If I live until 2093, I will be 137 years old and probably the oldest guy in the gym.

But should I fall a tad short of that goal, I am sure one of my great-great-great grandchildren will emerge as a historian and gather information about where she came from.  She’ll have to go back as far as 1909 to begin that journey, the year LaGrange’s Preacher E.H. Miller was born over in Pine Mountain, Georgia.

One of the first places she’ll go, I am sure, is to the archives of the newspaper in LaGrange where we grew up. We will have shared a great deal of history in this LDN for a good portion of those 137 years, give or take half a century or so.

Any time we put ink on the page, we record history. Though our history here is a short one in a small corner of the world, it is one somebody somewhere is going to want to know. In my particular case, it may be so they can make double sure they don’t repeat it. I am sure my good historian will find this by 2093, just in case I’m not around. Here are some key moments she will find:

December 12, 1967: Daddy – C. T. Bowen of LaGrange, Georgia – left us unexpectedly. He was only 37.

October 3, 1973: Mama – Fanny Louise Bowen, daughter of Preacher and Zona Belle Miller – left us on this day at age 42.

October 24, 1975: On this evening the amazin’ blonde and I headed to the ocean for our first honeymoon, to Galveston, 800 miles from our Southern roots. We have celebrated 42 total honeymoons. If we make it, we plan to celebrate our 118th in 2093.

April 10, 1977: Rachel Louise Bowen comes to us, named after her grandma. She still owes us for choosing the “Louise” and not the “Fanny.”

October 4, 2003: On this day, Grandma stepped out of the kitchen and laid aside her pots and pans with which she had baked a thousand cakes, pies, and pans of cornbread for us and my children and hundreds of others across our Southland. She stepped from the kitchen straight into paradise.

February 9, 2005: The amazin’ blonde and I entered grandparenthood, and Rachel Louise Osburn became a mama.

October 20, 2008: Audrey Lyn Osburn burst on the scene (and we mean “burst,” because she came in a flash!)

July 15, 2018: This was one of the proudest days we’ve ever had, a lovely day, a day never to be forgotten, a day regarding which my historian will probably write these words: “My great-great-great Popman couldn’t seem to get over that day. He wouldn’t have, even if he had lived to be 137.”

(If the Lord be willing, we will tell you about that important day Saturday week, July 28, 2018.)