What We Did On Our Anniversary

The other day was our 44th anniversary. Wow! We have been married 44 years.

We started out the day by going to the Governor’s Mansion. We read that the mansion is decorated for Christmas and it is a sight to see. We also read it is opened from 9:30 to 12:30 daily.

When we drove onto the Governor’s Mansion grounds a Georgia State Patrolman asked us could he help us. We told him we would like to see the mansion, He had a clipboard. He asked for my driver’s license then he walked around and wrote down our license plate number. He told us to proceed up the hill and we were directed where to park.





The mansion was decorated in all sorts of trees and figurines and things. Each room had a docent, which was always a charming, with a Georgia accent, well dressed lady who gave you the run-down on what you were looking at. The first room, the lady introduced herself as “Sandra Deal, wife of the Governor. “ We had a nice conversation with Mrs. Deal. We were the last of the group that just went through, so she talked more on a one on one. She told us it was a big nice place, but they lived upstairs and used only about 3 of the rooms, an office, sitting room, and the bedroom, “3 rooms, just like we do back at home”, she added.

I asked if I could take her picture and she said of course I could. She told us a good deal (get it?)about the design of the house, using Greek names and different styles from trends and/or fashion. I asked her where she was from and she said Gainesville. I asked her if she knew any of Englands in Gainesville. And she said something like Godfrey England worked for them. I told her my last name was Hunter and the Hunters and the England intertwined in their marriages in Union County, Georgia, and some of the Englands overflowed into Hall County (Gainesville).




She gave me a quick polite smile and greeted the newest arrivals and started talking to them. Our audience with the First Lady of Georgia was over.

The decorations were great. Each room has a theme of a sort of a certain area of Georgia. One room had a Christmas tree with sea shells and star fish on it that represented the coast. Another tree in another room had picked cotton all over it, that represented one of south Georgia’s principle crop.

The room that represented north Georgia had Cabbage Patch Dolls (Cleveland), and other things typical of of the area but what stands out is the Spanish Moss hanging from a fireplace. Was that a joke?

Two rooms had children singing groups singing Christmas songs. See the video above.

Mrs. Deal pointed out that if we come back sometime when it wasn’t the Christmas season, with all the decorations gone, we could see more of other such in the house, and I think she meant historical things on display.

















In the basement in a room where one group of kids were singing were portraits of all the governors of Georgia. I made a point to find the below one and photograph it. It is a portrait of Button Gwinnett. Button was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. If that isn’t interesting enough, he was killed in a duel. He was an exciting person, wasn’t he?




Also in the same room in the basement singing was a big table where the staff, or volunteers, were overseeing the cookies baked from the mansion’s cookies and apple cider. With the people standing on the other side of the table watching who took how many, I only took one cookie – it would be embarrassing, at 70 years old, to get my hand slapped.



The Governor’s Mansion grounds were impressive landscaped and well trimmed. Georgia has come a long way since Governor Gene Tallmadge brought his cows to the capital to graze on the grass. I haven’t heard if Gene put cattle at the mansion grounds or not. Then, the mansion was Ansley Park, which was not much in the public view, so I dout it, Gene Tallmadge was a master showman.





We went to Atlantic Station to do some Christmas shopping. Atlantic Station looked like a chunk of New York City, maybe a 5 block square, was ripped up and it sailed away and landed off Northside Drive in Atlanta. That section could pass for a section of Manhattan. Apparently, if it was a chunk of New York City was somehow lifted up and scaled down to Atlanta, the cheap street food venders fell off along the way. By the way, I think it was named Atlantic Station because it is the same area that the old Atlantic Steel yards were at. Some of you readers, will mumble something like, “I thought everybody knew that."





We had lunch at Which Wich. Which Wich is a unique sandwich shop. You fill out your order on a brown paper sack by filling out the blanks and multiple choices. Then you give the brown paper bag to the cashier who adds it up on the cash register, put it on a clothes hangers and sends it down an assembly line. Then at the pickup area people are patiently waiting for their order to come. And then, in our case, you look for a normal height chairs with a normal height table instead of those high seats and chairs that they mostly have. We shared a turkey sandwich WHICH was pretty good.






In the evening we had reservations at the Canoe Restaurant on the river. The waitress was a firm believer, I think, in making the customer feel comfortable and right. And also we were absolutely right on everything we said, like, “Excellent choice!” I had lamb sirloin and Anna had the most tend part of a cow, if I understood correctly, it is along the spine. However, as nice as it was, we were seated by a plate glass, of a glassed in porch. It was cold.

