the miniature dramas they played with the music in the 80's. Then there was Miami Vice, which looked a lot like a music video. Sometimes you need to go back and look at some of those shows and realize how lame some of those shows were when they were played. Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas. Fortunately, Edward James Olmos seemed to rise above his beginnings as the lieutenant on Miami Vice.

Well, it has been a long day and a long weekend. It is time to stop this reminicing and go to bed.

First Weekend of Football Season

Well, it is now Sunday and every team I cared about lost this weekend, some by a great deal, others by not much. So now it is Sunday and all the people at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church were happy with themselves, with the slight exception of the pastor, who seemed to be suffering from the messages he was receiving from the Bible passages he was reading. That was basically the message of his sermon and he was concerned that he couldn't get past the message of Christ in John 15.

At any rate, it was good to get my mind off football and the problems of daily living and think on things of a more spiritual and eternal bent. I can't say I'm there, but it was a good time to get my mind off the usual matters of life. I came back home to the Sicard's house and put on the public radio station which plays traditional music and listen to Cumberland Sunday Morning. I even got to sleep a bit.

This afternoon, everyone has gone to see a movie and I am home with the dogs. Sean Connery is teaching some Highland Scotsman how to fight in a movie, and I would dearly like to go hike up in the mountains nearby, but everyone will be coming home soon and we will be grilling hamburgers and chicken and trying to enjoy the afternoon, despite the overcast and the drizzle.

They expect rain for the next week up here and I am glad I am returning to Georgia tomorrow, although I don't know what the weather will be like down there. Warmer, I assume. But it does feel more like Fall and with the football, I really feel like I am in the season, even though I know it can get hotter and more sunny and feel more like Summer within a day or a few hours.

Oh well, I don't think this is going anywhere. I'll try later.

Labor Day Weekend in Knox-town

Here I am in orange-land. We were driving up earlier and the UT flags were flying on a lot of cars, but not nearly as much as the magnetic UT's and the magnetic Vol helmets. The traffic was crazy. I began to wonder if everyone on I-75 north was heading toward Knox-town for the game. What will they do on Sunday? Will they stay for the rest of Labor Day Weekend?

And of course, the ultimate issue is whether or not they will win this weekend. Since my cousin Jeff, employee of Western Kentucky University is here in Knoxville, I will pull for the Hilltoppers. I assume the game will not be shown on television. I hope the UGA/OSU game will be shown. Everyone seems to be playing a patsy except Alabama and Georgia. Florida is playing Charleston Southern? Someone else is playing Florida Atlantic? What is that? I call that digging low down in the barrel for a win.

We should all pray the players on those teams that have to play Florida and Ohio State. I can imagine that they will be bruised and sore on Sunday. I remember how that was lo, so long ago. Whether you won or lost, you were still so sore on Sunday morning. I was surprised that Kenny could get up and dress for church and attend services. The rest of us were laying in bed, then laying on the couch in front of the NFL game of the week. That was Sunday afternoon in Lexington.

I suppose it might be different with women on campus. Probably is.

Autumn's coming

The weather has turned cool, a bit, and you can feel the onset of Autumn, travelling down from Alaska, across the prairies. It will still get hot during the days here in September and there will even be those days in October, November and December, when the sky will get clear and the temperature will rise so that you know why you still want to live in Georgia. But for now, I am thinking about the coming of apples and honey and the day's light dying earlier in the day, when you can go home or drive up in the mountains on a weekend and feel the coolness and enjoy a sweater or jacket in the evening and catch the peace of the dying of the day and the end of the year.

As much as I enjoy the coming of Spring, when the cold grey days of Winter, short as they are in Georgia, begin to dissipate into the flowers and sunny days of April and May, I also enjoy the coming of Fall and the colors on the leaves and a Saturday afternoon resting on a bench as the light dies and the coolness of the evening descends upon us.

Alaska

It is 1:21 and Cindy and Kate and I are sitting here watching Anthony Bourdain ride a horse (or a jeep) around Livingston, Montana and he is eating good food and catching trout and throwing them back (by mistake) and talking to artists and writers and old railroad men. I watched this last night and wished I was there.

I have already got tourist vacation pamphlets and maps and something about Yellowstone, which is in Montana and Idaho and Wyoming, so I am ready when I get the time and the money to get out there and rent a car and drive from Billings to Livingston and find a place to stay for a few days and drink and eat and walk around and maybe ride a horse or go fishing and enjoy the big sky and the the open land, which is somewhat of a laugh, since so many outside people who have moved into the area have fenced it off and built big houses with big glass windows to see the country in such a way that you don't have to get out into it, which is ridiculous, since the whole reason to go to some place like Montana and Livingston and Yellowstone should be to get out into it, and get wet and sun-burned and tired and be able to go into some place at the end of the day and drink a beer or two and eat a good, simple meal and feel like you were going to sleep soundly during the night, without a care or a thought of the world you left behind that you will ultimately return to anyway, so why worry about it now.

