Ponderings by Dan Ponder

I walked back to my truck twice today.  The heat index was over 100 degrees and it was truly a pain to return to my vehicle to retrieve what I left behind.  I had not forgotten my shopping list, my wallet, or my glasses.  No, it was something perhaps even more important than that.  It…

My mother broke her three-month quarantine this week.  She lives in an independent living facility in Atlanta.  Her meals have been delivered to her apartment each day since the pandemic closed their dining room.  For the past month, she has finally been allowed to walk on certain days for 30 minutes on a path on…

It was a good-sized crowd that gathered in the old Donalsonville Fire Department building on Tuesday.  People mixed and mingled, enjoying the food and the moment.  History was made as Ron Johnson was sworn in as Donalsonville’s Mayor, the first black person to hold that office in the city’s 123-year history. The short ceremony belied…

There have been boxes everywhere in my life over the last two years.  We had a lake house destroyed, sold our home in Donalsonville, sold a townhouse in Auburn, bought a house in Auburn, and sold our company.  If I have one goal left, it is to empty all the junk I have accumulated in…

For most of my life, my family has celebrated Memorial Day at Compass Lake.  It has been a holiday full of traditions spanning many generations.  Hot dogs, homemade ice cream, watermelon and ribs are all part of the menu, and long naps in the hammocks after hours of swimming and tubing on the lake are…

I joined part of my family on a Zoom meeting this past week.  We were celebrating my cousin’s graduation from Yale.  After four years of enduring the weather in New Haven, Connecticut and spending untold amounts of his parent’s money, Cormac Byrd has earned his degree.  He already has a job in New York and…

Everyone you and I know is  sick and tired of sitting around.  This self-isolation thing is more of a challenge than most of us ever imagined.  We are social animals.  We enjoy and even flourish in each other’s company.   Despite our desire to interact with our fellow man, we are also  people that understand…

 We are sometimes so caught up in the daily news about Covid-19 that some forget the lingering effects of Hurricane Michael in our area.  So much progress has been made in the aftermath of the storm that it does give me hope that we can overcome this second great challenge we have faced in the…

It is hard to believe the problems that have descended on Southwest Georgia in the past couple of years.  Hurricane Michael left such widespread devastation that parts of our area are still trying to crawl out of that hole. Just as we are seeing some semblance of light at the end of that very long…