Georgia On My Mind

I had the opportunity to travel to Georgia a couple weeks ago to visit my recently retired parents. They moved about six months ago and are loving the warm weather, being with cousins, and the southern cooking. They also love that many people have already signed up to visit them and have poured in from Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, and other places.

This area of Georgia we, as a family, had a chance to travel to every year during the summer and some years for New Years as well. Nanny (mom's mom) and a lot our great aunts and uncles and their kids lived in this area. This was where we fished, put coins on the railroad tracks, caught frogs and lizards, swung from ropes off ledges into a lake, picked up coal and turtle shells while walking the railroad tracks, played Scrabble, ate creamed corn and squash and okra and biscuits and gravy, drank sweet tea, picked wild blackberries along a logging trail, investigated abandoned houses, and listened to the crickets and felt the warm breeze through window screens as we fell asleep.

I always thought that this area was Buchanan, GA about an hour west of Atlanta and 25 minutes east of the Alabama border. I just learned that the area is called Flatwoods, as it isn't Buchanan proper. What is a more perfect rural name than Flatwoods?

Mom and dad are situated on about 10 acres with a house and small workshop that has been converted to a guest house. It is exquisite. They are surrounded by woods and dad recently planted a garden. This all fits them perfectly. Mom and dad also have a pond that they just stocked with fish.

I took some pictures while there, but as usual, wish I took more. So much has changed since my first memories of the area, from the early 80's. Gravel roads have become paved, railroad ties that served as small bridges have become concrete, and houses lived in at the time have been overrun with termites and abandoned.

The pictures below of houses are ascribed to former owners, owners that have passed away.



Aunt Olive's house


An abandoned house along M. Sanders Rd.


The logging trail where we hiked and picked wild blackberries.


Nanny's house


Reported to be a blacksmith shop from yesteryear


Walking along the railroad tracks; overlooking the Tallapoosa River, I believe


The lake behind Aunt Olive's

Some other places mom, dad, and I walked or drove by are: Aunt Marie's house (hardly visible and overgrown by tree saplings), Uncle Stanley and Aunt Ruth's house, Uncle Sephord and Aunt Ruby's house, the old sharecropper house (as the story goes) on land passed down to the Philpot girls, a logging trail that would lead to where Calvin Philpot (granddaddy) had a heart attack and died, the Buchanan Historical Society where Nanny worked, an Indian Trail tree, Piggly Wiggly, Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, and the graves of Nanny, Calvin and many other family members already named above. Mt. Vernon has had a number of different renovations and doesn't 'smell' the way it used to (wood burning, rural smell) but it was still nostalgic to see.

A big thanks to Steve & Carol and Wiley & Beth for their home cooking and hospitality and Kathy & Chuck, Betty Ann & Ray, Mary Allis and others for their warmth and great conversation.

Church Stories

-At my church in Illinois, a Christian comedian performed one evening and near the end, gave an invitation....you know the invitation I'm talking about. Somehow I was confused. I was sitting in the balcony, I stood up, and started walking downstairs only to mentally realize the substance of the invitation. I quickly replayed the comedian's message to see if a 're-dedication' would be appropriate and concluded no. I deviated from the group walking downstairs and pretended I was lost for about 3 minutes before going to my dad's office (he was a Pastor at the church). I met back up with family member's at the end and recounted the embarrassing story.

-My cousin Steven and I were sugar fiends in late elementary/early junior high. We had a whole tour around the church. First, we would sneak down to the pantry and take taste tests between sugar, equal, and sweet-n-low packets. We also ate cookies (mostly oatmeal...a real treat was the rare chocolate chip), drank tang up in the nursery, then to the choir room for the hard candies, and then across the street to Burger King (skipping church) to get free refills on Coke. No wonder he was a bit 'jumpy' those years.

-After 1980, 'Jim' was rarely seen at church without a Big Gulp in his hands. When the Super Big Gulp and then the Double Gulp came out, he upsized. 'Jim' was not self-aware...even taking the first chunk out of my sister Catherine's birthday cake. Our family used to spend Sunday afternoons at church because of the 45 minute drive into the city and needing to be at both Sunday morning and Sunday evening services. Because of this, Catherine's birthday cake was put into a fridge upstairs to be celebrated later. When it was taken out, there was a large section missing. 'Jim' later confessed.

