Genuinely Southern

How exactly do you explain a love story that begins with a toddler in a diaper, takes a detour through church musicals, the Georgia State Fair and Atlanta disco, and ends with a wedding in one of Macon’s grandest historic homes? Mark Ballard welcomes a particularly special guest to Genuinely Southern: his wife, Deborah. Together, they finally answer one of the questions they’re asked most often—“How did y’all meet?”

The answer requires going way back.

It's funny. It's tender. It's occasionally outrageous. In other words, it's Genuinely Southern.

In this episode:
  • The first time Mark and Deborah met—and Mark's questionable wardrobe
  • Growing up together in Macon
  • Church productions, sweetheart banquets and hauling a trunk full of sand
  • Memories of Macon's old Georgia State Fair
  • Deborah's prophetic comment about Mark
  • Love and loss at Christmas
  • Caviar, disco and a night at Atlanta's Limelight
  • Why Mark's professors noticed Deborah before Mark did
  • Deciding to get married on the drive from Athens to Macon
  • Becoming one of the first couples married at the historic Hay House
  • And the final verdict on whether Deborah really is a “cougar”
Chapters
00:00  Welcome to Genuinely Southern
00:54  Meet Deborah Ballard: “How Did Y’all Meet?”
01:19  It All Started When Mark Was Two
04:09  Church Kids, Sweetheart Banquets & a Truckload of Sand
06:25  Growing Up at the Georgia State Fair
09:40  The “Big One” & Their Church Variety Show Years
11:32  Mark Attended Deborah’s First Wedding
13:04  A Baby, Thanksgiving & Some Serious Foreshadowing
15:01  A Christmas That Changed Everything
17:52  Art School, Macon & a Friendship Grows Closer
18:30  Caviar and a Night at the Limelight
20:32  Mark Goes to “Sodom and Gomorrah”
21:48  When Mark’s Art Professors Noticed Deborah
23:12  “You Wanna Get Married?”
24:15  A Cougar, a Gigolo & Some Concerned Families
24:35  Getting Married at Macon’s Hay House
27:32  Wedding Vows & 44 Years Later
28:24  Would They Do It All Again?
28:59  Closing: More Southern Stories to Come

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Carlyle Place at Home - Inclusive, Interactive Retirement Living Without Moving

Creators and Guests

Host
Mark Ballard
Host & Executive Producer of Genuinely Southern

What is Genuinely Southern?

Whether through writing, broadcasting, or word-of-mouth, stories have always forged a connection between people and places. Nowhere else is this truer than in The South. Southern artist, influencer, speaker, and author Mark Ballard will weave stories of life in Macon, Georgia, and stories of the South. Tales told as only Mark can, will be interwoven with guest interviews and listener questions, and requests.

Mark Ballard (00:00.238)
Hi, I'm Mark Ballard. This is my Genuinely Southern podcast where I will share Southern stories and perspectives that show just how unique our South is. Growing up in the South gives people a little different perspective to life. I've always used the South to inspire me and my artwork, my writings, and even my food. I've been telling stories about the South for years.

In my newspaper articles, my magazines, I even had a television show. The South is more than a region to me. It's genuinely a way of life. That's why I'm excited to share these Southern stories with you and introduce you to interesting people. I'm proud to be genuinely Southern and I can't wait to tell you why.

Mark Ballard (00:54.168)
Today I have a special guest. I mean a really special guest. I have my wife Deborah Ballard with us today. And when we're out and about making, one of the most c asked questions we get is how did y'all meet? And boy do we have a story.

Debra Ballard (01:09.908)
just around and make but when we travel too a lot of times.

Mark Ballard (01:13.688)
People don't understand, but it's a good story. Y'all need to hear it.

Debra Ballard (01:17.696)
So Yeah, it's a weird story. So

Mark Ballard (01:19.768)
Where to start we gotta go way, way, way back to when I was what two and ended.

