West Central Georgia

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While per capita income in these counties can't match Atlanta's (the fifth highest in the nation), personal incomes here have more than tripled since 1970. Even with Talbot's declining population, deposits at the People's Bank of Talbotton in the county seat (pop. 1,200) have risen from $8 million to $18 million in the last few years. And people in Harris County, looking at Atlanta's southwest expansion and Columbus heading north, laugh and say, "Pretty soon they're going to meet halfway." By the next century, that may not be a joke!

"Basically," said one long-time resident, "there are two ways of thinking here, and they are based on economics. Those who have their lives together want to keep things just as they are; those who don't, want change—any type of change—no matter what the cost. Both are wrong."

A Modern-Day Tara

There are many reminders of the past here whose value will be lost if not preserved, and one young man, out of his love for this area, has set about to save as much of its history as he personally can.

Ten years ago, when Mike Buckner was 25 years old, he bought a run-down Greek Revival house in Talbotton. Dismantling it and carefully numbering each piece, he moved the large structure 11 miles to the 250 acres he had inherited from his grandfather. A decade later, with Mike and his wife, Debbie, doing most of the work, their home, Patsiliga (a Creek Indian word meaning "Pigeon's Roost," because millions of now extinct passenger pigeons used to stop in this location during migration) sits in Tara-like splendor among towering pines.

"As it turns out, I'm glad we were forced to take our time," said Mike, a sixth generation native whose ancestors arrived when the Creeks left in 1825, "because, as we went along, materials from other old structures that were being torn down became available. The roof tiles for the wings and the bricks for the kitchen are from the old Talbotton depot. My great-grandfather, Gordon Parks, oversaw its construction in 1907."

Likewise, Mike can rattle off the local origins of every added plank and window, not to mention the original owners of the fine antiques that fill the rooms. These he inherited from an aunt who collected them for her antiques shop before moving to California in 1935. Of the few things not of local origin are the small prints lining the stairway. They did, however, grace Aunt Pittypat's stairway in Gone With the Wind. Mike's aunt purchased them when the movie's sets were auctioned off.

The "times past" that Mike and Debbie are so lovingly preserving extend far beyond the house. Their achievements are even more remarkable when you realize that these parents of two small boys-Joshua and John both hold down full-time jobs: he, as the postmaster of a tiny post office ("about the size of a car") in Rupert, 21 miles away; she, as a health educator for the district public health department in Columbus. They also rescue old log outbuildings—barns, smokehouses and the like—from area farms and rebuild them on their land.

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