It took me awhile to work it out, but to my best recollection, I lived just north of Atlanta in a suburb called Dunwoody in around 1988 for a little under a year. I met a lot of people when I lived there. I remember them for their friendliness and kindness to a bachelor living 3000 miles from home. It was great to get reacquainted with so many of them. A lot of the single people are now married with families. It was particularly good because so many of them remained faithful to their beliefs. Also, it is amazing how many of them are homeschooling. There are three couples in particular with whom I was able to visit at some length over the four days we were there. Joel and Karen have a girl just Kelly’s age and two younger boys. Gene and Carla also homeschool their kids in a way that is similar to us.
Ralph and Barbie do there homeschooling a little differently than the rest of us. Barbie works with a pretty wide range of people to get tutors to assure their kids hit all the academic bases. If there is such a thing as a business gene, it is more strongly expressed in her than anyone else that I know. She is a whirlwind of organization and entrepreneurial effort. In the midst of their homeschool and busy lifestyle, they are building an amazing new house. I go way back with Barbie and had met Ralph many years ago, so it was great to have a chance to get caught up with them.
The effort these people make to give there children something better than what is available in the popular culture is the single thing that impressed me most. There are many academic advantage that can accrue to those who homeschool their children, but that was not why any of these families were doing it. I had a great talk with Joel about all this. It is truly a marvel to watch teenagers focus on character and academics to prepare for careers and courtship rather than the shallow boyfriend/girlfriend, too young relationships promoted in today’s pop culture. It is great that Kelly and Christian established friendships and communications with these new, like-minded friends.
On a side note, I talked with Gene about some of things we do at Quality Corners. He told me about a kind of wood used for paint grade moulding called Paulownia. It might be a super help to our little business as it is about a third the weight of our current paint grade substrate (MDF) which means the price of shipping the stuff to our customers would be dramatically cheaper.
July 9, 2004 – Buying stock, testing for curricula, and the county fair
July 12, 2004 – Saturday at the Beach (Photos)