Debra Ballard (01:27.626)
Yeah, we had moved to the neighborhood, my family and I have one little sister and Mark has one older sister. And so Mark's mother, Joe Ballard, who was absolutely a wonderful woman, came over to the house and asked if Donna and I, my sister and I, could come to a little cookout that she was doing at her house because you have to picture this now. My house was here, the school I attended was here and the well no what it was Bloomfield. Y'all lived in Grolen Var and we didn't live there. But anyway, we were across the highway. My hand

House, the school and then the church right here all within, you know, even Mother's Beauty. Joe comes over, asks us, mother says sure, so here we go.

Mark Ballard (02:02.082)
your postcard.

Mark Ballard (02:12.642)
didn't need an excuse to have a barbecue or cook elf or anything. She was a fun mother we used to play all the time and so she was her son's school teacher.

Debra Ballard (02:20.866)
She was for years and years. Sure. Yes, it was like that little eight year old I s I think it was eight and nine year old girls. It was new community. It was a new kind of subdivision. She came over, she asked and mother, and Mark said his mother was very fun. Mine, bless her heart, was a schizophrenic.

Mark Ballard (02:30.478)
His mother was a trailbla.

Mark Ballard (02:47.49)
Well you do and people didn't understand it was a real condition to say if you had a heart But we just need something with

Debra Ballard (02:52.8)
Yeah, so yes, I know, I know. Bless her heart. But anyway, so mother said yes, and so off we go with Miss Joe. Got there and there were a lot of a lot of little girls there and the back interrupted.

Mark Ballard (03:06.592)
And let me just give y'all some perspective. We when I was little I thought it was the biggest chart when I was I drive by there now and it looks like it would be like two swipes. I'm I'm surprised the tent fit into the

Debra Ballard (03:20.81)
A post a little postage stamp yard. And then here's Mark running around in his diaper. No shirt. No shirt, just in his diaper, just as cute as he is now. Of course. Absolutely. That was the first time I guess I can say this we ever slept together. It ended up turning into a little camp out and Mark crawled in between me and my new best friend and just went to sleep. Cuddle. So absolutely just precious. So w you know, years went yeah, time is traveling. And basically it was

was me and then Mark's sister and then my sister and Mark. I was the four. Yeah. And back then the age difference was you know, a lot of it was a lot of difference.

Mark Ballard (04:02.764)
Go through that period where when you're little it's a lot and then when everything everybody gets in their mid thirties and all you don't know and then that's yeah.

Debra Ballard (04:09.694)
But Mark came out thirty anyway, so I really do. So anyway, we we went to the same church for years and years, Bethesda Baptist. It's not

Mark Ballard (04:18.285)
more religious than Deborah was our family because my daddy was chairman of the board of deacons. We were there. He had keys to the church. We were there every time the door opened. Deborah was sort of like not just those people that come at Easter or Christmas.

Debra Ballard (04:33.708)
No, I was not. I got perfect attendance at Sunday school one year. Yeah, exactly we're at church and if you look back on this whole period, you know how sometimes in stories they use a foreshadowing of what's to come. Well, we just did a a little bit of everything together. Mark was very artistic. We had a great youth group there.

Mark Ballard (04:37.87)
That's because she's trying to please my mom. All right, go on.

Mark Ballard (04:55.522)
We plan production.

Debra Ballard (04:56.76)
Yes, we put on plays. One night we had a an ice cream social after the evening service on Sunday and we actually had a program planned on love. So all the songs dealt with love.

Mark Ballard (05:08.876)
We did s what we call sweetheart banquet. So anyhow we did a Hawaii theme one time and we haul I thought it'd be a great idea to go somewhere and get sand. Like a dock, like you would get get

Debra Ballard (05:11.489)
yes.

Mark Ballard (05:25.37)
The sandy beach which never occurred to me that we

Debra Ballard (05:28.632)
But let's tell about how we got the Sandy Beach. I was married by then. She was married before. That's right. I took Henry's brand new Buick. We lined his trunk with some kind of plastic and went over on Williamson Road here and shoveled sand into his trunk and then went and shoveled it into, you know, the the fellowship hallboat. And so we didn't think about the next day being church.

Mark Ballard (05:50.914)
on a Saturday night and it had to be clean.

Mark Ballard (05:55.862)
We would make for a good picture.

