[caption id="attachment_1635" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Beautiful Augusta"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1635" title="river-at-dusk" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/river-at-dusk-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

Augusta is supposed to be one of the prettier cities in Georgia, but I didn't get to see much of it in my first visit.

My lovely wife had an 8:15 a.m. appointment to see a neurologist at Medical College of Georgia, and since we live about 150 miles west of Augusta, we decided to drive in the night before. We arrived about 8:30 p.m., stopped in at Subway for a sandwich for our evening meal and then went to our motel.

We were at the neurologist's office by 7 a.m. -- rough night sleeping -- and the doctor was very prompt at getting her in on time. I dozed in a chair in the waiting room, and Nicole met with the doctor for about three hours. We were back on the road by noon -- after another Subway pit stop -- and home by 3 p.m.

We didn't see any of the beautiful older neighborhoods, and all I saw of the classic Augusta National Golf Course was a couple of closed gates by which people will enter in a few weeks to see the Masters.

My friend Brian Robin described a course in Mississippi as the "best course in the state that you can actually play." Well, Augusta National is one of the most famous courses in the country that you can never play. It's a private club that is extremely exclusive in its membership. I know my friend Tom Kensler got to play the course once because he covered the Masters for the <em>Denver Post</em>, and I think it was on the day after the tournament that they let reporters play the course.

I did have one sort of interesting things that almost happened. An old friend of mine, a girl I dated 44 years ago and haven't seen since we stopped dating, is a doctor at MCG. I was sitting in the waiting room in the Neurology Department on the fourth floor of the massive office building, and her office was two floors below me.

Did I stop by and see her?

Not a chance.

I don't bother people who are doing serious work.

At least not people who might be holding scalpels.

Oh, most important of all, the doctor gave Nicole a relatively clean bill of health.

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