Jackie's Birthday

The birthday boy and his lovely lady

Maxwell and Elizabeth

Merritt Giles and his date Laura, Max and Elizabeth, Susannah Dover and her fiance, Justin Martin

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Today was was Jackie's thirty-second birthday, and he and Mary and Max and Elizabeth came over for dinner. Max, who is a gourmet chef, did most of the cooking.

After dinner, Max and Elizabeth changed clothes and went to the SAE dance at the country club. Some of their friends stopped by on their way to the dance, and it was one attractive group of young people.

A Couple of Bright Moments in Our Life

* * * * * * Jimmy with Converse Bright and Jill Bright * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *Having lunch downtown * * * * * * * * *

Cathy Bright, Micky Bright, Taylor Bright, Jimmy, and Marion Bright
* * * * * * * * * * * * *Thanksgiving weekend * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Elizabeth and Maxwell

Maxwell proposed to Elizabeth Steel tonight, and she has accepted! Jimmy and I could not be happier; Elizabeth is everything a mother could want for her son: she's beautiful and sweet-natured and smart and fun to be with, and best of all, she loves him. Max was planning to give her a ring for Christmas, but he couldn't wait that long, and popped the question tonight.

Four years ago, my son Jackie married Mary, a young woman whom I have grown to love dearly. I am very proud of both of my boys for choosing so wisely.

Jimmy's hair is coming back darker than it was, and with a peculiar little white streak in front. George Powell, ever the king of the bon mots, glanced at it last week and commented, "We always knew you were a skunk."

Jimmy continues to deal with excessive fatigue and bouts of nausea. We called Dr. Anderson's office today, and are going in tomorrow to have more blood tests. We are still waiting to hear from Emory.

************** William's 3rd birthday *****************

************************* Patrick and Jake *********************************

Rosey emailed us these pictures tonight.

406 Terrace Blvd

My mother died July 20, 2006, in the home she and Daddy had built together fifty years before. It was a happy place, and my brothers and I have a multitude of wonderful memories of growing up there, as do the five grandchildren, and probably the oldest of the great-grandchildren. Friends were always welcomed, so it was a constant beehive of activity.

Maybe that's why the house feels so strange now: the quiet, the stillness, the emptiness. After Mama was gone, Mac and William and I weren't ready to do anything, so we didn't. We'd tell each other, "Now if there's anything you want, you get it." But we didn't. For almost a year, it sat there, completely untouched; each of us was so afraid we might take something another one wanted, and besides, change was unthinkable.

Gradually though, we began to timidly claim things that have special meaning to us, always prefaced by, "Are you SURE you don't want this....". Mama would be pleased, seeing how so many of her favorite possessions are being assimilated into our lives.

It has been funny, seeing what is important to different ones. The most interesting has been Maxwell: he wanted his grandfather's old cardigan sweaters, and a couple of Mama's cookbooks, ones that have her writing scribbled in the margins, and recipes torn from magazines stuffed between the pages.

Max was only seven years old when Daddy died in 1987, but he remembers Daddy's wearing those sweaters. We only found one, one that I guess Mama just couldn't part with, and that Daddy had always been particularly fond of. It brought tears to my eyes, seeing Max standing there, so tall and handsome like Daddy, in that ancient robin's egg blue alpaca cardigan, but it would have tickled Daddy to pieces.

To be continued. Maybe.

Jimmy and I have enjoyed this college football season immensely, and are lamenting the fact that it's nearly over. Always enjoyable in the past, this year it has been especially exciting, and it could not have come at a better time for us. We haven't been exactly what Grandmother Mackey would call "shut-ins", but one could say that our opportunities for entertaining ourselves have been limited. We're pondering our options as to how to fill the void this winter.

It would be interesting to know how many books Jimmy has read in the past eight months: always a voracious reader, he has been plowing through one book after another at breakneck speed. It's becoming more and more difficult to find something he hasn't read, and harder still to remember what he HAS read.

For whatever reason, he has shied away from anything too serious or thought-provoking. Of late, his taste has turned more toward escapist macho fare: legal thrillers, detective and adventure stories and such. He eschews romances, family sagas, bodice-rippers, and, with some exceptions (i.e. Elizabeth George, Margaret Atwood, Ruth Rendel, P.D. James), most female writers.

Other than sports and the occasional good movie, television has become virtually unwatchable.The news is all doom and gloom, or politics ad nauseam; everything else is either silly and moronic or vulgar and offensive, often a combination of both. It's no wonder we're in such a blue funk about college football's ending so soon.