During the recent state funeral for President Gerald Ford, someone observed that the great outpouring of gratitude and grief reflected a nation atoning for its errors of criticism and cynicism of the former president especially in pardoning Richard Nixon. Even Senator Edward Kennedy who had denigrated Ford for his pardon took to the Senate floor to say Ford was right and he was wrong.

I hate to start off with corrections but I made some mistakes in last week's column which need attending to. Given the speed with which today's information is disseminated, those errors could be repeated hundreds of times in just one day. If you don't correct mistakes as soon as they happen the errors will spiral out of control. Genealogical errors are nearly impossible to correct once they get rolling. So, here we go ...

For most of the Christian community, the season of Lent has begun. This season, which follows the Church seasons of Advent (preparing for the coming of Christ), Christmas (the birth of Christ), and Epiphany (a season of the “revealing” of Christ, which includes the story of the Wise Men), is almost like a liturgical “stop sign” in the middle of the Christian calendar.

The sun dipped below the horizon of 110 Flamingo Street as the orange and purple hues of dusk crept across the night sky. Thirty minutes later, I climbed the last hill before turning down our street, knowing that I was in trouble for being late.

Shortly after a series of windstorms ravished middle and southeastern America last month, a similar anomaly struck the European continent. Mary was in her nearly outfitted new apartment in Mannheim, and could not get back to Gelsenkirchen, and Rainer could not get to Mannheim.

Consider this a “letter to our readers.”

I’d like to invite you inside for for some shop-talk.

You probably by now have heard or read that our big city brethren, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, have “retrenched.” “AJC moves forward,” is the best-face headline the publisher put on his letter to the readers.

There is a song called “Life Is A Highway.” It was originally recorded by Tom Cochrane of Red Rider and then remade by Rascal Flatts and put on the soundtrack for the movie “Cars,” which I have watched umpteen times since giving it to my son for Christmas, but that is another story.

You probably know someone like him. Undoubtedly, you have encountered a villain-like character that connives from a personal agenda that is often vindictive and petty.

After receiving numerous requests, columnist Ronda Rich is issuing an open invitation to readers of her Dixie Divas column to Dixie Dew’s sixth birthday party.

There’s a new word among church circles and the word is “simple.” Church specialists and experts are imploring church leaders to apply the KISS method when it comes to doing church: Keep It Simple Stupid.

The vote by Fairburn City Council Monday night to approve the renewal of the lease of the old courthouse to the Old Campbell County Historical Society came on the heels of controversy in November and again this month. The issue centered primarily on the presence of various Confederate materials on display in the building and the appropriateness of those materials in today’s local culture.

A few days ago, I went with a couple of our staff to a Mexican restaurant. It had been some time since I had enjoyed guacamole, so I ordered a large side order so that all of us could share.

Last week, million of viewers watched the rain-soaked Super Bowl on new flat screen plasma televisions. I was supposed to be one of them. The key word in the previous sentence: Was. The Wife had other ideas.

We're sort of sliding out of one family into another, going from the Boyds to the Herndons, which connect through McDuffie Boyd and his wife, Amanda Herndon Brooks Boyd. Amanda was the daughter of Edward Herndon and Nancy Brown whose descendants scattered throughout the south metro area and lived in Fayette, Coweta, Spalding, Meriwether, Troup and Campbell (now South Fulton) counties. The early history of this family as it arrived in Virginia appears to be strongly disputed by Herndon researchers and I will leave it to them to settle their differences. We will concern ourselves only with the Herndons in Georgia. Amanda's obituary tells quite a bit of Georgia Herndon history.

There is no doubt that the photo of the eternally embracing couple will remain printed on my mind just as surely as in the newspaper I’m holding. I’ve read and reread the story, and I’ve cross-checked with other sources. They all say pretty much the same thing.

If anyone needs proof that our mainstream media is focused on unimportant but titillating stories, witness the stampede to cover ad-nauseam the death of Anna Nicole Smith. But even worse, in my opinion, is how the media twists real news. Here are a couple of examples, one recent, one from long ago.

It may be interesting to you and even completely unbelievable to learn that I am an incredibly sought-after single woman. Many desire to make my acquaintance in unmasked hopes of leading to long-term romantic relationships.

Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s a day that tells it like no other. Americans will spend $12 billion on Valentine’s Day 2007. Ninety-two percent of the population will participate in one way or the other in making up that $12 billion. Thirty-six million boxes of candy will be bought and given for that one day out of 365.

It is 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning and I am in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where it is currently seven degrees below zero with a wind chill factor of minus 22 degrees.

I really never gave it much thought. Growing old, that is. I figured I didn’t have to. The way I saw it, I only had two options: grow older or die.

I'm going to close out this family series with the story of McDuffie C. Boyd who was called "Mack." I've saved McDuffie 'til last because it gives me a nice transition into the next series I want to do, that of the Herndon family (McDuffie's wife). Later, we'll feature the Kempson family and their relationship with several other families in Coweta's first district. We'll even touch again on that old rascal, Wilkins Stone. You will find these families spilling over into south Fayette, western Spalding, and northern Pike and Meriwether counties. How they intermingle is fascinating.

This is the house that Jack built.

This is the roof that covers the house that Jack built.

These are the leaves that clutter the roof that covers the house that Jack built.

Scene: The White House, with a white picket fence around it and a tire swing in the front yard. Daddy is sitting at the table enjoying a lemonade while he listens to the ball game on the radio.

Men seem to be coming up short on sex appeal these days. Have you noticed how short in stature the men are who are widely proclaimed to be the world’s sexiest men?

When you write a letter in response to one of my columns, I sit and think about it more than you think. This past week I received a very sincere letter from someone who reproved me for seeming inaccuracies in columns of the last two weeks concerning the Sabbath.

In a story dated Jan. 23 posted on AmericaOnLine, “AirTran Airways defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff. AirTran officials said they followed Federal Aviation Administration rules that children age 2 and above must have their own seat and be wearing a seat belt upon takeoff.’

What’s big, red and white and has a bunch of hoses, more equipment than your granddaddy’s toolbox, and a 75-foot mechanical ladder on top?

Continuing our series on the family of Robert H. and Chloeretta Gray Boyd, from Bible records, we find that their third child was William H.B. Boyd. I have no idea what the "H.B." stands for. William's grandfather was named Hugh Boyd but I don't think they'd name a child William Hugh Boyd Boyd. William's younger brother had a child named William Henry and that may be another possibility.

Mary has moved again, this time to Mannheim, near Heidelberg. She still considers her primary residence the apartment she shares with Rainer in Gelsenkirchen, near Dusseldorf.

I grew up in a suburb of Boston and one of my earliest memories is of listening to Johnny Most call Celtics games on my transistor radio while I drifted off to sleep. This may seem unusual for anyone who had ever heard Most’s trademark, rusty nails on a chalkboard squawk, but his calling of names like Bird, McHale, Parrish, Ainge and Johnson, as in Dennis, better known in Most-speak as DJ, was like a soothing mantra for a little boy with hoop dreams.