Ponderings by Dan Ponder

In some ways, Election Day 2018 was a day of paradoxes for me.  I attended three separate meetings with city and county officials before coming home to watch the state and national election returns.  The political overtones of both could not have been more different. The nation had been rushing towards Election Day at an…

It has now been three weeks since Hurricane Michael forever changed the landscape of Southwest Georgia and the panhandle of Florida.   It is an evolving story of destruction, despair, hope, progress and faith. Even twenty one days later, I am still shocked each morning when I walk outside and see my almost treeless yard,…

Things are finally getting back to normal; the new normal that is.   For 42 years I have called this place my home.  There have been more changes in the past two weeks than in the previous 42 years.  But we are moving forward and for that we can all be thankful. The roads are…

It came up with an unprecedented fury out of the Gulf, strengthening 40% in the last two hours before it hit landfall.   Four days earlier it did not even have a name. Hurricane Michael is the most powerful hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast since record keeping started in 1851.   It was the…

I have been hanging around politics for a long time.  I have seen bone-headed actions and incredibly courageous moves by politicians of both parties. I have seen the wrong decisions made by an overwhelming majority.  I have seen the right decision made by the slimmest of votes.  However, I have never, ever seen quite the…

The older gentleman walked up to me in the crowded room.  He stuck out his hand and I shook it.  After calling out my name, he asked me if I remembered the “grip”.   I instantly knew what he was talking about; the somewhat secret handshake that members of my college fraternity share with each…

We occasionally find ourselves at different times in our lives that seem somewhat like crossroads, but they are more like boundaries.   There is the time behind us and the time ahead of us.   Thoughts of the past and the future fill our minds at the same time. Some of these times are obvious. …

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary makes the definition pretty simple.  A cousin is the child of your aunt or uncle.  Another definition is that cousin’s closest common ancestor is a grandparent.  In real life, cousins are so much more than that. My mother had a brother and a sister.  My father had a sister.  Collectively I had…

Labor Day is very different today than it was in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed a bill into law declaring it a national holiday. It was a time of great unrest with many Americans working seven days a week, 12 hours a day in low paying jobs. Children worked on farms, but also in…

For the past few days, the news cycle has been completely dominated by the news of Senator John McCain’s death from brain cancer at the age of 81. There is nothing I can say here about the man that you have not already heard.  However, I feel compelled to give my own thoughts about a…