As I write this on the eve of the Iowa Presidential Caucuses, a bitter polar vortex arctic air blast has dropped into the Midwest, and parts South, with forecast temps in Des Moines, Iowa for Monday, January 15, 2023 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), a high temp of -2-degrees Fahrenheit and a projected low of -12 degrees.

Under the heading of learning something new every day...one of the most iconic structures on our Georgia coast, the Talmadge Memorial Bridge in Savannah, connecting Georgia to South Carolina across the Savannah River is not a suspension bridge.

I remain a strong son of the South, the product of a Mason/Dixon marriage (Mom from Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham, Dad and the Crane family hailing from upstate New York).

So how about this job description? Long hours, low pay, dozens if not hundreds/thousands of supervisors. Area of responsibility, as yet undetermined...and you may not know your territory until AFTER you are hired. Sound tempting?

I can't even remember the first time I heard the phrase, but I think it was related to one of Olivia's school meetings, and we were being referred to as a 'non-traditional' family.

At nearing 300 pounds in this corner, resembling an Oompa Loompa in lifts, with a cotton candy-esque coiffure, and leaning slightly forward, surrounded by lawyers instead of trainers... The Teflon Don...and in this corner, mumbling almost to himself, troubled to state complete sentences, appearing clearly incapable of sensing the difference between stage direction and script on his teleprompter...Aging Joe...

Among the many lessons I learned from my maternal grandmother, Mary L. Crane, was that it can be tough to hate up close.

Though a long way from the Dust Bowl Droughts of 1924-1927, and again from 1930-1935, which contributed to national food scarcity and further complicated the Great Depression, Georgia is in a state of continuing drought, which looks increasingly like the drought of 2007.