Then, after we left one of the better restaurants in the Metro Atlanta area we went to Big Lots to look for more clear Christmas lights and they were out.

Some People Think We Are Always on the Go

I was asked last week do we (Anna and I) stay on the go all the time? Do we? Huh? Huh? Well, no. We do come home and sleep and watch TV.

The truth is I didn’t think we were on the go all the time. I just thought we had things to do a lot of the time.

I decided to keep notes for a few days just to try to figure out what we do. Mind you, it is not a diary. It is more manly than a diary. I would say it is more like a journal.

When my mother-in-law, Marie, was a child she went to the Campground Methodist Academy on Roswell Road. Roswell Road was a dirt country road then.

Marie is a natural archivist. Through the years she has kept memoirs of her class mates and also kept newspapers clippings on them. They had annual reunions, which lasted up until just a few years ago. She also has many photos of the alumni. One of her old classmates, who was the secretary kept the minutes of their meetings handed them all over to Marie. Later we heard she had Alzheimer’s Disease. We speculated that she realized her mind was about to go through some changes and she felt she should hand over the records to someone who knew how to take care of them. She picked the right person.

Campground Methodist Church changed its name to East Marietta Methodist Church.

The lady in charge of collecting the historical data for the church’s 175th celebration wanted to talk to Marie to see what information Marie could share.

Marie, Anna, and I met the lady and her mother-in-law at Marie’s Wednesday. The lady was absolutely thrilled of all the information Marie had and donated to their cause. You could tell it made everybody happy. They were thankful for getting such good information about their church members that went back to early in the 20th century and Marie for finding a good appreciative home for it.

The lady in charge of the 175th and I have probably crossed paths. I am about 12 years older than she but we both went to Crestview Baptist and knew all the members – or the well known ones anyway. Her father was co-owner of Smith Brothers Service Station that I did business with.

The mother-in-law, I probably crossed paths with too. She was about ten years older than me but we knew all the same OMs and who they were related to. She went to Waterman Street School as a child and remembers Miss Whitehead. She knew all my uncles and my father. Also, interesting, she caged 69 chipmunks in her yard over a season and took them all out, one cage full at a time to a spring out in the woods and let them out.

Thursday we had the carpet clean. Beforehand, we moved all the small furniture and little stuff to the carport, deck, and here and there.

The carpet cleaner was scheduled at something like 9:30am. He called and said he was running about 15 minutes late, which was fine.

I was keeping my eye out for him. At 9:45 I saw a vehicle turn into our street from the corner, two houses away. The vehicle had the carpet cleaning company’s name and logo on it. I stood out and waved with both hands. He went on by studying each house. Apparently, he looked through me and drove by. He went to the end of the street and turned around and again crept down the street at a slow speed. I stood in the middle of our driveway and waved my arms again.

Again, she slowly glided on by, looking at each house closely for the number. We don’t have a mail box with our house number on it. It is on the front of the house.
He went back to the corner he originally came in on and turned around and started his search again. I got nearer to the street and waved both arms back and forth, as before.

He turned into the driveway across the street and got out and asked the mother there was this the address, having to talk over my shouting, “OVER HERE! OVER HERE!”

She pointed to me and he looked at me and more or less said, “Oh.”

He got back into his car and drove over to our driveway. I told him he confirmed what I always thought, I am invisible. He apologized saying he just too focused on looking for the number he wasn’t studying any people around. He focused through me.

He did a good job. Later, he had a co-worker come and video him and his process for cleaning carpet in our den. He said it would be on his blog soon.


Friday I worked in the yard and carried a truckload of stuff to American Thrift Store and a truckload to the dump. I also went to Dr. No’s Comicbook Shop and saw a couple of interesting comic books I am considering.

I worked in yard by picking up limbs that were blown down recently during a stormy time. I also dumped a garbage can full of leaves mulch and spread it. While doing this twice I looked up just in time to see my dog Willow gobble up a chipmunk. She bent over and got what looked like another chipmunk and gobbled it down. She was eating them like tacos.

From a distance they looked about the same size of a taco or a burrito. She was in a monkey grass patch that is pretty much infested with chipmunks so I think she probably ate at least two chipmunks.

It seems to me she could choke on the bones… after all, they are not filet’ chipmunks. But it didn’t seem to bother her.

