inDECATUR

Decatur couple celebrates anniversary in Portugal

Weddings are happy times

Weddings are the time to promise "till death do us part."  The future looks bright.

West [bartender at the Corner Pub] married Isabelle [waiter formerly at Twains and now at the Standard] in a private wedding in the backyard of Robert and Nancy Elrod on Saturday, 10/04/2008. That was followed by a reception at the Corner Pub.

Watch Isabelle take charge to get the single ladies together for the bouquet tossing:

Commissioner Fred Boykin's status

In a 9/24/08 inDECATUR post, it was noted Decatur City Commissioner Fred Boykin suffered a minor stroke.

This blogger had the opportunity to speak to him briefly at Green's Friday evening (you can see him in the pink shirt talking to the Mayor in a photo in the previous post about Greene's.

He seemed fine, but said he was having some trouble with one eye, and thus was not driving yet.

It's good to see he's doing as well as he is.

A family of dentists

They grew up in the dental office their parents built, just blocks away from the place they called home.

And so you might say that Mark and Matt and Miles and Marty and Megan were destined to become dentists, to one day run the practice that their parents, Drs. Hugh and Anne Mazzawi, started more than 40 years ago.

Hugh Mazzawi opened the practice in 1967, the year he graduated from Emory’s dental school, married Anne and settled in Snellville.

Anne Mazzawi graduated two years later.

The couple talked about having a dozen children, but Anne Mazzawi said, “luckily we stopped at a half dozen.”

They didn’t set out to raise six dentists. They did, however, nudge each of their children and nephew Darin Wasileski in that direction.

Marty and Matt play softball with a city league in Decatur where they live.

GBS | AJC | 9/25/2008

Decatur couple celebrates 25th anniversary, following adversity

Carl says this touching story is about a Decatur couple:

Kim's son Dorian holds her cane for her as she walks out with Jerry Brown (AJC photo)

Since the dawning of 2006, Kim and Jerry Brown had looked forward to celebrating their silver anniversary, but life kept getting in the way.

That year — their 25th anniversary — they'd gotten swept up in their son Dorian's college application process. Jerry Brown was busy with the Atlanta Track Club foundation, where he'd been serving on the board. Kim was just as busy as a member of the Paideia School board. Together, they ran the parent council at Agnes Scott College, where their daughter Whitney was a student.

"We just weren't able to focus enough attention on it," Jerry Brown said.

Maybe next year, they thought.

They'd barely rung in 2007 when life started to speed along — just as busy, just as unpredictable — and they realized it wasn't going to happen. There were more pressing things to attend to.

Whitney was scheduled to graduate on May 12, the day before Mother's Day, four days before, well, another Brown anniversary. Added to that, Dorian's fast-approaching graduation from Paideia.

On May 18, one of the rare days Jerry took off work, the couple stood in the kitchen talking, trying to decide which of them would pick up Dorian after commencement practice that afternoon. Kim became faint and collapsed.

Jerry was close enough to shield his wife from much of the impact, but they both hit the floor. He called 911.

Kim, the family would later learn, had suffered a debilitating stroke. She could not speak and was paralyzed on her right side.

Doctors operated to relieve the swelling on her brain. Friends and family rallied so that Jerry could leave the hospital and attend his son's graduation.

His heart was at once happy and heavy. This was his boy's big day. His wife was in intensive care, facing what doctor's predicted would be a long, slow recovery.

On June 28, Jerry's 54th birthday, doctor's dismissed Kim. The family could breathe again.

"That was my birthday present last year," Jerry said, smiling. For his 55th, he would get another one just as sweet.

Sometime in late February or early March, Brown bumped into retired Dean Gué Hudson from Agnes Scott. He'd heard the college had recently completed the Julia Thompson Smith Chapel and wondered whether it might be available in time for the recommitment ceremony he and Kim had been planning.

The couple loved the all-women's college. They had made many friends on the DeKalb County campus, including Hudson.

She laughed when Brown asked if he and his wife might christen the chapel with their ceremony.

Although the college wouldn't begin taking requests from the public to use the facility until Sept. 15, Hudson liked the idea. Consider it done, she told him.

On July 19, Hudson along with some 60 of the Browns' closest friends gathered in the chapel for the big day.

Whitney escorted her father to the altar, where he waited for his bride, strolling down the aisle on their son's arm.

Kim Brown needed a cane to get there, but she got there. The bride beamed in white linen, happy the day that they had looked forward to had finally come.

Love, they said, brought them together more than 25 years ago. And love had kept them together for yet another wedding day.

GBS | AJC | 7/31/2008

Stacey Singer at Noodles

Stacey Singer bustles about at Noodle in Decatur, taking orders with a smile, balancing plates and delivering libations. As she moves closer, it's easy to tell music's in her blood. Tattoos emblazon her arms, and she usually dons rocker wear like band shirts and camo shorts. Singer fills her life with her love for both the service and music industries. When she's not waiting tables at Noodle, she's working on her latest musical project, Girls' Rock Camp (ATL).