One Generation's Parents And Their Influences

At WMF, we usually eat lunch around a small table and talk. Sometimes the conversation veers towards growing up and our cultural similarities. Among the topics covered and others I was pondering:

1) How much T.V. allowed?
2) What particular T.V. programs allowed or not allowed?
3) What were some traditional family dinners?
4) How healthy did your families eat?
5) Tupperware, Longaberger baskets, Shaklee?
6) Seating arrangements around the table.
7) Birth order and subsequent eroding strictness of parents. (Still being talked about at every turn by the oldest children and this being such an "overdone" conversation for parents and the youngest children.)
8) Natural childbirth? To talk about and explore.
9) Did everyone read Little House on the Prairie series and C.S. Lewis' Narnia series?
10) Fashion statements....clothes, hair styles, etc.

I found it interesting that a lot of the meals prepared in the 70's and 80's don't seem to be popular now. As if each decade says goodbye to some foods and hello to others. Tuna casserole seemed very popular, oatmeal for dinner, Tang at church, pudding, Hawaiian bread, little pizzas on English muffins, beef stroganoff, German potato salad, Mrs. Smith's apple pie (frozen), etc.

Also, waves of natural eating seemed to hit all of us at the same time: carob as a substitute for chocolate, fruit leather, rice cakes, natural peanut butter, lentils, homemade chicken soup.

Answers to above questions:
1) T.V. only allowed Thursday and Friday evenings and on the weekend. Thursday for Waltons and Little House, Friday for Dukes of Hazzard. Sat. morning cartoons.
2) Refer to Chris' blog for his not-allowed shows. Ours included many of those: No Smurfs, He-Man, A-Team, etc.
3) Refer to paragraph above: especially tuna casserole.
4) We ate pretty healthy. Wheat bread, healthy peanut butter, usually no desserts. Made to eat our vegetables, etc. Thanks to Mom and Dad. I appreciate it now.
5) Tupperware and Shaklee. I still miss those Tupperware orange peelers. Shaklee pills, Basic H, Basic G, and occasionally a chocolate shake mix. Again, they were ahead of their time.
6) Our seating arrangements were pretty fluid as I remember. Dinner was great though. ... All together around the table. Holding hands as we prayed. I also remember dinners getting loud. My unconscious response to too much noise?....whistling. Just what everyone needed...more noise.
7) I'm third oldest, so I have my gripes like lots of older kids. But I've mostly said my peace.
8) I know a little about midwifery, underwater delivery, jumping jacks, etc.
9) I read Narnia; my sisters read Little House.
10) Yikes. Thankfully my mom and sister Sharon said no to the mullet perm for me in junior high. I did the high tops, ankle jean wrap, spiked hair like everyone else. No zipper jackets, painters hats, or other extremes for me though.

The Silver Bullet

I am grateful that even in a big family, that mom and dad took us on vacation twice a year. We would always travel right after Christmas and during the summer. Each for one week to ten days apiece. And always to visit family.

Our summer trip was always south to Georgia. Our Christmas trip was almost always to visit my aunt and uncle...wherever they lived...MI, PA, VA.

I always remember the trips starting vacation being a lot more fun than the trip home. We'd excite ourselves with the normal games...license plates, etc. But we were ritualistic about the trips and this creating good and long-lasting memories.

The cars changed over time with the size of the family. Sedan, station-wagon, borrowed VW, and eventually the 15 passenger Silver Bullet.

The trip to Georgia:
Pack the night before. Get up at 4:30AM and start up. Immediately get munchkins at the nearby Dunkin Donuts. Drive till around 11:00 for a new tank of gas and eat at Jerry's in southern Indiana. Drive several more hours until gas runs out and take the cooler out of the back and pass around the pimento and cheese sandwiches or PB&J. Drive till we reach Nana's house in rural Georgia around 9 at night. Hope to see her playing Scrabble on the porch with Aunt Irene.

These memories have a sweet, almost sticky feeling in my mind.

Nana was the last of my grandparents. Mom's mom, early widowed, lover of Scripture, Scrabble player, prayer warrior, hard-working, frugal, accepting, independent wonderful woman.

We'd arrive late in the evening, get the cushions off the couch and place them on the floor and cover with sheets. Off to bed.

Over the course of our week there we'd hunt for frogs/toads, catch lizards, place pennies on the railroad track, fish for catfish/bass with some kataba worms off a nearby tree, swing on ropes into the lake, read good books, play Scrabble, collect coal that had fallen from the railcars, eat delicious Southern cooking, pick fresh blackberries and eat them with ice cream, in pies, and alone, and generally have some of the best times.

Later episodes: Dad's driven nature (no bathroom breaks no matter what), Brage's full-on Southern accent in 3 days of being in the South, fire ants, and the Cyclorama.