On my trip to the dump I noticed they are building a larger building beside the other building that you back up and get rid of your junk. The new larger building is only a frame now, but it looks like it is swallowing the smaller building whole. It reminded me of a scene in a James Bond that a space craft swallowed another space craft.

On my various chores that day I reason to stand in front of a cashier’s window. I told the cashier the last time I stood there paying through the window the lady inside was eating a Varsity hotdog. She asked was it her. I said I didn’t think it was her. She said she was surprised because she loved Varsity hotdogs. She had a very pleased look on her face when I mentioned Varsity hotdogs.

I said I liked Varsity hotdogs too, but they were not as good as Brandi’s Hotdogs. When I mentioned Brandi’s hotdogs her expression went into an ecstatic state. She told me when she worked someplace else they were always making Brandi Hotdog Runs, but not since she came here. I mentioned how much I like Brandi’s spicy chili. I think her eyes turned to flashing stars. If I had my camera and recording her face only without sound you would think she was sitting on something giving her one organism after another, each better than the last.

Saturday I mulched the leaves in my front yard. Several months ago on Sucker TV they advertised a vacuum/ blower that mulched leaves. We ordered one. In the past few days off and on collectively I have filled up three big garbage cans of mulched leaves. Yesterday I stood and held the leaf vacuum for four hours and still had over half the front yard to do. “There has to be a better way” I thought.

My riding lawnmower is set to mulch. I finished up mulching in less than a hour. I think the next time I am going to use the vacuum/mulcher to get in corners and other areas my riding lawnmower can’t reach.

This coming week we have 5 medical appointments; two club meetings; and a couple of other things we need to do, like shop for and buy tires.

Occupation: Retired.

Today I have been retired for exactly 10 years.

Also, today, Anna has been retied one year and one day.

Come on and jump in. I have heard many people say the reason they don't retire is that they need something to do. Well, things work out that just living with life's challenges give you plenty to do everyday. We are always in a frantic rush to get things done and some days we just can't do all that we planned.

On This Date in 1967

42 Years ago today, I married Anna. That was the best thing I've ever done.

Lookie!! Here Is the Good Old Boy Article!

Above is what I was talking about in the previous article.

Some of my blogging buddies who haven't actually met me face to face (lucky you) might not recognize me in the crowd. In the top picture I am on the front row, in the center with the darkest shirt on. It appears that I am the shortest one there. That is simply not true. Everybody else wore elevator shoes.

Remember if you click on each picture you can see things better and might even be able to read the text.

1776 by David McCullough

I just finished David McCullough’s “1776”.

I thought it was an excellent book. The book tells of many little known facts of the people involved with the American Revolution on both sides, which makes it doubly interesting.

I was somewhat disappointed at the end to discover it stopped at the end of 1776 when much more of the war was to be dealt with. But what did I expect? If you read a book called “2006” you don’t expect to continue into 2007 do you?

It tells of Washington’s defeats and his whip-ass feats.

The book looks in detail of the lives and personalities of George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, and Henry Knox so much that I feel like I personally know each of them.

I can almost see them do their dirty-bird dance after crossing the Delaware River and taking over Trenton, the day after Christmas, 1776, with George hip-hopping saying, “Who Da Man?” And generals Greene and Knox, saying, “You Da Man!”

Good book!

The Incredible Shrinking Couple

Yesterday Anna went for a bone density test. She said she lost 3 inches. She said she is 3 inches shorter than she used to be. But after talking about it with her mother, she may have only lost 2 inches. It seemed she may have not been as tall as she thought.

On my physical this summer I found I lost 2 inches.

So, at least we are shrinking together.

And it won’t be no time until we won’t look strange playing in the toys aisles at Target, which we probably did yesterday. Anna is invited to baby shower next week and after buying the upcoming baby a gift she wanted to give the 8 year old boy member of the household a gift to, so he wouldn’t feel left out. We spent a while in the toy aisles at Target trying out different toys, trying to find the right suitable toy.

It is hard to put yourself in the frame of mind of a 8 year old and try to outguess yourself on what you would like to play with……. But somehow we do well at it.

My Bachelor Life Stops Comes To a Halt

Today is the day I Anna returns from Texas and I am to pick her up at the Atlanta Airport at 5:09. I am to pick her up at the North Terminal, not to be confused with the South Terminal, which I did Monday.

Apparently the South Terminal looks like mostly Delta Flights covering the Eastern US. The North Terminal is other flights, such as AirTran, which Anna flew, covering Western flights.