That is what Alaska was like when we went out there with dad several years ago. You would fly to Seattle, then fly to Ketchikan, then fly over to Craig on planes which were gradually getting smaller as you went. The flat rolling hills of the Piedmont of Central Georgia and the soft foothills of North Georgia and all the urban sprawl of Atlanta were so far behind you and it was just a big series of island-mountains covered with trees and bears and moose and elk and little cabins with tin roofs and rough, dented old pickup trucks parked next to them and the sun peeking through the clouds would catch the tin of the roof and make it glow like silver and then you would drop down on the other side of the mountain and come down onto the surface of the water like you were diving into a lake and just as smooth and some rough-looking woman would come out and grab the rope attached to the float plane and pull it over to the dock and you would step gingerly down to the dock and pick up your bag and walk over to the lodge where the fishing guides were located and get settled, then go eat supper before you went to bed in the twilight of seven o'clock in Alaska, which was eleven o'clock our time, but you closed the drapes and opened the window and slept until early in the morning rolled around.

Then you were shuffling down the hallway to eat a little something and watch the fathers drinking their coffee and talking softly as you stepped out of the room and walked down the metal gangway to the dock and greeted your guide as he readied your boat for the day and it was still pretty dark for five o'clock and by the light of the one streetlight out on one of the little islands in the bay you could see the boats and the abandoned old houseboats and the detrius left behind by some former occupants who probably went back home to the lower forty eight or found another place to sleep and work because the salmon cannery was gone and the salmon fishing commercially was not that good but there are still enough fish out in the water.

Finally the engine caught, and we were all inside the boat, facing each other and the lines were released from the cleats and you were backing out of the dock and swinging around and heading out over the glass surface of the water, with just the touch of light blue on the eastern ridge of the mountains on the island, and sliding out toward the rougher water and the bald eagles in the trees, waiting for a supper of salmon innards thrown off the side of your boat by your guide, while you ran those herrings up and down and tried to get some good action off that bait until the guide saw some shadows on the depth finder and you were doing everything you could to get that silver fish up in the boat and you might find yourself with four fishermen, all with fish on the line and the guide scrambling between the fish box and your legs gaffing the fish and popping them in the box and attaching a herring on your hooks so you could get them back in the water and take advantage of such a run.

By the time you were finished you had caught your limit and you were heading out in to deeper water to find some halibut, which is dumb fishing, dropping a big old circle hook with the lungs of a salmon attached to that surgical steel and you were letting the big old ball of guts ride about three feet off the bottom of the ocean, three or four hundred feet down, until you were lucky to feel something heavy pull on it and you pulled back up on the stubby little rod and felt a quick, heavy second tug on the line and then it was pull, wind, pull, wind, pull, wind for anywhere from ten to thirty minutes until that big ugly grey piece of piscine predator showed himself in the water and you were amazed at how big they could get and your guide was popping him on the head with the gaff, hoping to stun him and not wake him up to set him diving back down toward the bottom where he lived, back into the brier patch, so to speak, and then cause you to have to pull, wind, pull, wind, pull, wind until he showed himself again and you could allow the guide to secure him and slip a line through his gills up into and out of his mouth, and pull him back up onto the back of the boat where he would lay hog-tied until you got back home to have your picture taken with one hundred plus pounds of big, ugly, grey fish, which of course, didn't reveal the beautiful white fish steak beneath that ugly grey surface, but it still made a pretty picture on the mantle in your office.

All along while you fished, you got to catch a brief glimpse of the majesty of the place, tree-bedecked mountain-islands sitting in the cold blue water, the sun glinting off the waves and unbelievable blue skies with soft fleecy white clouds floating on the air ocean above us and every so often the white head of a bald eagle sitting in a dying tree somewhere off shore on one of those islands to give you something to focus on and remark that you hadn't really seen anything like that other than in a zoo or aviary, but here they might be just sitting on a telephone pole in town, like a pigeon, looking for scraps, but this is the symbol of our country and so large and powerful there in the tree or on the pole, or you might catch a large grey whale jumping up into the air from below, like it was trying to catch a breeze and fly into the ocean of air above and become a creature of sky, rather than sea, crashing back to the surface of the ocean, causing a large splash of water to pop up above the surface like a young boy doing a giant cannonball, jumping and diving with pleasure and glee like that same young boy, and finally returning to the sea beneath us.