See her answers to five questions posed by Jon Waterhouse of the AJC.

SFC Akins grew up on Sycamore Drive

Thursday, Marianne Akins Suski will travel to Arlington National Cemetery to witness the burial of her father, Army Sgt. 1st Class W.T. Akins, with full military honors.

Growing up near Sycamore Drive in Decatur, he played in the woods behind the Scott family's vast property, and his pets included a trained rooster and a wild white dog that he claimed was a wolf.

He was 13 years older than his niece, Barbara Akins, whose family shared a house with his, and he occasionally accepted responsibility for her care without grumbling.

W.T. Akins had been in Korea for just six months when Communist Chinese troops overran his Medical Company's position on the Kuryong River near Unsan. It was November 1950, and after the battle, he was among 350 soldiers unaccounted for. All these years later, some 8,100 U.S. veterans of the Korean conflict remain MIA, according to the Defense Department.

Last year a U.S. delegation including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson went to North Korea to secure, among other things, the return of six boxes of human remains found near Unsan in November 2006 and believed to be those of U.S. soldiers.

Forensic pathologists at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii would use dental records, DNA and other evidence to help identify the bodies. They also had some larger clues. Sgt. Akins' dog tags, for instance, were among the items returned from North Korea.

For a positive identification, though, the pathologists rely on mitochondrial DNA, which must be traced through the mother's side of the family.

BE | AJC | 6/26/2008

As a child, this blogger lived on Pinehurst, just off Sycamore Drive, and also played in Scott's woods, now filled with DeVry and various medical and senior care facilities. I probably knew or at least met W.T., but would have been too young to remember.

Decatur resident remembers role in D-Day

The basement of Bob Powell's Decatur home is something different to different people.

His wife of 63 years, Betty, calls the wall-to-wall World War II memorabilia his junk room. Powell proudly shows it off as his minimuseum.

Powell, a fighter pilot, fought and survived during the D-Day landings 64 years ago Friday.

April Hunt | AJC | 2008Jun06

Happy 66th Birthday to Robert Elrod (6/3/2008)

Robert Elrod is the father of Josh Elrod, who (along with his wife Bethy) owns the Corner Pub on E. College.

Robert is now retired, have taught for a quarter century or so at Ga. State, after grauating from Clemson. His wife Nancy taught at Avondale High.

The Elrods live in Avondale, but spend some time in Decatur, from 4 to 6PM most days.

Robert is friendlier than a Wal*Mart greeter. He'll even hug and kiss you!

Here's hoping he lives to celebrate his next double-digit year (77). According to SS actuarial tables, he'll probably live until age 85. Maybe he'll beat the average and see his 88th birthday.

What Walter needs MOST is a safer form of transportation

The Spring 2008 edition of the UT Alumnus tells the sad but also inspiring story of Walter Chadwick. His story was also told in a 2007 issue of Georgia Trend. He was a football star at both DHS and UT.  In 1967, he helped UT win the SEC with a 6-0 record and achieve a record of 9-2 (losing in the Orange Bowl). Litkenhous named the team the National Champion. Walter led the team records for two years:

Less than four years later, Walter's life changed dramatically as the result of a tragic auto accident which left him physically impaired for life. The financial settlement, which seemed large at the time, seems meager today.

Unlike some people with no physical challenges, Walter tries to enjoy every minute of every day. He's always friendly to everyone, and loves to meet new people.

Recently, I've heard [and read] a lot of people have donated to the renovation of his townhouse off Katie Kerr road. [See articles linked above and the one in the continuation.] I hear they are going to throw one heck of party for him soon. That's all well and good.  [Having seen it earlier, I can report "derelict" is too strong a word for describing his place's  condition beforehand. It was no Taj Mahal, but it was decent.]

But, in my humble opinion, what he needs MOST is a safer form of transportation. That should have been addressed FIRST. It could be logically argued that he should only walk or ride with others. But, just as you are I would, he wants to get around on his own. He currently rides a bicycle.  At least he often wears UT orange, which makes him easier to see. Since he prides himself on collecting aluminum cans to earn money, he''s often seen holding a large trash bag full of cans at each handlebar, which makes the bike even more dangerous. He has no lights or reflectors on his bike. He's not normally out after dark, but I have seen him out at least once.

Bikes in the city are dangerous even for physically healthy people about his age, as this blogger is. I've recently had a close encounter of the potentially deadly kind with a car.  A slightly younger friend still has vision problems months after actually encountering one up close.

He MOST NEEDS something like a motorized scooter, such as those designed for the handicapped. I've seen some getting around Decatur in such vehicles, so I know they are allowed. He needs a vehicle which is allowed on the sidewalk. He shouldn't be on the street, except to cross it at lights and marked crosswalks.

If his friends at UT can't raise the money for such a vehicle, and his legal guardians can't use the insurance money to buy one, perhaps we need to raise enough money to get him one.

I don't want to hear about a second accident, which might be his last.