Up The Creek Without A Paddle
This was one Wild week-
by Terry Toole

I know some of you will be disappointed, but this has been a good week even though, as my first wife said, "You are a workaholic all the way."

I guess she is right. I do enjoy working at what I do. It may be that I have not been trained properly to do some of the tasks that I have taken on, and it just takes me longer to do them.

It's not that I have always been this way. At one time in life, I had rather hunt, fishand play than to work. I have been told that is the Cook side coming out in me. On the other hand, it was my father, a mix between the Tooles and Grimes, that taught me how to hunt, fish, swim, play ball and love to just play.

Come to think about it, I might have gotten a double dose on how to work and how to play. It's just as I get older, I tend to enjoy the work more than the play, or it might be that it takes me longer to do the work stuff.

Since we were one of the first newspapers in this state to go to computer printing, I have had a long, long learning curve to findout who, how, what, when and where I could us these new fangled things called computers. I'm still into that learning curve.

Last week, we had to change out computers to go to the newest system. I have discovered that the more we change, the behinder we get, at least for awhile. We switched out the old computers for the new ones last Wednesday and started working on the new ones full force on Friday. All of our crew that builds the newspaper each week are out of their teens, and most of us are past middle age.

The long and short of it is, everything is not the same on computers and especially new systems. All of the improvements are wonderful if you know how to use them or even the ones that we are used to using. Our installer is brilliant and knows how the new stuff works, but he is only with us for a few days and gone. The learning curve follows and sometimes gets the best of the best.

At 71, to learn the stuff that I need to know can be a mental and physical challenge. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. If you get your newspaper this week, we learned just enough to get it to you. We will try to do better as we learn.

While all this was going on, my youngest grandson, Mason, 5, came to stay with us last Thursday for a week. His mother, Donna, is starting back to her teaching job of 25 years and needed us to keep the boy.

Normally, this is nothing but a pleasure to have grandchildren with us. This past week has been anything but normal. On top of that, I had promised Mason to take him to Wild Adventure in Valdosta when he came back to see us. I couldn't even go and pick him up since the computer man was still here teaching us what the new computers and software must do.

We planned to go to Wild Adventures on Friday or Saturday. When the ad came out that Kenny Rogers was going to be there on Saturday night, my first wife established the day to go. It's a good thing since I needed to be at work on Friday to see if what we needed worked.

I found that our granddaughter, Joanna, 16, couldn't go with us. That just left Honey, first wife, and Papa to make the trip with Mason, and Papa doesn't ride. I make photos and hold stuff for the riders. Honey, also 71, was a trooper. She always did like to ride and still does.

The long and short of that is that we all had a great time. Mason is ready to go back anytime. He will be with us until Wednesday, and he will start kindergarten at his mother's school next week.

It really was a great week. It would have been better if Joanna could have been with us.

I hope all of your summer days will be good and even better as we go into the fall season.

As many old-timers tell me, "It's just good to be here."

In my case, it really is good to be here and to continue to work, play and enjoy the fruits of having children by having the grandchildren to live around you and visit us from time to time.