Frankly, My Dear...

As of February 15, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Steps: 1,313,090
Miles: 558.98


Margaret Mitchell - (1900-1949)

Margaret "Peggy" Mitchell was born on November 8, 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father was a historian and lawyer, and her mother was a suffragist. When she was 15, she wrote, "If I were a boy, I would try for West Point, if I could make it, or well I'd be a prize fighter - anything for the thrills."


Margaret Mitchell's greatest contribution to literature was her "Gone With the Wind," which she began writing in 1926 and published in 1936. At the time of its publication, the book sold more copies than any other American novel in literary history. The story centers around the life and times of Scarlett O'Hara, a Southern woman. Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

The novel has such gems has:

"Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them."

"The south produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors and lawyers and poets, but certainly no engineers and mechanics. Let Yankees adopt such low callings."

Source

The novel was made into a very long movie. The man who directed "Gone with the Wind", Victor Fleming, is also credited with the other immortal classic released in 1939: The Wizard of Oz.


Being a Yankee Engineer, I suppose I should take offense, But as Clark Gable so aptly put it, Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!

Hall of Fame - The Georgia Peach

As of February 14, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Steps: 1,294,288
Miles: 551.12


Tyrus Raymond Cobb
Born: December 18, 1886 Narrows, Banks County, Georgia
Died: July 17, 1961 Atlanta, Georgia

The eldest of three children, he grew up in Royston, Georgia, under the watchful eyes of his father, who was a schoolteacher, principal, newspaper publisher, state senator, and county school commissioner who urged Ty to study. When Ty went off to play professional baseball, his father sternly warned him, "Don't come home a failure."

Had a career batting average of .367.
Won 12 batting titles, including 9 in a row from 1907 thru 1915.
Third all time in stolen bases with 892.
Second in runs scored with 2,245.
Second in career hits with 4,191.
Batted under .320 only once in his career.
Batted over .400 three times.

"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon."
-- Ty Cobb

"I recall when Cobb played a series with each leg a mass of raw flesh. He had a temperature of 103, and the doctors ordered him to bed for several days, but he got three hits, stole three bases, and won the game."
-- Grantland Rice

Cobb's earnings were invested wisely, mostly in General Motors and Coca-Cola stock, which made him very wealthy and probably baseball's first millionaire.

Source

Sherman's March to the Sea

As of February 13, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Steps: 1,282,074
Miles: 545.76


As I enter the swampy lowlands of Georgia my thoughts turn to me being a Yankee in the deep south.

I consider myself a pick-n-choose history buff, that is, I pick and choose bits that I find interesting and leave the dry, dull stuff for others.

But say "Georgia", and you cannot escape history. Perhaps you see Peaches, Peanuts, Coca-Cola, Scarlett O'Hara or Ty Cobb. Explored by the Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540, one of the orginial 13 colonies, named by the British, the "Province of Georgia" in honor of King George II, site of Revolutionary War battles - Georgia joined the Confederacy on January 18, 1861.

The "Lost Cause" lives on there.

My Virtual Walk will take me through 112 miles of Georgia ending just north of Savannah. --Georgia, has seen many walks on many types. Marches by civil rights activists and counter-marches by the Ku Klux Klan. But, there was another walk that will be long remembered.

On November 15, 1864, Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman began a campaign that would see some 60,000 men march 300 miles from Atlanta, Georgia to Savannah "scorching the earth" and destroying railroads, bridges, public buildings, and consuming the food of the people that lived along the way.

This brutal form of warfare may have helped end the Civil War, but it generated much hardship and bitter feelings, feelings that linger on today, with time only slowly erasing them.

I think to myself, I will tread lightly and strive to leave only the faintest of virtual footprints while enjoying the peaches and peanuts, and slaking my thirst with a cold diet Coke.

Jopete - John Anderson

You and I will meet again
When we're least expecting it
One day in some far off place
I will recognize your face
I won't say goodbye my friend
For you and I will meet again.

The world is round and
the place which may
seem like the end
may also be the beginning.

In heaven, you do not need Real Producer or Winamp to stream; and in hell, there isn't any music to be streamed.

Stream Well My Friend