A few weeks ago, our son reported that his air conditioner was on the fritz. At the time, the temperatures were in the high 90s and, with five small children, the conditions in the home were miserable.

Popeye once said, “I can stands so much, but I can’t stands no more!”

I felt the same way when I heard what coaches all over this county are doing to our kids. Believe it or not, they are forcing our kids ingest a chemical compound called dihydrogen monoxide.

Byram and Tidwell family members might want to pay particular attention to this week’s story. It concerns an error in their family lineage which has been propagated over and over on the Internet and in some print resources.

On a mid-August Fox News Sunday TV program, Chris Wallace ended the show with a piece on a rehab center where our war casualties learn how to adapt to life with stark physical changes. Wallace didn’t find what he expected and he was clearly moved by the experience.

My friend and beloved diva, Pinky, found herself in the hospital requiring back surgery. After that ordeal, she was forced to go into a transitional care facility for physical therapy. One day while Dixie Dew and I were visiting her, she took up the subject of being kind to others.

Mary’s in the opera business, in case you came in late. She is a pianist for the Dortmund Opera in the Ruhr Valley of Germany. She’s been in Germany since 1984, thanks to winning Fulbright grants two years in a row, after which she was hired to accompany rehearsals and coach singers.

JaRhonda, a front counter service representative at a Stockbridge Chick-fil-la, lifted my whole last week. More than extra-crisp chicken strips, waffle fries, and a small coke, she served up joy and a smile that could have melted the hardest heart.

Several weeks ago, a University of Georgia student got into a dispute with two other customers over who was next in line at an Athens restaurant. The two customers were in a crowded line as they waited to order breakfast. When a cashier opened a new line and they stepped to the front, another customer nearby became angry. So she waited for the pair in the parking lot, and as the mother and daughter left the restaurant, the student pulled out of her parking place and struck both of them with the passenger side of her car. She was arrested later for allegedly running into the two customers.

I am coming up on several anniversaries in a couple of weeks that have special meaning for me. Anniversaries, of course, are those dates that we or society set aside to commemorate a significant event, whether joyous or tragic. Usually we pause, take a breath, and ponder a bit.

After moving into our new neighborhood, it has become painfully apparent to me that some people out there don’t like following the rules. For those people, I have a quick and easy solution for you: Move. The Hall Monitor has arrived, and he’s taking names.

I couldn’t stand it. After finishing the column last week and still having so many unanswered questions, I trotted down to the Coweta County Courthouse last Friday to see if I could find anything that would throw some light on our Mary E. Tidwell situation.

I got back from my first trip south of the border on Sunday night and I am no worse for the wear.

No Montezuma’s revenge and no really bad security stories (although taking the sippy cup that was filled with bottled water from the airplane after we got back to Atlanta is a bit much).

Before I even returned from the six-week book tour that had pulled me from one side of the country to the other, I knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty sight.

By BENITA DODD

The Water Council has gone public across Georgia, holding town hall meetings to present to the public its draft policy recommendations on managing the state’s water quantity.

Jesus was a Jew. He belonged to the lion tribe, Judah. His mama was a Jew and his earthly father was a Jew. He carried out the Jewish customs of his day and when one or two needed tweaking toward Godliness, he did it without apology. He read from the Jewish standard operating procedure called the Torah.

It was the kind of faux pas you can’t believe actually happened.

I was accustomed to seeing John shopping at Kroger alone - it was an arrangement that worked for him and Betty. And when I saw him Wednesday morning, it was very easy to tell him he was looking good, because he was. He looked healthier and more cheerful than I’d seen him in ages.

The summer of annexation is seeing a flurry of activity in south Fulton County as cities rush to bring targeted areas into their respective cities prior to the Oct. 30 annexation deadline. Large land owner/developers with swaths of land near Union City and Palmetto have recently petitioned to come in to the cities under the 100 percent method, a move that left frustrated, small property owners living near both cities up in arms at planning commission and city council meetings. For the developers involved, the mantra is the same. They and their clients have decided they want to be a part of those cities. And in the background, adjacent property owners in the unincorporated areas wonder out loud how long it will be before high density, low quality development will dot the landscape of the still pristine South Fulton. And with the track records of both cities, it will be interesting to see how the bold pronouncements of “community-minded” developers and elected officials salivating over thoughts of increased tax revenue will play out near the end of 2007, when some of those annexed properties will likely be proposed for rezoning into high density residential neighborhoods.

The venerable old Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) has fallen on some hard times. Of the nearly 30 U. S. denominations that bear the name “Episcopal” or “Anglican,” ECUSA is the oldest and largest of them all.

That’s right. There’s a thief amongst us. A low down, no account, dirty little thief. I know it’s hard to believe that someone would actually take something that doesn’t belong to him. But it’s true; it happened to me. Stupid thief — didn’t he know I’d write about it?

I hate to tell you this, but we’ve got some refiguring to do on statements made in last week’s column about Mary E. Tidwell, identified as the daughter of Benjamin Tidwell and Martha Moody. It appears there are several Mary E. Tidwells and two families are laying claim to the same one.

You see it on the news every day – celebrities and others with media access use their influence to promote causes they support. The idea is to sway public opinion.

You would not treat your Coke stock like it. You would not treat your Microsoft stock like it. You would not even treat your personal laptop like it. But, far too often we treat our most valuable assets like leftovers in the refrigerator and we can’t decide to throw them out or heat them up one more time.

Oh, what a world we live in….

I tried to doze on Flight 640 heading for Atlanta, but did not succeed.

Couldn’t unwind. And I knew that flying west to east was going to inflict worse jet lag than east to west.

Richard Jewell was honored by the governor of Georgia last week. It’s been 10 full years since that terrible day in Atlanta when a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympic Games.

One man can only stand so much. I must speak out and have my say. The Wife says, “Don’t do it.” She thinks I’ve lost my mind. I’ve got news for her — done already lost it a long time ago. (For a job, I crawl into burning buildings.)

I had a delightful conversation Wednesday with Lurline Dickinson of Union City about her Tidwell ancestors. Lurline is descended from Benjamin Tidwell and Martha Moody through their daughter, Luraney Tidwell who married Daniel G. Gilbert. Benjamin was the son of William Tidwell and Mary Amelia Jones. We had mentioned him a couple of weeks ago and questioned whether he was married once or twice. I think we have our answer.

My sandal came off and I thought I’d never get out of the car to hug the Big Guy.

“That’s it,” I thought. “What else can possibly mess up this year?”

I was recently released from what amounted to a monumental waste of time.

No, I’m not talking about a viewing of Rob Schneider’s latest film, nor am I talking about the umpteenth discussion of Mel Gibson’s apology to people of the Jewish faith on the Fox News Channel.

There are a few things that I miss about my old house now that I’m gone and settled in the new one.

The big oak tree near the garage door, for one. The tree that offered much appreciated shade in the summer then gloriously presented beautiful color in the fall. The one from which acorns fall with loud plops then crunch noisily when tires roll over them.

Several years ago I was in a fitness spike and faithfully walked almost every day. I walked regardless of the weather except for rain. It was a hot and humid day. You know, just like the ones we are experiencing now. But to use another analogy, I bit off too much to chew for the day and temperature.