Ponderings by Dan Ponder

Sixty Thanksgivings I will have celebrated as of Thursday of this week.  I had to think about this a while to make sure the number was right since I am only 59 years old.  In any case, I have had a lifetime of opportunities to give thanks. Thanksgiving has always been a favorite holiday of…

Relax.  You aren’t going to have to read another article about close elections and why you should always vote.  Even I have been getting a bit burned out on the subject of Donalsonville’s recent close race for mayor. That was just another reason why I was looking forward to attending the Auburn – Georgia football…

You bet it does!   The recent election for Mayor of the City of Donalsonville proves that each and every vote is important.  We may just not know when a single vote will be so crucial. It isn’t the closest election in our city’s history.  Back in 1971, 42 years ago, Butch Hornsby beat John Ed…

This was not an election that was in my plan.  However, if you love your community and you think you can make a difference then I believe you have to be a part of the solution.  Donalsonville needs a lot of solutions. There was a three vote difference in the Mayor’s race when the polls…

It has been almost three years since my family bought the Donalsonville News.  For the most part, we have been successful in achieving our goals.   We wanted to make the paper about the people who live and work here.  We wanted a lot of good pictures telling the story of the community.   We wanted it…

It was a Decatur County resident that gave this description of John Hanna this past week, upon hearing of his death.  I couldn’t have said it better myself. John Hanna lived all his life in Seminole County, except for his time at Georgia Military College, the University of Georgia and Korea.  The son of one…

I was looking forward to going with my grandson, Henry, to visit Fort Sumter on a recent trip to Charleston.  Arriving in the city a couple of days after him and his parents, I asked Henry if he had seen the fort yet.  “No, the boat is not working,”  he said.   Since the ferry…

Following an Auburn football game a couple of weeks ago, Mary Lou and I took a route home that we had never traveled.  From Auburn, we traveled down through Hurtsboro, Midway, Clayton, Clio, Louisville, Clopton, Abbeville and Columbia. It was a peaceful drive down a very rural part of my home state.  It was also…

“What do you do there?”  I have heard this question for 35 years while living in a small town in Southwest Georgia.  My Atlanta friends can’t help themselves as they try to think of living in a town smaller than their subdivision. “Where do you go to eat?”  I thought that an odd question to…

The first time I noticed my television viewing habits were changing was the last season of Seinfeld.  That program had been the top rated show for several years and yet I had never seen it.  It was only when the reruns started that I got hooked.  By that time, no one wanted to talk about…