Juliette, Georgia (CNN) -- "Y'know they're going to tear that house down, don't you?"Robert Maddox has just opened his front door to let me in for the third time in three weeks. During each visit, Maddox talks about the house next door. It looks like the other houses in this rural middle Georgian town: two stories high, with a stone face and long rooftop arches, sitting on a few acres of wooded hills.
Maddox turns toward his dining room, walking by the oxygen tank he uses when he makes the 300-foot trek to the two-lane road where he picks up his mail, and shares the gossip he heard at the local market an hour earlier.
"Yeah, someone said Georgia Power will tear it down to the ground sometime this week."
Robert Maddox is a bulky man with gray hair, a deeply lined face, squinty eyes and a thick Southern accent. He lives in Juliette with his wife, Teresa. The two of them invested their life savings building their home. It's a large ranch house on several acres, and the plan was the two of them would leave it for their sons and grandchildren. They gave up that dream after Maddox's mother developed a rare form of ear cancer and died after living at the home for three years.
"I'm not going to bring my grandchildren up in this," Maddox says. "Anybody who does would be a fool, I think." Read More
