By Keith Sheffield

​When it rains we think of childhood days.
We remember we had to stay in. We could not go outside and play.
We rambled through the house stopping only to look out the windows, staring at the trees'        leaves, waiting for the drips to stop.
We played Cowboys and Indians under the beds and behind all of the chairs.
The smell of cookies coming from the kitchen would stop all of our play.
Mom and I laughed as I set an extra plate.
We ate cookies as we talked about the day how much fun it would have been if we could             have romped and played.
I thought of many names through the years... 
I wondered what it would have been like...
But the most important people are the family you do have.
But I still have to say I can only wonder what it would have been like to really have a big             brother to play with on this rainy day.

I spooked a group of deer today. There were three or four, maybe a few more. It was hard to tell because they saw me before I saw them and were already making haste to get away with as little interaction with me as possible. Running up on deer might not seem all that strange for a Southern gentleman in Georgia. However, this happened within a mile or so or Rome's City Hall. I could hear the heavy equipment moving about over at the city public works barn. I could hear the traffic on the four lane road just yards away. I could just make out the tower at the city waterworks through the trees. This was practically downtown. 

​I'll let video tell the story:

So there are a few thoughts on video. As I exited the site, I shared a few more thoughts on audio. Just click here.

We choose to support the preservation of Burwell Creek for the same reasons we supported the expansion of Ocmulgee Mounds and the preservation of Ft. Hawkins in Macon. We support it for the same reasons we support the preservation of the Resaca Battlefield. These places tell the story of who we are.

Most of the sites of the Battle of Atlanta and Peachtree Creek are gone forever. We will never be able to support their preservation.

The Burwell Creek property would allow us to use an educational and ecological area to connect a major Cherokee historic site, The Chief Ridge Home with a WBTS site, Ft. Norton, and in turn, connect both of these with downtown. It could easily become a tourist magnet that could vastly outperform the negligible economic gains that the current plan could muster. And the city could lean on Coosa River Basin Initiative and others that support this preservation to provide trails, paths, and boardwalks to give these areas the connection we seek. All they'll need is the permission to make it happen.

If you agree with this alternate plan, please feel free to contact the City of Rome and let them know. 

By now many of you have been witness to the viral article on the Modern Man. Its 27 points supposedly give insight to how a male can fashion himself as a man of the times.  Of course, this piece appeared in the New York Times. I must be honest in that I have not done my due diligence to determine if this is intended as a work of satire. There's no time for that, I have a blog to update and time requires me to assume that this poor gentleman has never had dirty hands or his feet off the pavement. Such a work needs an official ABG rebuttal. So here we go.

1) Why would a man ever be buying his wife shoes? Perfume, jewelry, tickets to a concert or a show? All are perfectly acceptable. For a woman, shoes and purses are personal items and should be selected by the woman who will be wearing them. If you want to buy her shoes, take her to dinner and then shoe shopping. It will save her the trouble of returning them.

2) Why is your confidence sunk to begin with? Are you a man or a boy? My confidence was sunk once. But I grew up and it recovered. 

3) Being considerate is not when you eat popcorn. Being considerate is not acting a fool in the lobby, not walking around with your underwear showing above the top of your belt, or not using profanity in public as if you were a Hun or a Gaul. It's dark. It's a movie. Just eat the popcorn. No one cares.

4) A filet isn't cheap and the fat is the best part. But if a piece of a filet is too charred to eat, then you don't cut around it, you send it back. I'm not just paying for a piece of meat, I'm paying for a properly cooked piece of meat which means it should be perfectly cooked. If it's burnt, they will cook another one. The one exception to this scenario would be if I were sitting in the home of another's hospitality, in which manners would dictate that I would not offend my host or hostess.

5) This one is fairly reasonable. I can't tell you how many times I've been inside getting the errand done while some lazy fool was still circling the parking lot looking for a close spot. Our forefathers walked to Virginia to fight the Yankees. You can't walk into Food Lion from the parking lot? I thought we were being men.

6) We'll never fix the problems of this country by lessening the consequences of lack of personal responsibility. Want to talk on the phone? Plug your own phone in at night.

7) If you just walk up in my house looking for ANYTHING, I'm not only going to show you the door, I'm going to throw you out in the yard. If I invite you in, we have sweet tea and water. Maybe coffee. If we really like you, the lady of the house has Diet Coke and I have bourbon. We promise to have hospitality, you promise to have manners. 

​8) Proper names for things. There's a time and a place. One problem this country has is an inability to distinguish between environments. There are casual settings and proper settings. The Georgia man knows the difference and adjusts accordingly. It's not hard if you aren't a savage.

9) Any man that thinks you need a daughter to learn something new everyday needs a genius son and a personal library. 

10) The Georgia man assigns dish duty to a teenage son. The boy needs to learn responsibility if he is to become a man.

11) I'm fairly active on Twitter but can't think of a scenario in which I'd pin a tweet. But if one arises, I'll do so without questioning my manhood.

12) You should probably pick up on the being out of soap thing each time you got out of the shower. What if you get exposed poison ivy and need to scrub in a hurry? There's no time to look for soap. Your shower should always be ready in case of emergency.

13) I have never listened to Wu-Tang. And I never will. Handel? Wagner? Allman Brothers? Audioslave?  You better believe it. I even listen to Parliament. But I can't abide with Wu-Tang. Trust me, Allman Brothers. It even has "All Man" in the name.

14) Who cares what the list is written on? I have live tweeted while grocery shopping before. It takes the edge off and I still get done before the idiot circling the parking lot looking for a close spot. 

15) My children know my mood by communicating with me...but I do currently have hardwood floors.

16) An intruder? If I'll throw a guest in the yard do you think an intruder is going to fare much better? And my wife is a better shot than I am. You'll be better off fighting me than her with her babies in the house. Think about Scarlett burying that Yankee straggler under the floorboards and then rethink this entry.

17) Melon baller? Cantaloupe comes sliced. I put salt on mine. You are welcome to do the same. Watermelon comes in wedges and we throw the rinds across the fence out back. No mellon ballers. Wait...is this some sort of compensation for something? Never mind. Family friendly. Let's move on.

18) Seriously thinking about it is like trying. Do or do not. There is no try.

19) Georgia man can do this too. Or he can cut fresh ones from one of the rose bushes in his yard. 

20) Need a warm glass of milk? A bedtime story? Want me to sing you a lullaby? This is really why you have a melon baller, isn't it? 

21) So many of the world's problems could be fixed with Bavarian creme donuts. This one is no exception.

22) Are you going to get the paper or empty the chemical toilet of the worn out camper you're driving around? Put on some clothes before you go outside.

23) With the exception of The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann's movies are crap. The Miami Vice series was legendary. The movie was horrible. Read a book. It'll last longer. 

24) If you don't have more to worry about than battery percentage, you are doing pretty well in life. 

25) Guns are useful for a great number of things. But the man most criminals need to fear is the one who they aren't sure if he owns a gun or not. You know, the guy who doesn't have pictures with his guns on Facebook, the one who doesn't walk around with one on his hip, but he's still Southern and a Conservative so there's always that chance...feeling lucky?

26) Oh no. Not the melon baller again!

27) Dancing can be a touchy subject around the house. But I'm getting older and less interested in my public image so the dancing may become more frequent. But I'm still not going to use a melon baller.