Debra Ballard (05:56.908)
That's right, it did. But things I mean we did things like that and we did. And I will never forget. Mark and I decided to sing a song and y'all probably remember it. No, we won't, but I'll sing a little bit of it. we ain't got a barrel of money. Maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along singing a song Side by Side. Now can you believe that? Then one time I took a single

Mark Ballard (06:07.018)
singing it now.

Mark Ballard (06:22.966)
Or the

Debra Ballard (06:25.1)
Both. But anyway, I took to the fair one night and it was when it was still in Macon. It was a big deal. Well it was called the Georgia State Fair at that point.

Mark Ballard (06:35.81)
don't understand now because they're when you say fair they immediately think of

Debra Ballard (06:38.552)
Perry. And w well and we do have the Nash Georgia National Fairgrounds there and they're wonderful for all kinds of events.

Mark Ballard (06:44.29)
We didn't know any better because we had only had one fair, we had a pretty

Debra Ballard (06:48.038)
had yeah, it was big spread all over lots of rides and lots of exhibits and one of my favorite things were the corn that they did. And there was another thing. you like the elephant ears, yeah, or something. you could just eat your way around that fair. It was wonderful. All the kids got the Monday off of school to go to the fair. It was

Mark Ballard (07:04.302)
One thing I remember about it in Macon is.

Mark Ballard (07:11.558)
Always cold. You had to get your top coat on to go. This is a makeup. Yeah. And from that point on, you had to wear a coat. Now you could be on Christmas Day and it be

Debra Ballard (07:23.614)
We have we have built a fire and turned the air conditioner on here. So I I've always told people if you don't like the weather today in Macon, stay just hang out around to tomorrow.

Mark Ballard (07:32.846)
I've always associated that as the cut up that was like not when you went back to school, but that was when it finally turned into

Debra Ballard (07:41.858)
Yeah, because we always at Halloween had to put on our coats or bundle up under your costume. For the fair fair. And Mark wanted to win a prize by having a person guess his age. And Yeah, he did. He looked older now, he's look younger. But anyway, yes, you do, darling. So I had a really big, thick gold wedding band, and he said, Give me your wedding band. I said

Mark Ballard (07:47.946)
So we decided to go.

Mark Ballard (07:55.938)
Back then I looked all

Debra Ballard (08:08.524)
Yes. So anyway I gave it to him, he walked over there. The guy thought you were like twenty five, twenty six. It was you six. And you were what, sixteen?

Mark Ballard (08:17.25)
Yes, and so then I get back over there and do ever of course the first thing she wants is bat her ring back. I can't. And I can't get it all. Nope. So she takes me over to where those little plastic ducts are floating around in that swamp.

Debra Ballard (08:30.498)
No, they came around like in a circle and you grabbed one to see what you had won in most of

Mark Ballard (08:34.901)
just stuck my hand. And for those of you that don't know me, I am a germaphobe. I mean I have got parell, I've got a backpack right now with parell in it where I can clean everything and demonstrate. And I into that it came, looked like it came from the Altmoggy River water. Yeah. Just was trying to get that red.

Debra Ballard (08:51.534)
I finally did and prodder the skin probably, but yeah, I went home my with my foreshadowing. Yeah, that was my second foreshadowing. So Mark

Mark Ballard (08:56.414)
So that was your second person?

Seba was the only one that could drive, you're forgetting that part. So we called her the big one because if we had to go anywhere we had to depend on her wheels. And that was back in the days where gas was expensive, nothing like today. But

Debra Ballard (09:13.326)
I could fill up my pinto with like five dollars.

Mark Ballard (09:17.332)
riding another car had to chip in fifty cent or a dollar so we could you know you're riding here it's like riding a bus. But Deborah took us a ride

Debra Ballard (09:21.55)
I did and they did call me the big one. Now I've always been a big person, but that's not what they meant in this case. It's if they got in trouble, then th somebody would come over and they'd go, talk to the big one over there.

Mark Ballard (09:36.504)
She's the oldest, however. And married. So

Debra Ballard(09:40.85)
you know what that that just brought up a memory. We were having some kind of church retreat up at Indian Springs. I know so we're up in Indian Springs.

