A person much smarter than me once said, “A man is not measured on how he starts things. He is measured on how he finishes them.”

We continue this week with the wonderful story on the Jack Thompson family written and submitted by Robin Parker of Warm Springs. This family was mentioned in a 1907 newspaper article in the Newnan paper, along with the Gables, the Kempsons and the Hutchinsons, as having a very large family and living within a mile of each other on the Coweta-Meriwether line. In this area, Line Creek flows from Fayette to Coweta into Meriwether, separating Coweta from Spalding and Meriwether from Pike. Just a little farther south, Line Creek flows into the Flint River. I have written about many families living in this area (and would love to hear more about them from you).

Somewhere in Heaven a mother is smiling.

We knew Abigail was graduating from college last weekend, but somehow we missed the fact that we were invited to attend.

There are consequences to losing a war, or being perceived not to have won. Israel’s ability to win wars has been based on its capacity to pound its many enemies into submission whenever they have dared attack. Depending on how you count them, Israel has been the target of at least four wars started by one or more of her neighbors, as well as numerous terrorist attacks. It had won all of them until 2006.

Claudette, having a new in-law/outlaw travail to report, called the other day.

Before she began her latest in the ongoing outlaw saga, she asked, as many of my friends often do when I answer the phone, “Whatta ya doin’?”

There’s a saying, “Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Usually this refers to our families and the general frustrations of getting along with each others’ quirks and idiosyncrasies, but it also refers to our relationship with God.

I was at worship with a number of my sisters in Christ recently and the leader started talking about boxes. Isn’t it strange how insistently we try to put God into some kind of box, as if we could contain God? One thought led to another and I got this image of a toddler playing with a jack-in -the-box.

Someone suggested that Adam and Eve had a great marriage. Adam couldn’t bring up his mother’s cooking, and Eve couldn’t talk about the man she should have married.
This marriage business does get complicated sometimes. I heard about a man named Bob who went over to visit Joe and was amazed at how well Joe treated his wife. He often told her how attractive she was, complimented her on her cooking and showered her with hugs and kisses.
“Gee whiz,î”Bob remarked later, “you really make a big fuss over your wife.”

The ink had hardly dried on the paper last week when I received an e-mail from Robin Parker of Warm Springs who is descended from two of our Line Creek families. Her aunt who lives in Peachtree City had clipped out the column and sent it to her. Needless to say I was thrilled to hear from someone who could tell us a little more, and on a more personal level, about the lives of these people. Robin agreed to share some information on her families and will be writing most of the material for the columns for the next few weeks. Robin writes:

The operation to repair a torn tendon in my left arm was Day one. To be honest, I don’t really remember a lot about that day other than when I woke up, there was no pain.

We are saying, “Farewell,” to two dear friends on Sunday. When we began a new congregation in our living room in September 1996, David and Pat Jones and their family were vital components of what was to become Christ the King Church. For nearly 11 years, they have been faithful, giving, supportive, and hard-working members—the kind every pastor dreams of having.

Dixie Divas

Those who know me well will tell you that when it comes to decorating, I have a scant amount of natural talent.

I wish I could believe the president and those senators who claim their agreement on immigration legislation will "fix" the problems of open borders and illegal aliens. I can't, because the public has had no input into the measure; the last time Congress "fixed" the problem, it got worse; and it appears Democrats and Republicans care more about harvesting votes for their respective parties than doing what's best for their fellow citizens.

I got this quiz in an e-mail not long ago:

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

I've been sitting here wrestling with myself for the past week, trying to decide which family to do first (of those discussed in last week's article). I fully intended to do the Kempsons but something just didn't "feel" right. I went over the material again and finally realized what it was. I was trying to write about the wrong Benjamin Kempson! What a disaster that would have been! Let me explain.

