If you will allow me a moment of personal privilege, it has been one year since our grandson, Zack Wansley, collapsed and died while training for the Thanksgiving Day Marathon in Atlanta. He was 22. This was not his first Thanksgiving Day race. If memory serves me correctly, it was his eighth. Zack was an excellent long-distance runner. He had run cross-country at Chapel Hill … [Read more...] about Sep. 7, 2009: Reflections On The Loss Of A Young Life
Zachary Wansley
Dec. 22, 2008: Looking Back At 2008 Reminds Me How Lucky I Am
LOOKING BACK AT 2008 REMINDS ME HOW LUCKY I AM Don’t tell me it is almost 2009. Good grief! I haven’t finished getting ready for Y2K yet, and here we are already on the brink of a new decade. As has been my custom for many years, I plan to spend New Year’s Eve with friends and neighbors at the exquisite little Georgia Sea Grill on St. Simons Island, stuffing my face full of … [Read more...] about Dec. 22, 2008: Looking Back At 2008 Reminds Me How Lucky I Am
May 12, 2008: Baseball Trip with Grandson Was a Home Run
BASEBALL TRIP WITH GRANDSON WAS A HOMERUN There are no two ways about it: Being a grandfather is better than a plateful of hot buttered biscuits. Nothing compares to it. Nothing comes close. After deciding that President Peanut would be home long enough to wash his socks before taking off for Timbuktu to mediate a simmering dispute among local mountain goats, I figured that … [Read more...] about May 12, 2008: Baseball Trip with Grandson Was a Home Run
Mar. 10, 2008: Where Have All The Reliable Targets Gone?
WHERE HAVE ALL THE RELIABLE TARGETS GONE? I am getting concerned. A lot of my most reliable targets have dried up and gone away. Kind of like the drought, except annexing Tennessee won’t help me any. Our Ambassador to Outer Space Cynthia McKinney has disappeared into the cesspool of the free world, Berkeley, Calif. I had high hopes that she might run for president on the … [Read more...] about Mar. 10, 2008: Where Have All The Reliable Targets Gone?
January 1, 2008: To My Grandsons: Work Hard and Have Passion
To Zachary and Nicholas Wansley, Brian and Thomas Yarbrough Thinking about what I wanted to share with you this year, I was struck at how much we — you and I — have changed since we began this annual correspondence back at the beginning of the new millennium. Zack was a newly minted teenager, and the rest of you guys were barely double-digit. Now before this year is over … [Read more...] about January 1, 2008: To My Grandsons: Work Hard and Have Passion