Mark Ballard (09:47.99)
They had the best yeast rows that I

Indian Springs, which is near Griffin, up in that area.

Debra Ballard (09:55.586)
Jackson here I believe it's a state park, but it was you know, had been occupied of course by the Native Americans and everything and it was a beautiful spot. And someone had come in and built Yeah, had a big hall.

Mark Ballard (10:09.582)
It was just like when you see those movies about when they go do summer camp, it was just about that kind of We always had a production that we were because we would put on a Broadway show. We didn't have any money really and growing up

Debra Ballard (10:14.254)
Exactly. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Debra Ballard (10:25.25)
Don't think about kids teenagers or I mean some of these kids were like it's seven, eight, nine years old and th we were the older. well, you weren't you were middle and then I was older. But anyway, I mean we w if they were really good.

Mark Ballard (10:37.228)
Yes, and it was like we've got talent before all this. But the deal was we had to take things that didn't cost much and turn them in. Luckily y'all had me to like do all the artwork and all the backdrops and stuff like that.

Debra Ballard (10:40.802)
Yeah.

Debra Ballard (10:46.599)
Into exactly.

Debra Ballard (10:52.366)
Mark had had supervised all of us to make him back backdrop and again I was the only one who could drive, so I was probably what twenty-three and maybe you were what twenty-three sixteen, yeah, maybe not even sixteen yet. So anyway, we couldn't get them into this big old car that I now have since I had married Henry. And so we held them out the on top of the car and you know, did this with our hands. Freezing. Yes. All right, so all of this stuff is going on in nineteen seventy.

Henry Ty, T Y E, and I got married. Henry was a fine person. Nineteen seventy six got married and Mark was actually at the wedding

Mark Ballard (11:32.332)
That was what was so funny. Years later, like all these years later, I'm cleaning out a drawer and I find both of our wedding books or the book two wedding books and I just happened, I thought I'm gonna sit with the Debras and look through because I knew Henry too. And so I'm looking closer and closer and closer and I realized that I couldn't even drive and was sitting with my parents at her first wedding. So I've attended both weddings.

Debra Ballard (11:42.744)
There is

Debra Ballard (11:56.876)
Yeah, absolutely. That's a I don't know. You've always wanted a prize for that and I'm not sure what to give you. But anyway I know, it was kinda weird. So anyway, Mark is seventeen I believe, and he gets accepted into the Atlanta College of Art and we were all so excited for him 'cause he had been artistic since I can remember. I mean way back. So he I got a scholarship. Yeah, he got a scholarship. He went to Atlanta and I I didn't see him much.

Mark Ballard (11:59.692)
That was a big

Mark Ballard (12:25.89)
close anymore, but I do remember I got a phone call from my mom and she said, You're not gonna believe this. Are you sitting down? And I was like, No, what what is it? You know, I'm thinking somebody's died. She said, Deborah Ty is pregnant. I I dropped the phone. I'm like, because you know Deborah did even though she was the big one to us, I never did think of you as being

Debra Ballard (12:46.814)
No, and then you have to think about and I'm still not. You know, thank God you know, you were there for the kids, I would have probably eaten them. But the deal is we saw each other occasionally. Well, nineteen eighty comes around.

Mark Ballard (13:01.336)
There's like got this continual calendar,

Debra Ballard (13:04.814)
And I really do practice it because I don't want to I think if I can always remember those things I won't go completely crazy. So anyway, who knows? Courtney was born in July of 1980.

At Thanksgiving, Mark was coming home. I think it was your sister, my sister, maybe your mom. We all went out shopping Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving. Had a hoot and a holler. Two hollers. Two hollers probably. We really did have a good time. Well, when everybody did. And so when w they got back to my house to drop me off, Miss Jo said, Let's go in and see Courtney. Mark hadn't even seen her.

Mark Ballard (13:45.134)
Neither did I chill.

Debra Ballard (13:46.21)
She did, so thank God. They came in the house, we visited with Henry and we they played with the baby and everything. And so when they they got up finally and left, Henry and I were sitting there and I was telling him about the day and all, and he said, You know, I love Miss Joe. I said, I've never met anybody that did not love Joe Ballard. He said, But I just don't like Mark at all. I said, Henry

Mark Ballard (14:08.066)
And I was like, what?