And I am jumping up and down raising my hand saying, “But what about International Flights?” And the guide says, “Shuddup kid, ya bother me!”

Before I leave to get her today there is some quick housekeeping I need to do. For three days I have been in the frame of mind of living in a 9 room walk-in closet. There may be a jacket hanging over this chair, a pair of Levis on the floor by the bed, and another pair draped over another chair, and shirts here and there, and shoes strolled around like beer cans on the edge of the Interstate.

I need to pick up all the near-shots I made at the kitchen garbage can… just a few napkins and wadded up paper towels – there are no food morsels because I ate most my meals out.

However, I did put all my dingy underwear into the dirty clothes hamper. I have standards.

I also raked the leaves in the front yard and ran the lawnmower over it to mulch the scattered maverick leaves. Every time I turn on my lawnmower, with the same reaction as Provo’s Dog, my neighbor Jim comes over with his edger to edge my driveway.

I am a person who is something of a recluse and enjoys his privacy. Jim, with his edger, pops my privacy bubble. Although I appreciate his generosity, if I was that concerned over my driveway being edged I would have bought an edger long ago – and told Anna I just might do that. She said I might hurt Jim’s feelings. Jim is over 80. I guess edging my driveway makes him feel needed… and I get my driveway edged – it all works out, kind of the like the little birds that pecks the dingle berries off elephants’ asses.

Wednesday - Its all about me

This is one of those blog entries that as I type this opening I have no idea what will pour out my mind and where it will lead me. Probably no place.

Monday morning I took Anna to the Atlanta Airport and she flew to Dallas for a series of talks in nearby Arlington, Texas.

Tomorrow (Thursday) evening I will pick her up at the airport.

Monday, returning from the airport I was going north of a I-75 & I-85 combo which takes you through downtown Atlanta. A few exits north of the center of town the six lanes divide off 3 on the left for the I-85 which is to South Carolina and the 3 right lanes will lead directly north to Chattanooga, but more importantly to me, Marietta. I thought I was on in one of the 3 right lanes to stay on the I-75, but I was in the foremost right I-85 lane and didn’t realize it until it was too late. I had to go up the I-85 and get off on the first exit, then I zig-zagged in downtown Atlanta neighborhoods until I got to Peachtree Street, and worked myself up to a better point of getting back on the I-75. I know the area I was making my way in pretty good from when I was younger. It was amazing how much things have changed.

Last night I took her mother Marie to the Cobb County Genealogical monthly meeting. We are both charter members. She hasn’t been in years and I only go when I see that a good speaker is lined up.

And last night they had a good speaker. They had Dr. Tom Scott, professor at Kennesaw College, who has written a book about the history of Cobb County from the 1930s to present time. Marie and I both bought the book when it first came out. She hurried up and read through it. I have about 100 pages to go.

I am a slow reader, plus I juggle several books at the same time. I like to have a history or sociology book around reading, a worthwhile book, and a good old fashion high intrigue book, like something by Stephen King.

Dr. Tom Scott talked for at least 60 minutes non-stop. He told of changes that were wise or practical changes, with led to social changes, and other long-range profound changes, with a few ironic antidotes. And he was speaking of people I was related to and knew in my formative years. I really enjoyed his speech. He had no notes to refer to, he talked straight, getting dates and people’s names right – even their middle names, and appeared to be very humble. He was born and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, he did not come to Cobb County until 1968. He may have done such a good job with the Cobb County history for the same reason I stated the lady ghost tour guide and owner – on the outside looking in, you can see what the people on the inside can’t, because they can only see what is in their vision, not the overall picture.

He said, it has been proven, without exception, that in any geography region, as race or the caste system ceased to be an issue the economic conditions improved.

When I took Marie home I went down in her basement to try to hook up all the electrical cords leading to the two timers and also replaced two fluorescent light tubes. I think there is about 6 or 8 fluorescent light fixtures, all leading in one form or another to one of the two timers…. I got completely confused. Some of the fixtures cords seem to lead off to no place, or even, returned to itself. I told her I would come back later when I was in the right frame of mind.

I worked about 4 or 5 hours in the yard yesterday, doing a lot of bending over which I am sure is the reason my left leg is hurting now. So, that is why I am not exercising today - or right now, anyway.

Have a nice Wednesday.

Shame on Us

Once George Bush with a mike in his face meant to say "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". But he got it all jumbled up.

But the real quote still applies. He was re-elected. Shame on us.