Opinion

By Mike Ruffin

In the early 1980s, while I was studying at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, I was also the weekend pastor of the Beech Grove Baptist Church in Owen County, Kentucky, which was about seventy miles north of Louisville. Southern Baptist churches participate in regional groupings known as “associations,” and those associations usually have at least one meeting a year. If they only have one, it’s usually in the fall. If they have two, one is in the spring and the other during autumn.

Most of the churches in the Owen County Association were small. Many of them used seminary students as pastors, so the association held its annual meeting during the summer to avoid giving its pastors something else to deal with on top of their heavy academic responsibilities.
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Growing up in Savannah’s Fairway Oaks in the 50s and 60s, I could walk out my door and down the street and get into any one of three or four pickup football games going on in some kid’s yard. The same was true for pickup baseball and basketball games during those seasons.

When was the last time you saw a bunch of the neighborhood kids playing a pickup football game? It doesn’t happen. Video games have put a halt to them. That’s just one aspect of what I call the wussification of the American male. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Now hear this: I turned 59 a few days ago. Math was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure that’s one less than 60. I’ll hit that milestone next year, Lord willing.

I’ve reached the point in life at which many folks start slowing down as they move toward retirement.

Not me. I’m just getting cranked up.
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By Walter Geiger

Once upon a time, I witnessed firsthand the violent collision of two vehicles just off I-75 in downtown Atlanta.

Leaving a downtown conference, I was driving the first truck in line to turn left onto the southbound lane of the interstate. Cars coming off the southbound lane and those turning onto it it from the other direction were whizzing through the intersection.

I could see the crash materializing before it happened. The cars were on a collision course. Neither driver was paying attention to the other. I and several other drivers blew our horns to no avail.
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By Mike Ruffin

It was about this time of year in 1977 that I returned to Mercer University for my senior year. A girl named Debra Johnson returned for her junior year. She came back to Macon wearing the engagement ring I’d given her the month before as we’d stood beside the Towaliga River below High Falls. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

Part reunion, part homecoming and pure Americana, Barnesville-Lamar County is in the throes of the 44th annual Buggy Days it has hosted.

A group of community leaders, searching for a way to bring visitors - and their money - to the community came up with the idea of the festival honoring Barnesville’s heritage as the center of the Buggy manufacturing industry before the horseless carriage put an end to it all. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

I wrote some of my deepest secrets on a piece of notebook paper, carefully folded the sheet, placed it in an empty Mason jar, and screwed the lid on tight. I then dug a hole about a foot deep out behind my father’s utility house, placed the jar in the hole, and filled the hole with dirt. My plan was to return to it at some unspecified time in the future to see if my fears had come to pass and if my dreams had come true.

Being ten years old and having homework to do, baseball games to play, clover to lie in, a creek to play in, books to read, baseball cards to collect, Braves games to listen to, a dog to pass the time with, and a bike to ride, I soon forgot all about the jar that was buried in our backyard. [Full Story »] 

Geiger’s Champale Jenna January came into our lives in 2007. We knew her as JJ. She was born in the shadow of Phipps Plaza in Buckhead and located for us by Jenny Woodlee, thus the last portion of her registered name.

JJ was a yellow Labrador Retriever weighing in at just under 100 pounds in her prime. Our daughters May Melton and Livia Lanier, now 21 and 17 respectively, grew up with JJ.
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By Mike Ruffin

“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Legend has it that a relative of mine named Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. I visited there last summer and there are exhibits that support the claim. So a Ruffin may have fired the shot that started the Civil War. I’m not ashamed. But I’m certainly not proud.

Sometime during my boyhood, I was telling a friend how proud I was that our country had never lost a war. He said, “Well actually, Georgia was one of the Confederate states, so we lost the Civil War.”
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By Walter Geiger

I sat through two public hearings about a proposed increase in property taxes the other day and they went about the same as the many others I have endured over the years.
Some people arrive well informed and ask good, articulate questions. Some are not so well informed. Of those, some listen to explanations and some do not.

Those who do not listen leave such events just as uninformed as they were when they got there but feel good about having spoken their minds and I guess that is a good thing. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

I was recently working on a story in the Gospel of Matthew (14:13-21).

Jesus has just learned of the execution of John the Baptist, his kinsman and forerunner. He understandably wants to be alone, so he gets into a boat to travel to a deserted place. But when he arrives, the place isn’t deserted. A large crowd is waiting for him because they have needs they believe Jesus can meet. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

In the advertising realm of my long-ago youth, I recall very few ads across any medium for pharmaceuticals.

Sure, the makers of aspirin, Ex-Lax, Alka-Seltzer and various tonics pimped their products but they just hinted as to what your need for them might be. Constipation, hangovers and a lack of iron in the blood were not discussed in the media just as Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and Ricky and Lucy Ricardo never slept in the same bed. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Dear Sullivan, Welcome to the world!

I am so glad you are here. I hope you will be free to become the best possible version of who you are meant to be and of who you want to be. You can rest assured that we will always love, embrace and support you. I also hope the world in which you will grow up and live will progress toward being an even better world than the one into which you have been born. I hope you will join with people of good will to contribute to that progress. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

Big Brother’ made his first appearance in George Orwell’s 1949 novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’. Orwell also wrote ‘Animal House’. Both are commonly required reading in high school and college classwork.

In Orwell’s book, Big Brother was the leader of Oceania where the dominant political party was all powerful and maintained iron fist rule over the citizenry ‘for their own sakes’. Citizens were watched constantly through television screens thus the birth of the phrase ’Big Brother is always watching’. [Full Story »]