Debra Ballard (14:12.202)
What do you not now y'all have to remember Henry was a very, very smart person. No, but he was very No, you don't. Let me talk. So Henry was a very quiet person. He was an accountant. You know, you know Mark and Mark talks a lot and he's very expressive and I said, Why don't you like Mark? Well he's just too much. He's just too much. He's too much.

Mark Ballard (14:20.602)
I see where this is going.

Mark Ballard (14:36.392)
We get to the third forbearing thing. Mm-hmm. Go ahead.

Debra Ballard (14:39.67)
Okay. We are. I said, I I just don't know what to say to you, but I will say that if anything ever happened to you, I could live with Mark Ballard. He is one of the funnest people I have ever known in my life. I'm glad you took up for me. And I do not like you saying stuff about my friends. Well there you have it. So it wasn't a big argument. We go to bed.

Mark Ballard (15:00.526)
And this is Thanksgiving.

Debra Ballard (15:01.576)
This is Thanksgiving. My mama and my papa lived in Soperton, Georgia, which is down between Macon and Savannah, little tiny town. Go to Soperton for Christmas. After we'd had the big lunch and everything, Henry said, I'm gonna go out and throw the football with you know some of your little cousins. I said, Great, because I was in there feeding Courtney. And then it probably had been ten or fifteen minutes and my eight or nine-year-old cousin came running in and said, Something's wrong with Mr. Henry, y'all come. And we all ran out there. Henry was lying in the road and

And there was he had had a massive heart attack. And we got on Christmas Day. I called my best friend and got her husband, told him what had happened.

Mark Ballard (15:42.53)
So shocking 'cause they they also called us. Yeah. You just don't think somebody's gonna call you until you're somebody that's healthy and thirty two.

Debra Ballard (15:48.684)
Yeah, he's thirty two years old, was very athletic. And so, you know, you would just never have have dreamed this. So anyway, I said, Steve, you're gonna have to call over to where the ties are having their Christmas party and 'cause I ca I cannot do that. So he it took him three different phone calls they kept hanging up on him to before they would move before they would believe him. But it is so when we all got back to the house there were cars everywhere.

Mark Ballard (16:15.246)
We were all out there waiting and it was sad and everything and it's Christmas Day, so of course Deborah's house has got a Christmas tree up and Christmas tree decorations and she said, I want you to get that Christmas tree down. And I like, There are a hundred people here and your house is tiny and I to compare to Well it was bigger than ours.

Debra Ballard (16:32.148)
How am I compared to what we have now? Yeah. It was one of those you know, random

Mark Ballard (16:40.066)
Well it would have been tiny with thirty something people in the dam me trying to get a ladder.

Debra Ballard (16:43.746)
Yes, maybe you're right about that. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Mark Ballard (16:46.752)
Okay, so I just thought maybe she was out of her mind for a second and just put that, continued on living my life. Put that behind me and she came by me again and tell me the tree, I want it down. And I'm like, damn are you gotta be kidding. I am not kidding, she said. I thought, okay. So I go get a ladder and I'm climbing up the thing, taking a test, and this lady, can you hold us? Excuse me, tap him. Is there a place to sit this angel right there?

Debra Ballard (17:10.495)
Can you play?

Mark Ballard (17:16.967)
So anyhow we got the tree down and you know my birthday is December nineteenth, so I am Mr. Christopher.

Debra Ballard (17:23.746)
Yes. I I think that's probably one of the deepest depressions I've ever fallen into. I didn't eat for ten days.

Mark Ballard (17:29.28)
And what I think is he shouldn't have said something bad about me.