And at the end, you sat down on a picnic table and watched the teenaged girls filleting the fish and popping them in plastic tubs for freezing for your journey back home and you drank a cold beer or maybe ate a left-over cookie or sandwich and laughed with everyone else there and enjoyed sixty degree weather in August and wondered how it could get any better.

The last, best sight was set in my mind when we were all working our lines, trying to catch the attention of some pink and silver demi-god of the ocean, when suddenly, a coho was spinning and jumping and diving and flipping across the water, like a young colt, across the blue surface of the water and it just looked like joy personified and it seemed a shame that one of us had caught him by the mouth and we looked at each other to see who among us had hooked him but obviously no one had because no one was reeling anything in at all and so the last image of Alaska had to be that happy silver salmon, jumping and flipping joyfully across the cold water, laughing at us, or so it seemed, as we watched his play.

At play, at rest, at ease in my mind, forever.

The message in brown eyes

Late at night, when I reach out to touch you under the sheets and you are still, I can't help it but I have to go back to that time when your dark mahogany hair was long, framing your face and your smile was quick and your dark eyes were flashing with a message that I didn't quite read, but maybe a part of me did read it and stashed it away in my mind for later work, like garden tools placed in the workshed to be pulled out on a bright, sunny day when the air was so cool and fragrant of Spring flowers, like hyacinth, blue and pink and purple, and I would think about you in your light blue dress standing in the hallway at Dunwoody with Sue Mitchell and Ronnie and I couldn't help but stop and talk and flirt in the dark hallway, because outside it was Spring and the sap was rising, rising indeed, and another brick was laid in the walkway which would lead us to dances in the cafeteria on a Saturday night where we played around and I dont' think we actually danced at all, until it was the dead of Winter and you were gone with your family to California and I would be left behind to matriculate to Virginia and go on with life and attend classes and try to earn a spot on the football team and study geology and philosophy and english and then walking down Nelson Street from the movie theater, one night, glancing in a window into a women's clothing store and seeing a coat, just a brown coat, and remembering, and finding a fountain, springing forth from the cold rocks of Winter, and the water running, splashing down the rocks and so cold, so cold, but alive and living and breathing like something inanimate was made alive and you were there in your blue dress and your sweet smile and your flashing brown eyes which spoke to me in their expression and gave me words to speak and write down and remember and memorialize the moment on the written page.

In the beginning, was the word, and the word was hidden in the arch of those dark brown eyes, but perceived and etched on the page and carved in the cortex, here to see. Laid out on the page for all to see. And remember and cause me to reach out again and touch.

Wating for the morning

I haven't written for several days and much has happened while I worked my way through Cindy's birthday on Saturday, a bout of gout on Saturday and Sunday, and the usual trying to make a living. In the meantime, I have been able to drive around west central Georgia for several days and watched the fishermen on the Chattahoochee and workers at the U. S. Naval Museum in Columbus and talked to John about his travels, including his trip to Dublin. I suppose he is getting ready to start Thursday morning and will be able to see the sites in Ireland and travel to County Wicklow. I am trying to control my jealousy, but it is hard.

Meanwhile, I got to talk to Graham this morning, while I drove to Columbus. The only thing that terminated our conversation was the loss of my connection to Verizon Wireless soon after I headed south from Woodbury towards Manchester. We never got hooked up again, and my trip to Columbus ended listening to NPR from Warm Springs.

Now life returns in earnest in the morning and I really need to get back to bed to see if I can sleep. I need to sleep. I also need for this economy to return to life and jumpstart my business. It seems that a lot of people I know are suffering from the downturn. I would love to see a return to a little economic health. I would rather conduct some closings rather than foreclosures and evictions. It will come. It just may take some time. Interest rates are low and inflation is low. But the value of assets needs to rise a bit back to earlier levels and the lenders need to have confidence enough to start making commercial loans and fund the return of growth.

I don't know how I became such an economist. Not that I have a handle on it all. But I can see somethings. And my business does seem to presage growth or shrinking. Health and illness, economically. I guess it would have made more sense if I had taken some Economics classes in college.

I also need to lose some weight, but that is a completely different topic.

The limits of technology

Sometimes the advantages of the evolution of technology don't get you any closer to the twentyfirst century. On Friday afternoon, I took a call from a company that arranges for my services for closings and was asked if I did e-closings. I hadn't but didn't really feel like it was something we couldn't do. So I spent the next two hours on line watching information about the process, signing up for the program, and arranging for the closing on Monday. After two hours of preparation for the closing.

