In a picture on my book shelf,

all seven of Peachtree City's mayors are standing in a row on City Hall

plaza for a formal shot illustrating a 1994 magazine story. For some reason,

somebody invited me to get into the picture, as a souvenir for writing

the story, I guess.

I never imagined they'd publish

this shot, but there I am, wearing a red ski sweater and athletic shoes

right in the middle of all those past and present mayors in suits and

ties.

I've looked at that picture

often this week, and I'd like you to see what I see.

The shortest person in the

lineup is Howard Morgan. I have one arm draped over his shoulder and the

two of us are laughing at some private joke.

And I can still hear him laughing.

Howard was not an uproariously

funny guy. With his precisely scientific approach to life, his thoughtful

and measured syntax, he tended to be pedantic. Once he had the floor and

a subject he cared about like public service, or civic responsibility

he seldom noticed the occasional eye glazing over in his audience.

Just as well. If he'd stopped

orating, we'd have lost a lot of wisdom over the past 30 years.

It was my honor to serve on

city council when Howard was mayor in the early '70s. His council meetings

were run on the order of town meetings, sometimes lasting into the small

hours in chambers blue with smoke. But when all was said and done, everyone

left satisfied that his or her concerns had received respectful consideration.

That was important to him.

He was proud of helping to open government to the citizens.

On the county level, "That

was an education," he told me in an interview. "I wanted to

get acquainted with the county, and when I called, I found out you only

go to County Commission meetings if you had business with them.

"They met in the grand

jury room upstairs in the [old] courthouse with the doors closed and the

blinds pulled down," he said. "Anyone with business to bring

before the commissioners sat in the hall until they were called, then

went in, said their piece and left. I was probably the first person ever

to sit through a County Commission meeting just for the sake of doing

so."

A voter to the end (as poll

manager for his precinct, I can tell you he voted when he could barely

stand), Howard used to rail against voter ignorance, a vice he ranked

worse than voter apathy. But voter apathy he knew "from painful personal

experience." When he sought reelection to the city council seat he

held after his terms as mayor, his supporters assumed he was a shoo-in

and stayed home from the polls. This in 1984 when turnout records were

broken in the national general election.

He lost by half a dozen votes.

We were also neighbors. Two

council members, one mayor, and a former mayor lived on our street, with

another ex-mayor just around the corner. Dolly Morgan was Dave's tennis

partner for the "Cowan Invitational" Joel threw each summer.

Dolly's now 85 and still plays.

Dave does not.

And we were friends. I have

to tell you that the Morgans relate to two of the most mortifying moments

of my life.

The city was young, and guidelines

scarce, and we were learning how to do government as we went along. I

don't recall the details, but I think I stepped out of line by speaking

to a city employee in regard to some problem, and I guess he complained.

Howard called me on the carpet,

privately. I'd seen him angry on several occasions, and he was this time,

but polite and calm. Nonetheless, I felt like a chastised child and vividly

remember his closing statement: "You were trying to do the right

thing, but what you did was counterproductive."

That was more than a quarter

century ago. To this day, the word "counterproductive" makes

me cringe.

The other occasion was when

Howard and Dolly invited us to dinner to see photos from their latest

trip abroad and we simply forgot to go. No excuses, no reason just forgot.

Nonetheless, they were gracious

enough later to sit down to brainstorm with us when Dave was considering

early retirement.

"He takes a personal hold

on what to do," Dolly said last week, still using the present tense

in referring to her life partner. "When he retired at 58, he took

a reduced pension, but we live kind of simply, nothing fancy, and we only

have the one car."

Howard showed us how they did

it. They tracked every cent they spent for a year, calculated what it

would cost to live in Georgia, planned their investment strategy (another

of Howard's passions), and took early out. They were willing to live modestly

in exchange for having time to enjoy their lives, and in fact were retired

for about as long as Howard had worked.

And did they enjoy it. Reminiscing

last week, Dolly listed a few of the places they'd been: South America,

New Zealand, the Caribbean, Mexico, China, Tahiti, Nova Scotia, Russia.

"And don't forget, we crisscrossed the United States," she inserted.

Howard was equally happy at

home. He was an excellent musician, Dolly said, which surprised me. It

shouldn't have. They introduced us to the genius of Louis Moreau Gottschalk,

inviting us over to watch a videotape of the American composer's music.

Dolly plays piano and organ

very capably, but her husband was better than she was, she said, until

he could no longer find glasses that worked right for him, and quit in

frustration.

Until recently, he kept up

mowing his lawn constantly, as worried neighbors watching him careen about

on his mower will attest and his weekly bridge game with longtime cronies.

One of them, a retired Presbyterian minister, will lead his old friend's

memorial service Saturday morning.

"He had a good long life,"

Dolly said, "and we both appreciated it."

I know they did. As he was

enjoying the moment, the shutter froze our laughter.

Howard, with your bulldog grip

on things, you probably remember what that was about. I don't.

But I'll remember you and what

you taught me and what you did for my town.

[Sallie Satterthwaite's

e-mail address is [email protected].]