Debra Ballard (17:32.514)
Yeah. I well, I d don't don't think that I haven't thought a million times about that saying, you know, I could live with Mark Ballard and then a month later to the date this happens. All right, so anyway, Mark would come home and he was really close to my sister. My sister had moved in with me to help with the baby and all. And so he'd come over and they'd cook supper and

Mark Ballard (17:52.878)
I did not eat, I don't think, for like

And so I okay, to give you a little I'm up at the Atlanta College of Art which is now SCAD in Atlanta. I'm an O C D person that's a model student. I was up there, s had done so well in that school that if I was into my last I guess semester or whatever it's called, and they had let me have independent study. Right. I could give them what I wanted to work on, some kind of come up with some kind of project, and then they would I just had to check in with them like every you know, three weeks or something.

So every Friday I would come back home and

Debra Ballard (18:30.024)
I was working for the Making Telegraph at the time. Nineteen eighty one goes on and I think this was probably in September maybe of that year, I think. We my boss wanted to take all of the managers to a conference that was being held in Atlanta. And so Yeah, I wanna say So we were gonna go eat at a place called the Boston Sea Party. Is this

Mark Ballard (18:46.35)
So Jeb, Marcus in Atlanta anyway. I'm gonna I wanna see him, I'm gonna invite him to God.

Mark Ballard (18:55.747)
Still there?

Debra Ballard (18:56.502)
You know, I don't know. There's that big fish on Piedmont and the thing you need to know about Mark is he does not eat seed.

Mark Ballard (19:02.51)
Anything that's even touched seafood. And all my life I've had to explain it. You just then the people like, you just have never had any good seafood or you would be like it. I was like All this kind of stuff. I just don't and so finally have another friend of mine said, just tell you're allergic. And so I said from then I'm allergic and it's just anybody So her boss was on his third or fourth

Debra Ballard (19:12.898)
Well it's lake food and creek food.

Debra Ballard (19:23.256)
Yeah, it's nip it, nip it, nip it. Fourth while I think it was four.

Mark Ballard (19:29.618)
And she was young like me, and so she wanted me to sit by her. And Deborah's like, no, he's sitting right here. And then I said, Okay, Deborah's her boss, I'll go over there. And so I'm directly in front of across the table from Deborah, sitting next to the almost my same age fourth wife, and then that's that and Deborah's there. And she was a nervous wreck because she's the lady said, You're just always fun, and da-da-da. And so she said, If you don't do you like caviar? Before I could say anything, she had r dipped a spoonful of caviar and put it into my mouth.

I was like, I am fixing a speed this caviar right off the stable.

Debra Ballard (20:06.358)
swallowed. And I was like, he was a good sport about that. And so we got finished and I you know, I had not really been anywhere since Henry died. And so he was a grieving winner. I know. I had heard of this place called the Limelight. God has and I was very much into disco back then. So I said, Mark, let's go to the Limelight.

Mark Ballard (20:25.278)
I had passed it because it was kinda nearest where I went to school. But I ne never gone in.

Debra Ballard (20:32.002)
Okay, so I he said all right. I I th I have never been to studio fifty four in New York, but I thought it probably was like that. They had a glass floor that you could see through and they would put everything from tigers to they fill out water and put sharks, and then you had the go go girls, I guess that's what they were called back in the seventies. it was just dancing and then you had these private rooms you could rent and go in there and do god knows what. So

Mark Ballard (20:58.776)
Basically think of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, that's what she took. I was exposed to things I had never seen before because of that. I I was so scared I was gonna turn into a pillar of salt when I turned around that like that lady did.

Debra Ballard (21:14.676)
You didn't turn around and look at it as we left. We danced till four o'clock in the morning.

Mark Ballard (21:18.318)
I could not hear y'all because it was so loud and I had never It was wonderful I had never been in that kind of situation. So I literally could not hear for two days and I thought God is punishing me for going to Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah. And Deborah was like, yeah, that's not because she she went to Sodom and Gomorrah every day.

Debra Ballard (21:37.332)
kind of the wild child. Mark was not. So anyway, Mark took me back to the hotel, left, and I thought, you know, he is so much fun. After that we just kind of became inseparable.

Mark Ballard (21:48.628)
Until I get a a email or ma whatever we had about them.

Debra Ballard (21:53.356)
No, you did not have email.