Early Monday morning, Kate and I got in her car and drove down to the borrower's home in Upatoi, north and east of Columbus. We arrived on time and worked our way through the closing, despite losing the telephone signal at least four times during the process. After almost an hour, we were back in the car, on our way to the office. When we arrived at the office, Kate took the paper part of the closing package and placed it all in a fedex envelope and later deposited it in the fedex box in town. Everything seemed taken care of satisfactorily.

Meanwhile, we were waiting for the cryouts for foreclosure day for Tuesday. As the day headed into the early evening, we finally received some of the cryouts with information of a large number of others that might go the next morning. Meanwhile, they promised we would have the rest of the cryouts the next morning by 9:30.

At the same time, Kate had developed a fever and didn't look like she could participate the next day. We scrambled to try to find a substitute, because it appeared that we could need at least three people crying out on the next day. At the same time, we knew that we had at least one cryout in Whitfield County, near the Tennessee border. So at that time, I knew that I would have to leave early the next morning to start the cryouts in North Georgia in Dalton.

The next morning, I awoke early and showered and dressed to drive to Dalton. I gassed the car up and headed up towards Dalton. I got there around 10:30 and spoke with Patti. I was informed that we still didn't have the totality of cryouts and wouldn't have them until 10:30. I completed my cryout at the courthouse in Dalton and headed south toward Cartersville, which was the next one I knew I had to complete. At this point, I didn't have the faxed cryout for Bartow County, but suggested to Patti to tell the folks who sent them to email it to my laptop and I would read it off the computer. Meanwhile, she informed me that she had one more in Whitfield County, but that would mean back-tracking to Dalton and returning to Cartersville afterward. It would also mean two more hours which I didn't have.

So I drove into Cartersville and pulled my laptop out. I walked over to the front of the courthouse and opened it up, attached the wifi card and pulled up the email which contained the foreclosure cryout. At that point, I was crying out a foreclosure from off the screen of my computer. Again, I was dipping my toe into the twentyfirst century.

The rest of the day, I cryed out in different counties. I got to cry one more out off my computer in Dawsonville. By the end of the day, I was in Cleveland, trying to work my way back to Griffin. I made it by 4:30.

At this point, I found out that some of the paper documents from my closing on Monday had not been received by the lender. So they wanted me to return to Columbus (Upatoi) and get the borrowers to sign the new documents.

So I was resolved to return to Muscogee County; however, I still couldn't figure out how we left anything out of the package. I spoke with Kate, who had prepared the package. I spoke with Patti, who couldn't find anything left in the file folder from the closing. This morning, I opened the email with the documents they wanted to have signed. At this point, I realized that the new documents had never been sent to us. So they were sending me back to Columbus because they forgot to send the documents the first time.

At this point, a little frustration set in. I was driving back to Columbus and they weren't expecting to pay me for the extra trip, even though they were the cause of my second trip. I met with the husband at 1:00 and couldn't meet with the wife until 3:00. I ate lunch at a local restaurant and wasted some time driving and walking around Columbus. I took some pictures with the phone on my camera. I now have several pictures of houses which had once been the residence of J. C. Pemberton, the inventor of Coca Cola. I also got a picture of a house owned by the Woodruff family, who later owned Coca Cola.

I drove down to the Riverwalk and watched a couple of guys in a fishing boat trying to catch fish. I saw several people fishing from the bank on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee. I watched some people repainting the metal handrails. I even looked over the shoulder of the statue of an artist drawing the falls and area upriver from where the statute peered out from the top of the riverwalk.

The sky was overcast, but there was an early Fall breeze and it wasn't too hot. One of the city workers suggested that it was a good day to be out fishing on the river. I had to agree. If I wasn't in need of being in my office, trying to send out bills and taking care of the business which was waiting for me while I walked indolently around the river banks above the Chattahoochee in Columbus.

Finally time arose for me to go out to meet with the wife borrower and I followed the husband out to her place of business. I made it back to Griffin by 5:00 and picked up Cindy and went to my office again to prepare the package for mailing to Kansas, but soon found that the information on the borrower's driver's licenses was missing. So I had to wait to get that information.

So, now it is after 12:00 midnight on Thursdayand I will have to send the package back to the lender by fax and by overnight mail. I will also need to negotiate with the lender to see if they will pay me for the extra trip. We shall see. They were saying that the extra trip was my fault. But I know we didn't get the extra pages until early this morning. So no matter how evolved you get with technology, the eternal verities remain. The ultimate lesson remains: When something goes wrong, everyone will look for someone to blame.