"Sand through the Hourglass"

Edgewood and Pryor Downtown Atlanta, 1961
Trolley, Walton Street
Camelot - The year 1963 was the height of a fairly innocent period in American society. The country was lead by a high-profile and mostly popular president who'd barely won the 1960 election,

Suddenly, there was an interruption, and the announcer said to stand by for a special bulletin. Then we heard the words everyone in our generation would remember for the rest of their lives: 'President Kennedy has been shot.'"

We spent the Sixties preparing for 'life' -- educations, marriage, children, establishing homes -- and on into the Seventies. Everybody has stories to tell of hardship, triumph, heartbreak, joy.

The Eighties were a blur of activity as our children grew up and we began to appreciate what our own parents endured in our teen years and our children in turn learned that their parents weren't as dumb as they'd suspected.

The Nineties were a time of transition for some of us. As my friend Kathy says, "Middle age didn't turn out the way we thought it would." Some marriages came apart. Health issues were beginning to be a concern for some. Some wives worked so the family would have insurance. Companies went out of business, jobs ended. We fell back, regrouped, kept on.

Near midnight, December 31, 1999, we drove to town. There was a public safety vehicle at every intersection, waiting for whatever was supposed to break loose when the clock struck twelve. I went into the dark VNA building, flipped on the light and on the stroke of midnight, dialed our other office, 35 miles away, to assure that nothing had happened. "Happy New Year," said Mary Ann. As we drove back through town, things were quiet, eerily quiet. We moved into the Twenty-First Century.

Life goes on. The pace is a little slower.