Mark Ballard (21:54.784)
I got a phone call from my panel of people at the Atlanta Clause of Art. So I had to drive up to Atlanta and I wanted ever to go but she was working. And I sit down and you know, there's like four people, my you know, these ominous teachers and I'm like, So what's up? you know and they go, has something changed in your life? You bet And I was like, What are you talking about? No. I said I've been traveling about to make it more. She they said, Well, it's showing up in your work and I was thinking, you sure there's been no changes at all?

Debra Ballard (22:13.954)
believe it.

Mark Ballard (22:24.718)
And I was like, I don't think so. And then I went, You're talking about Deborah. And they said, Who is Deborah? And I said, we kind of dating. And I said, she they said, Well, you've got like three more months to get your degree. You just need to forget about Deborah and Sodom and Gomara and finish your classes. So I had to have a little break to get finished.

Debra Ballard (22:47.244)
Well, I don't know if you call what we did dating. I mean we just kind of fell into one another. I I it was just and I told people this too. You know, I'm sorry for what happened to Henry, he was a wonderful person. But we were meant to be. Absolutely.

Mark Ballard (23:01.998)
Yeah, it's just tearing up again so we can't talk about it long. Don't think that I was not glad when I saw thirty three because he was thirty two.

Debra Ballard (23:04.759)
All right.

Debra Ballard (23:12.59)
I think it was like January, February. Mark's sister lived in Athens and she got really sick, so we needed to go up and pick up her daughter, Dallas. Dallas and our daughter Courtney are like 13 days apart. So we went up and got Dallas. We were coming back and Dallas is in the back sleep asleep. And I don't know which one of us said it first, but we just you wanna get married? Going down the road from Athens to Macon.

Mark Ballard (23:37.07)
We've already been to Sodom. Come

Debra Ballard (23:38.304)
That's right, why not? So we decided that we were gonna get married in April, April seventeenth to be exact. People thought we had lost our mind.

Mark Ballard (23:47.31)
The best part about it is if our our son Blake, if he had come to us with a person that was seven years older that already had a Well I mean you were I'm talking about you and twenty-eight and I was just twenty-one and automatically she's got a child, so I'll be marrying her and the child and said that to my pair if he said that to us, I would go, you absolutely So

Debra Ballard (23:56.108)
You were just twenty one.

Yeah, yeah, twenty seven.

Debra Ballard (24:12.502)
Well I would say go to your room.

Mark Ballard (24:15.254)
My the reason it worked with my family is because they knew Deborah the whole time, as you recall. The best compliment I ever got was her mother called me a gigolo. 'Cause she didn't like me at all and didn't want me over there with Deborah. I had my teachers complaining, your mother was complaining, but my parents were cool.

Debra Ballard (24:35.436)
We got married April 17th, 1982, at the Hay House. It was the first wedding after they the the owners had given the house to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.

Mark Ballard (24:39.696)
Which was a big deal back then because

Mark Ballard (24:49.742)
And for anyone listening that's not in this area, 'cause the hay house is a big deal in making it so

Debra Ballard (24:54.858)
It's eighteen thousand square foot Italian villa that was finished the year the Civil War began. And the the husband and wife took a two year honeymoon to Europe to to buy all the furnishings and the artwork and everything. And one thing about Macon too is when Sherman began his march to the sea and had burned Atlanta to the ground, you know, started in Chattanooga, Atlanta, he bypassed Macon.

Mark Ballard (25:03.502)
Okay, the tech.

Debra Ballard (25:19.55)
And there was only ever one cannonball, I think it was during this time, fired into the city of Macon and it landed, went through they were they were trying to hit the hay house but it landed in the trance went through the transom and landed in what we now call the cannonball house. Y'all need to come. We've got to sell Yeah. Never visited Macon, don't bypass us. So what

Mark Ballard (25:35.414)
It's heavy but I thought

Mark Ballard (25:39.626)
The reason I brought that up about the hay house is because we l having lived here, we know what it is. But when every time I would tell about this when we were visiting another state or whatever, they'd be like, Is it a farm or barn? Because that was the last

Debra Ballard (25:52.854)
Yeah, no the let's see, Johnson Belton Belton Hay or Belton Johnson Hay, I don't remember.

