Cracker

A Forerunner will bounce down the old clay road
Spreading gravel across the lane
And there is little agriculture being practiced
As it once was when every little bend
In the road was covered with white lint
At the end of the Fall
Running past an old man and his woman
Tasting kaolin in the dusty way
Heading downwind toward the creek

And my daddy said you couldn't trust them,
We don't use those terms anymore,
Of course, I see them driving their slick cars
Down the highway, looking so damn smug
And I might not let the words trip,
Like my old pap might have, once upon a time,
But the words do haunt my mind

Not much different really:
No more yellow dog democrats
Or FDR on the ballot every four years
But this Republican votes like his daddy
And the faces and names seem the same

Just an absence of mules to crack a whip over
Like they used to in the day
And the hot August sun is still beating down
A flaming yellow ball in the sky,
Heat and humidity still laying heavy
And boy, I would love to hear that crack again.

A trip to the ATL

Well, its shark week at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. Does that mean that we will have an appearance by the daughter unit? She seems to appreciate sharks over most other creatures on earth or in the sea. I guess that is the difference between a generation who had "Jaws" to think about and the following generation who has more to fear from clowns and dolls who turn into killers.

We will drive up to Atlanta and find a place to park which is close enough to the Aquarium to cut down on the walking in the sunshine and heat and humidity and the desire to bewail the fact that it gets rather hot in Georgia in July and August.

In October, we will remember this summer, but we won't feel the heat and humidity. Thank God for short memories.

Summertime in Central Georgia

Thursday morning I woke up and showered and put on my grey seersucker suit and drove down to the jail in Monroe County. After my hearing, where everyone was cheerful, but hardly obliging, Afterward, I drove down to the courthouse, where I found that the Monroe County Commissioners decided to fund the renovation of the courthouse (unlike most of the other courthouses). However, when I went back to the jail to speak with my client, I found that there was a small barbecue restaurant nearby, which apparently had the approval of most of the law enforcement in Monroe County.

After a large barbecue sandwich, a generous portion of french fries, and a sweet tea, I decided to drive across country to Musella and Dickey's Peaches. As I drove, I noticed a few sauce stains on my shirt and one small stain on my seersucker pants. By the time I found myself in the little town of Musella, I was able to mount the stairs, grab myself a 1/2 peck basket of peaches, and walk over to the counter to pay for the peaches and a "small" cone of fresh peach ice cream.

On my way up 341 to Barnesville, I struggled to make sure that my outfit would escape deocration by two of God's great gifts to Central Georgia. By the time I got back to Griffin, I was able to plant the peaches on the kitchen table, walk the dog and change my shirt, at least, to get rid of some of the indicia of my hot, humid afternoon in the sweltering Southern Summertime.

Just call me Atticus, scout.

Sunsets gained and lost

I picked up Cindy and brought her home. She needed to get on her nebulizer and I wanted to go to choir for practice. Unfortunately, when she got on the couch at home, she smelled what she thought was gas and told me about it. So, I called Atlanta Gas Light and they told me to exit the house and wait until they sent a man to check for gas leaks, which meant we had to sit in the car with the airconditioning running, while we waited for the Atlanta Gas Light dude to show up, which he did and found nothing, so he started the water heater again and Cindy and I went back inside the house and made the decision to eat Buffalo wings for supper, which meant I headed to Buffalo's for wings and got placed in the middle of Trivia Night and wait for a large bag of wings and blue cheese sauce and assorted stuff and walked out into the parking lot and saw the most beautiful pink and gold sunset dying in the western sky and looked back over my shoulder at the people sitting on the deck at the back of the restaurant and thought it would have been nice to sit out on the deck with Cindy and sip on a cold beer, to feel the moisture beading on the outside of the bottle and watch the Western sky fade from blue to pink and gold to purple as the day died.

That would have been great but Cindy was sitting in the living room, playing card games on the computer and getting righteously indignant while watching the afternoon Fox news. So, I walked to my car across the hot asphalt of the parking lot and enjoyed the sunset alone and the airconditioning in the Toyota, as I drove back home.

Now, I am at home, stuffed from the wings and the cold beer and still wishing we had the opportunity to watch the sun die in the western sky together.

Summer fun

When I awoke this morning the skies were grey and looked like rain, even though the weather forecast didn't call for rain until later in the day. I had to get ready for court in the morning and I had to be available for a closing being held in Raleigh, North Carolina for a borrower who owns land in Macon. As it turned out I had to answer quite a few questions about the process of non-judicial foreclosures in Georgia before I could close that file.

Tomorrow I drive to Forsyth for a hearing and to do some research and talk to a prospective client, return to the office for a meeting with another client about a real estate agreement, then pick up Cindy and head back south to Macon for supper with Cindy's cousins and Aunt and Uncle. I actually thought we would see more of Cindy's cousins after they moved from Athens to Macon, and I suppose we saw more than we did when they were up north; however, this is actually only the third time we have visited and they have never been to our house.