In this day and age of incredible technical advancements, it has become increasingly difficult to separate the real word from that of fantasy and fairytales. We watch movies made up entirely of actors generated by computers. Computer graphics are so powerful they actually have us believing that animals can talk, actors can fly through the air by swinging on spider webbing and gunshots wounds can heal in days with no long term disabilities.

I fell off the platform a few Sundays ago at church. Actually, we call that area where the altar, or communion table, resides, the “sanctuary.” So, technically speaking, I fell out of the sanctuary into the chancel.

There’s a whole lot of loneliness going on out there. Too many people are caught on the periphery of goodwill and compassion in a society where we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and shepherd the orphans.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani picked the Friday before Mother’s Day to tell students at Houston Baptist University that while he “hates” abortion and finds it “morally wrong,” one must leave the ultimate decision to a pregnant woman. The young products of conception whose mothers chose to have them listened intently.

Couple of weeks ago, I wrote about encyclopedias and how outdated they seem today. I apologize for some confusion I wrote into that column. Striving for a tone of irony, I recounted how quickly (we thought) we could access information in the encyclopedias, cross-referencing and all, compared with the pre-encyclopedic days when we had to drive 10 miles to the nearest library.

A small-membership church is defined, by some, as a church that has fewer than 150 worshipers per Sunday. Most small-membership churches (“small-membership” because there is no such thing as a “small church”) I know would love to see 150 at worship. Something like 75 percent of churches in America can be defined as “small-membership.” Some church-development experts find this a disturbing trend and are calling for small-membership churches to be more deliberate about outreach and evangelism. The adage is, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

Residents of unincorporated south Fulton County are just a few weeks away from a critical vote that will dramatically influence the future of their homes, neighborhoods and communities. Residents are currently scheduled to vote June 19 whether to remain a apart of unincorporated Fulton County or to become the new City of South Fulton and the new City of Chattahoochee Hills. I’ve heard a million reasons pro and con when it comes to forming new cities, but as I see it, the residents in unincorporated south Fulton have no real choice but to form the City of South Fulton and the City of Chattahoochee Hills. I came to that conclusion some time ago and, today, I am more convinced of this than ever. So below you will find three simple but overwhelmingly important reasons why the new cities should be voted in.

I didn’t buy a Mother’s Day card this year. While most of the people I know were talking about the gifts they were getting for their moms, I kept uncharacteristically silent. It’s been over 10 years since Dad died and Mom followed him about six years later.

Once again we're transitioning out of one family into connecting lines, going from the Herndons into the Kempsons, Hutchinsons, Thompsons and Gables. As you remember, two Herndon brothers married two Kempson sisters and both sisters just happen to belong to one of the families we will study in more detail later.

The day starts with the sound of blue jays mobbing a crow. When the crow gets tired of being the mobbee, he spies a Cooper’s hawk, calls the rest of his family in, and becomes the mobber.

So now that we have a new village in Peachtree City, let’s assess who won, who lost and who is caught facing a run-down between first and second.

I admit it, I am one of the few remaining holdouts who despise rap, or hip-hop, which seem the same to me. I won’t even concede the point of calling it music.

After all the trouble I got into over last year’s Mother’s Day column, I won’t be writing about my own mother this year.

Several years ago, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a story about Los Angeles juror number 2386. This man had faithfully reported for jury duty, but had been sitting in the courtroom for two days, waiting to be interviewed by lawyers.

I'm going to wrap up the Herndon family this week with short stories about the three youngest children of Edward and Nancy Brown Herndon: James, Cora and Walter. Cora and Walter were little more than toddlers when their father died early in 1855 and their mother passed away in December of the same year. James was a young teen. All three had their inheritance put under the watchful eye of a guardian, with Walter Pope taking care of the financial affairs of all three children.

An Associated Press release has reported that Gordon Wayne Wright, age 57, is accused of distributing sexually explicit fliers that included images of his two ex-wives. Evansville, Ind., police arrested Wright and charged him with distributing obscene matter and invasion of privacy