I just looked at the calendar and realized it's February 8th. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! It's also the 20th anniversary of my first day at work in Atlanta.
On February 8, 1957, my mother and farther were married here in Atlanta, at the old First Baptist Church. My mother was a teacher, and she invited all the children in her wedding to come to the wedding because she knew she'd never fill that huge church.
Dad had proposed on Christmas Day, 1956, and told her he wanted a "big wedding" - in 2 weeks. Mom negotiated 6 weeks. She wore a borrowed dress.
Dad was working for one of his cousins who owned a chain of grocery stores call Big Apple. Dad was in charge of the accounting for all the stores. He lived with his aunt while he was in town in 1956 courting Mom.
This is my favorite photo of my parents. Doesn't Mom look like Ingrid Bergman??
My grandfather was not too sure about the wisdom of Mom marrying "one of those wild Thompson boys." Dad was not a quiet, unassuming guy. Papa kept saying to Mother "You don't have to marry this guy. You can back out any time." He didn't want to walk her down the aisle, and so Mom's brother Bobby was on standby in case Papa wouldn't do it.
Mom and Dad were married for almost 40 years, until he died in 1996.
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When I finished paralegal school in 1985, I wanted to stay here in Atlanta, but I couldn't find a job. So I reluctantly went home to Knoxville and got a job with a firm in Dad's bank building. Took me 8 years to finally find a job down here.
I started that job on February 8, 1993.
Nothing could have prepared me for the differences in being a paralegal in Knoxville and being one here. Atlanta may seem like a provincial backwater to folks who have never been here, but it's actually a sprawling, huge city, with traffic that rivals LA's. There are 3 counties in the main metro area, and about 5 more scattered around beyond that.
I got my first apartment here and was amazed to live in a "gated" community that had separate recycling containers for everything.
The practice of law is really different here.
In Knoxville, I watched a lawyer get on the phone with a judge's secretary and complain because he had gotten a notice of trial. "You tell him I've got a fishing trip planned for that week, and I just can't try a case that week if I'm fishing, right?" he drawled. The case came off the calendar.
I get to Atlanta, and lawyers are routinely put on trial calendars along with 100 other cases, 98 of which will settle the day before, and then suddenly you have to be ready to try the case. You could ask for a special setting but it often was not granted.
It was like going from playing pee wee football to playing in the Superbowl.
I learned a lot though.
Maybe today will be significant again, if I'm lucky. We shall see...