Mark Ballard (25:58.04)
So it they even covered it was a big deal. They covered it from the newspaper. And we had to pay for every guest as if they were taking a tour. I gotta mention it. Fran Lafarge. I don't know. I don't know what's having a friend, I've lost contact, but she was something else about that hay house. You know, all those beautiful silk

Debra Ballard (26:01.292)
I didn't read.

So

Debra Ballard (26:08.846)
And we could not have

Debra Ballard (26:20.79)
Well they had not no no renovations really as far as, you know, getting back down to the original wallpaper and yeah, the furniture was there and the statue of Ruth was in this little kind of bay window alcove. Then that's w we got married in front of her. And and the wedding was absolutely gorgeous. This is kind of odd. I needed to go shop for a a a wedding dress because I you know, a second marriage

I was kind of leery of of doing the whole thing and but Mark said, This is the only time hopefully I'm gonna get married. We're gonna have a to-do.

Mark Ballard (26:50.86)
But we had to love you to invite you 'cause we had to pay for that too.

Debra Ballard (26:54.026)
So Mark and his mom actually went to Sacks in Atlanta to help me pick out the wedding dress. And so when the woman started bringing them, they s she said, Mother and brother, and I said, No, mother in law and green. She went

Mark Ballard (27:08.278)
Okay. Well we thought we had to forget that about you're not supposed to be the bride or

Debra Ballard (27:12.307)
Well Mark actually did my hair and did my f did the flowers and everything.

Mark Ballard (27:16.338)
After Deborah had already cur you know, d predicted all that other stuff, I thought we nothing w worse could happen than that. So then we now have him married forty four years.

Debra Ballard (27:26.808)
Four years. I cannot believe it. All right, tell them what you said to me on our wedding day.

Mark Ballard (27:32.268)
We were gonna ride our own bow.

Debra Ballard (27:34.38)
Mark is better at that stuff than I am. You were

Mark Ballard (27:36.44)
paper circulation. I wasn't it I was a writer for that. That's right. So anyhow I just wrote my little thing and you know I had to commit it to memory which was you know I'm a very live kind of person even on television and all that. But I'm not well with somebody rehearsing, you know, it's gotta be the same thing. Deborah on the other hand went, which is a valid thing to do and just

Debra Ballard (27:53.682)
I just got a bunch of poetry books and smishmashed everything together.

Mark Ballard(27:56.438)
And shoved it together and you know. Well I was over there memorizing mine. I think she had a little roll-up thing from the poem I said April 17th will always be our day, a day for us to remember. It's the day I married my best friend and the day I treasure at Sodom and Gomon.

Debra Ballard (27:58.838)
Rad it.

Debra Ballard (28:06.808)
Okay.

Debra Ballard (28:18.746)
É

Debra Ballard (28:22.325)
hush.

Mark Ballard (28:24.564)
So we have between her husband dying on Christmas Day, our life has we have really just about recovered. But I mean, we have been steadfast through everything that was thrown our way and I wouldn't try to anything.

Debra Ballard (28:37.582)
That's right.

Debra Ballard (28:43.34)
Neither darling. I do it all over again.

Mark Ballard (28:45.31)
So if anybody ever asks you if you've heard the Mark Balor, Deborah Balor how they met story or all you have to remember is Deborah's a cougar and got a young man.

Debra Ballard (28:50.574)
Yeah.

Debra Ballard (28:54.574)
the the years don't matter s quite as much now.

Mark Ballard (28:59.31)
Thanks for joining me. We'll come up with something else Southern and something else making related for the next show.

Thanks for joining our conversation. One of my favorite things to do is share tales of our unique south. I hope you're going to come back because there's always more. Thank you to our sponsors at Carlisle Place at Home. Check out at Mark Creates on Instagram and shop my artwork on Etsy.

Hosted by Mark Ballard, Genuely Southern is a podcast by Creek Media. The show is produced by Mark and Deborah Ballard and produced and edited by Stephanie Shadden. Follow us on social media at Gen South Pod and message us with questions you'd like to hear discussed on future episodes. Engage with us, like us, subscribe, share with a friend. Be sure to stream this and more podcasts you may love at StreamTheCreek.com.