MARCHING TO ATLANTA
Yes, couldn’t help myself
One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite military leaders. If men like William Tecumsah Sherman ran New York City today, Covid-19 would have fled to Canada by now.
My college roommate, Tim Ely, and his hilarious wife, Debbie, live in Roswell. My sister, Kathi, and husband, Marty Flynn, live in Covington. Our two fall-down-funny friends, Donna and Bob Gorsche, live in Marietta. My niece, Courtney Flynn Taylor, lives in Atlanta.
If ever a city could lobby as a second home, it would be Atlanta, Georgia. At least for the time being, it feels more like a place to put down roots than anywhere we’ve been since we abandoned California in 2017.
Begs the philosophical question of “What is home?” Other than the vapid response of “Where you hang your hat,” there can be the elimination of geography to the point of exclusion.
And some of this nomadic angst is life-affirming. As you age, it gets much too easy to surround yourself with the familiar. The reason a lot of people don’t retire before they are, more or less, forced out by incompetence. it is much easier to stay at something you know then to encounter the unknown as an old(er) person.
Not that the above is an excuse for electing a geriatric dim bulb like Joe Biden.
Georgia also boasts a reasonable Covid climate.
While my sister, Marty, and I had to play Kovid Kabuki and wear masks for the six feet from the hostess station to the table, we didn’t have to wear them anywhere else. Quite frankly, when we dined out the second day I didn’t even bother with the face-covering requirement prior to sitting down.
After three days of southern hospitality, as opposed to northern stupidity, I was ready to start looking at property.
But I had to get to Florida, though had no idea what it would be like. The last time I was on the Gulf Coast was in 1974 on a family vacation. We took Amtrak to St. Petersburg to see great aunt Elsie.
Elsie and her WWI husband, Sam Rambeau, lived in Florida ever since Sam came home from The Great War. We know it now as WWI. He’d been gassed and the doctors told him he’d only live a few years. He didn’t pass until well into his 50s, and even at that too soon for Elsie. She lived thirty years without her husband.
But she was a lively 70-something when we visited.
And now, almost 50 years later, I return.
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