I would like some recreation, but don't anticipate any anytime soon. We have a reservation to spend the weekend of the 6th at a cabin at FDR State Park. I am looking forward to that. With Callaway being next door and both Columbus and LaGrange being relatively nearby, it looks like it would be a fun place to spend a weekend. This will be our 27th Anniversary a week from Friday. That's a long time these days.

I have been talking with Ed and Cicely about visiting down in Florida. Seafood, beer, beaches and sun is my idea of a long weekend.

Later

Rain, then no rain. Dammit.

Yesterday, I received my documents for my 6:00 closing and headed up 155 toward the cutoff to Locust Grove. It was raining pretty much all the way, but particularly so when I hit Bill Gardner Parkway. By the time I was driving down the main drag on 23/42, it was raining so hard I could hardly see the sign for Peeksville Road. By the time I got to the house of the borrowers it was pouring down and I was struggling with my umbrella while the borrowers were laughing at my struggles.

The closing didn't go down and I was headed South toward Macon and my last closing. It was pouring down rain in Macon, where I was, and I got wet again trying to get back to my car at 10:15 and the road back to Griffin and home.

The lights were on when I got home and Cindy was up waiting for me. My phone had run out of charge and I couldn't call Cindy to let her know I was on my way home. I had stopped at the Krystals at Riverside Drive for my supper (supper?) and was weak on my way home. The trucks were driving me crazy and it was still wet. I finally made it home and Cindy and I watched tv for awhile before we headed to the bedroom.

Our bed has a great mattress and a mattress pad which make it feel really good. It feels really good. It is so easy to fall asleep. I slept soundly until 7:30. That is a long time for me, even when I get to bed as late as I did last night. I am still tired.

By the way, it didn't rain at all in our neighborhood last night, even if it seemed like the rain was following me wherever I went. Apparently the pattern didn't continue up 75 to the Arthur K Bolton Boulevard.

Wars and birthdays

I caught ahold of Writer's Almanac as I was flipping across the tops of the waves of the internet and read what happened today in Garrison Keiler's history of civilization. Apparently, Benjamin Franklin had returned to America from Paris, where among his amorous conquests of the French court, he also negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the British. I am sure that it was rather galling to the British to have to go to Paris to negotiate with the Americans over the spoils of the American Revolution. Or the Presbyterian Revolt, as they called it in Parliament. It just goes to show how many irritated Northern Irish or Ulster Irish there were in America at the time. I suppose you also had quite a few discontented English and Welshmen and Scots who took the opportunity to kick butt on their former British betters. I suppose I should place "betters" in quotes.

At any rate, the war had ended; Lord Cornwallis and his hessians and whatnot had returned to England; the Tories had gone off to Canada and Jamaica and Bermuda and the other English possessions in the New World and we were happy to get down to the complicated task of nation-building and constitution-creating. Ben was happy and he said that there is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.

About one hundred years later, the Spanish American War ended and John Hay, who began as Abraham Lincoln's secretary, was remarking about the wonderful way in which the Spanish American War had ended. Some historians would dispute that, since it began as Cuba's war for Independence and ended with Civil War in the Phillipines and American gangsters in Havana. However, Hay was an old man and hadn't served in the Civil War when he was a young man. Kind of a latter day Dick Cheney.

I suppose I can't speak to harshly, since I didn't serve in the military when I was young man, but it is an easy thing for an old man, who spilt no blood in service to his country as a young man, to commit the youth of his dotage in foreign wars. You may quote me on that.

At any rate, as I was reading this day's Writer's Almanac, it occurred to me to look back in the archives to my 50th birthday in 2006. I found that on my birthday on December 12, 2006, Garrison Keiler and his minions were writing about the birthday of Frank Sinatra and Gustave Flaubert. Two interesting persons born on my birthday. Sinatra, who was the heir to Bing Crosby as crooner to America in the 40's, 50's and 60's. A young man from Hoboken, NJ who dreamed of singing for a living and made quite a living for himself in the end. He also consorted with film stars, musicians and gangsters.

Flaubert, on the other hand, was spared Law School due to his epilepsy, and spent his youth in such debauchery as was available in the streets of Paris and the other capitals of Europe. As a young man, he tried writing and was convinced to write about a young married woman who betrays her husband and ultimately dies, leaving the husband to clean up the mess she left him. The book became his masterpiece and an example of the fall of marriage and morality in Europe at the end of the Nineteenth Century.

Sharing your birthday with Sinatra and Flaubert leaves me with the question as to whether the fields of music and literature have been preempted at this point. Time will tell, I suppose.