Untitled 1

I have a friend who seems to be constantly looking for something misplaced. Car keys, cell phone, you name it. According to Joel Osteen if you waste four or five minutes each day trying to find things you have misplaced, at the end of a year, you will have wasted almost a week of your life. Have you ever came across something you were looking for a month ago. I was in the basement of the house and came across a book I had been looking for a month. In the box I also found a Don Williams cd and Jimmy Hoffa. Have you ever gotten a sick feeling in your stomach when you misplace a check you needed to deposit or a receipt that you need before you can file your taxes. I think if the government of the United States is sincere about solving the nightmare deficit, require all members of Congress to pay THEIR taxes. In a few more years I will be able to get Social Security and Medicare. I worry if the programs will be there for baby boomers. I think that to fix both programs get the Congress to retire on Social Security and Medicare. I am hoping that there is a solution to the medical crisis in this country. I am afraid that one day CVS and Walgreen's will have a cover charge. I worry that to getting a doctor's appointment will be about as difficult as getting front row seats to a Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana concert or tickets to the BCS Championship next year when the Crimson Tide does it two years in a row. I have a friend named Ray who named his cat Julio. Medical professionals have always been admired in my family. Recently I was picking up the Tallapoosa Journal at the Piggly Wiggly and saw Dr. Raymond Reid. I remember when he came to Tallapoosa in the 1960's and perhaps through his medical practice helped my mother live an additional 20 years. Dr. Reid has a limited practice primarily helping the elderly in Polk County. When are you considered elderly? I remember when I thought 30 was old. I now have cowboy boots that are that old. I have ties and football jerseys that are older than the students I teach at Kennesaw State. I love to leave the hustle and bustle of Cobb County and load up the kids and come home to Tallapoosa. One of the main reasons is the number of crimes in the city committed like recently a man's dog gave birth to puppies near I-75 and was cited for littering. The zero tolerance statute was enforced at a Cobb County high school when a young man brought a rubber band pistol and was confiscated in algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. A hole was found in a nudist camp wall in Fulton County. Police are looking into it. A Smyna woman was arrested for making illegal whiskey.Reports say her husband loved her still. I read where in Gwinnett County that a 4 foot 7 inch fortune teller has escaped from the county jail. Police are looking for a small medium at large. The preceding groaners courtesy if the Internet. The Internet and Facebook seem to be a prime way we communicate. What happened to conversation? Facebook has groups you can join. Like the local group not happy with the association of our city with a possum. They see it as an unsophisticated symbol. I suggest that instead of the Possum Drop, we have a Chinchilla Drop or an Ermine Drop.Question, can your remember an incident that happened when you were a kid where you were literally scared to death? I recall being about 12 or 13 when Scotty McClain hosted a spend the night party. Tommy Hazel, Buddy Bentley, Scotty and me ate a 55 gallon drum of Lay's Potato Chips and drank a case of R C Cola. We had the greatest pillow fight in the history of our 150 old city. When the pillow hurling moved into the living room I had Tommy pinned near the sofa and hurled the pillow as hard as I could at him. It missed him and knocked over a lamp. The lamp had a chip on the side that you could throw a cat through. My stomach sank to my ankles. It does now for real. I had an image of the Tallapoosa Police Department dispatching Arthur Bentley and with blue lights flashing would come and get me and send me to Alto and do hard time for lamp breaking. Scott's mother Mary Jo came back from an errand and saw the situation. With tears in my eyes I sank to my knees and begged for forgiveness. Mary Jo laughed out loud and said for me not to worry about it. She said she had bought it from Bant Bailey at Bailey and Barnes Furniture Store for about 6 dollars and that she was tired of that lamp anyway. I never forgot that night. Mary Jo Bowling was the mother of the friend I treasure the most because our friendship began in Mrs. Matthew's kindergarten on West Mill Street in 1956. Mary Jo went to heaven earlier this month. Our city's fire chief has lost a father and a mother in about an 8 month span. Mary Jo will be remembered for her great sense of humor and her love for her parents and her children. Her mother Mrs. Wright is still with us at 96 years old and is as spry as a spring robin. Mary Jo had a voice that could cut through 6 aisles in the grocery store and had a laugh that was infectious. I don't ever remember her not having a smile and a kind word when you saw her. I also am saddened at the passing of Susan Whitfield McSwain. Her dad was our principal at Tallapoosa High School my senior year. He invited Frank Howard the legendary football coach at Clemson to be the speaker at the athletic banquet that year and I don't remember ever laughing as hard in my life. Mr. Whitfield and Coach Howard were chums from boyhood in southwest Alabama if memory serves me correctly. Happy birthday the 26th to Fay and Kay. Fay Allen McClendon and Kay Allen Newman have been dear friends since first grade. Congratulations to Kay's daughter Holly Newman who graduates this weekend at the Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts in Orlando.