She left me, again.

Last Friday was a week ago, my first wife left to go to Riverdale to see about her sister, Mealie. She was in the hospital with pneumonia. Betty Jo had planned to stay overnight, and come on back home if she was doing all right.

My bunch believes in trying to see about each other, and for the most part they do.

Under normal circumstances, I would have gone along, if nothing more than to drive. Betty Jo has had to go back to her glasses. She can see almost as good at a distance, but not as good close up. Her eye doctor said she could see fine for driving, but someone with 20/20 vision is endangered driving in Atlanta traffic.

If the Lord wants to punish me for all my wrongs, He could do so by sending me to Atlanta.

Mealie took a turn for the worse, and on Thursday, August 12, she was put in ICU. I decided that first wife might need a break after seven days in the hospital with her sister.

I took photos of the band and the football team in the hot broiling sun on Thursday. We then took a few hundred more at open house at the school on Thursday. On Friday the 13th, Joanna, Wanda, and "ye scribe" took several hundred more photos of the first day of school. It was decided that I could be done without, for the weekend, if I was back by Sunday night.

Of all the millions of cars in and around the Atlanta area, my GPS had gotten me within a few miles of the hospital Friday. She, the GPS, was telling me to go 300 feet and turn. I got in the turning lane too early and seemed as if I would have to turn. The car back of me was blowing the horn, and a woman was waving her arm out the window for me to turn. I didn't know which one to listen to. The one in back was my daughter, Donna. I listened to her and followed her to the hospital. She was coming to relieve her mother.

Donna lives in Canton, about an hour or three above Atlanta, according to the traffic. She said it took her over two hours to drive from her home.

Think of the odds of running into your daughter coming from North Georgia, me coming from deep South Georgia, missing my first turn on Friday the 13th.

Good things happen on Friday the 13th, just like the bad things happen.

Donna reminded me that she was hit by a car on Friday the 13th when she was 12 years old. She said she wasn't superstitious, but tried to be extra careful on that particular day.

She insisted on us going back to her house to bathe and sleep in a bed after being at the hospital for a week.

As frugal as I am, I said that I had rather pay to stay in a hotel, than to drive at night looking for a home one to three hours away.

Niki Bevis Mortenson was visiting Betty Jo when Donna and I arrived. She insisted that we stay at her home, which was only 20 or so minutes away.

Have you ever noticed in a big town, they go by minutes instead of miles?

It was about nine before we got Betty Jo away to go eat some vegetables at a Cracker Barrel.

As we were going back to the hospital, we checked prices at several places. They ranged from $49 to $109. If they are too cheap, Betty Jo won't stay. We found one near the hospital that was nice. I got the clerk down to a fairly decent price. We dropped Donna off at the hospital to stay with Mealie. It was about 10 p.m. when we lay down, and I don't believe either of us moved until morning. That night's sleep, together, and a shower was worth 10 times the costs.

Mealie is not doing well at all. There are some really sick folks in that ICU.

Mealie's husband, David, is in a home with Alzheimer's. He has some folks, but Mealie just has us.

As I write this article on Saturday evening, the plans are for me to leave sometime Sunday.

Things don't look too good. I hate to leave, but we are right short at the office, and I know Tammy is tired. She has been taking care of Uva, Betty Jo and Mealie's mother who lives with us. Tammy is to be operated on Tuesday. Uva gets shots in the knee Tuesday.

Please pray for Mealie, David, Uva, Tammy and especially Betty Jo. Being in hospitals got her into trouble last December and January.