Driving, driving

As much as I like to drive, I don't look forward to driving up to Knoxville this afternoon, if only because it will be a long end to a day in which I find myself already yawning and wishing I got to sleep earlier yesterday evening. Unfortunately, I accepted a closing in Wrightsville yesterday which didn't end until around eight last night. Afterward, I drove cross country to the interstate, then drove up through the rain and lightening to the north side of Macon to buy gas and food at the Super Kroger. At this point it was after ten and most of the restaurants were closed or closing. I bought a couple of tummy bombs at Krystal and headed up I-75 toward Griffin and home. That put me getting to bed around midnight. The cats climbed in bed with me and let me pet them into a purring state of happiness. They finally let me got to sleep around twelve thirty. Not the best way to get yourself together for Friday. Hopefully this evening will be better.

Fathers

There was a radio show on NPR yesterday in which they discussed different stories about fathers. I was thinking about my career as a father, but also was drawn to some stories about my own father. For most of his work life, my dad was a salesman for IBM. He started his career as an engineer in Indianapolis, but ultimately changed to sales in Atlanta, which he performed until his retirement. When we were little, my dad would take us out on the patio during the warm months and sing songs for us while playing a guitar which had been given to my mother and was originally owned by my grandmother's grandmother. Dad played folk songs and old Dixieland jazz songs and spirituals. He had a broad taste in music. Later on my brother Frank and I learned how to play guitar on the same guitar, scraping the surface of the old guitar with our fingernails and picks we bought at the music store. When little league football and baseball became our seasonal passions, my dad was involved with that too. Despite his work with IBM, he always made it to our games and usually showed up at the end of practices from wherever his sales calls left him at the end of the day. I can still hear my father's voice rising over the other adults when I did something good on the football field. Later on when Kate was playing soccer, I found that I could motivate her sometimes just by cheering loudly enough for her to hear my voice. It was my mom's task to bookend my football career since she was there at the beginning of my first practice and at the end of the last game in college. As she dropped me off at my first practice, she told me to be aggressive. That still sounds as weird a benediction as when she first uttered the words. More normal were the words she said on the grass field at Georgetown University after our last game, when she said "I'm just so glad you made it through all those years without a serious injury." That sounded more normal words from a mother. It didn't matter that it seemed so inappropriate after losing the last game of my career on a last second field goal. As I trudged back to the locker room after the game, little neighborhood boys took my hand and told me how good we were and how we could probably beat Maryland. The same thing happened when I was a junior and we lost a game to Cedar Shoals in Athens. At the end of the Georgetown game, my dad was crying tears of loss and finality for my career. Mom was beaming joy. When it came time for my term as father, I loved to take Kate on daytrips. We travelled down to Americus and visited the Carter Museum on Plains and the 1850's village nearby in Westville. We tramped through the sand of Providence Canyon. When we visited Cindy's parents in Knoxville, I often took Kate on little trips to locations in the area. We visited Cumberland Gap National Park and the museum at Lincoln Memorial College. We saw the original Kentucky Fried Chicken in Corbin. I took her to tour Boonsboro. When Kate was about three or four I took her to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus in Atlanta. I spent the extra money to get us seats down along the front row of seats, right in front of a clown doing tricks just for us. I was so excited and thought Kate was enjoying it too. Only later did I find out that Kate was afraid of clowns. When she was a middle schooler, I took her to Cirque de Sole. She seemed to enjoy that more. A year later when we talked her mother into coming with us, she whispered to her mother, "Most people don't know how cool this circus is." We've hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail and biked through Chicamauga National Battlefield. I've enjoyed every trip. I miss her now that she is in San Francisco. I enjoyed every trip. I still enjoy our opportunities to journey with each other.

Still life at lunch

It is crisp and clear and the leafless trees Freeze in scene, in Winter grays and tans. I drive from home to meet Cindy at the Mexican restaurant downtown. Classical pieces play softly from the public radio station, Imperial background to the cold and majestic passing. We sit together as far from the entrance As we can and spoon up the steaming soup From our respective bowls, Sustenance and comfort for the January day. Waitresses languidly leaning against the far wall, A moment in public among the patrons In the gaily painted restaurant, Bathed in the dull buzzing of people we don't know Our knees touching under the table Wistful smiles passing between us.

January 10, 1986, 12:28 a.m.

On this particular day Clutched in Winter's freeze You arrived, a patient, ruddy face Wrapped up in a warm blanket And passed quietly from doctor To nurse to me So I might gaze in your turquoise eyes At the expression of a gift Of time and stress and anxiety And passion between your mother and me One lusty Spring afternoon Nine months before, give or take a few weeks An amazing, tiny red star Newly born in the firmament, Tossed into the midnight blue of a Friday morning, January 10, 1986 at 12:28 a.m.

Turkeys in flight

Within a week's tome I had two opportunities to see wild turkeys in flight. The first occurred as I was heading home from meeting with a borrower at his home deep in the countryside of Marian County southeast of Columbus. As I headed back to the main road down a dirt road my eye caught a Tom and a jenny (is that right?) jerking into flight from a spot alongside the road. That experience was followed by the sight of another tom and jenny blasting across my path as I headed west toward LaGrange from Greenville yesterday morning. Both experiences were novel and somewhat awe-inspiring. In some ways a tom turkey in flight is more of an awesome sight than most raptors or other birds in flight. They are huge birds and appear like an ocean liner or large navy ship crossing tour path. Amazing.

December 28, 2013

I have tried to install this on my tablet so I will have a way to get to my blog readily. It is raining again and it is getting late and Sunday morning is coming soon. I need to try to write more often and make a habit of it.

Old battles fought anew

I am a fifty six year old Caucasian man who was born in Western Kentucky in the 50's. When I was born, the local train stations Clarksville, Tennessee and Hopkinsville, Kentucky used wooden wheeled wagons to collect luggage, air travel was unusual and interstate highways were less prevalent than travel by train. When I was born in December 1956, my father was in training for employment with IBM to act as a computer engineer. Still, it was just a few years since Brown v Board of Education had been ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court and most school systems in the South and a lot of the U.S. were still segregated. There were still separate facilities for white and black citizens in many places in the South, from kindergarten to college. My genetic background is almost exclusively from the British Isles. Having said that, there are a wide variety of stories in my background which show the schisms which follow being part of the wash of British and American history. My distant Baynham ancestor came to this country and landed in Charleston harbor on a fourteen year sentence of exile from his home in the west of England. Two generations later, his grandson was present in General Washington's army when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. My distant Meacham ancestor was forced to leave his employment as farm labor on the island of Barbados and travel to North Carolina because the English landowners in Barbados decided it would be more profitable to use African slaves to cultivate their sugarcane and indigo. My McElroy ancestors left Northern Ireland because the English parlaiment had passed legislation that would invalidate Presbyterian marriages and prevent Presbyterians in Ireland from holding office or finding certain work. Three McElroy brothers soon found themselves in the western part of North Carolina, fighting the British at Kings Mountain and Cowpens and were also present at Yorktown when Cornwallis tendered his sword. My Gary ancestors, originally McGary, were possibly part of that mass movement from Northern Ireland through the port of Philadelphia and down through the Shenandoah River Valley of Virginia and on into Kentucky and Tennessee. They also may have been from Connacht, a western province of Ireland. A Hugh McGary was part of the group of Americans in Kentucky who were with Daniel Boone and his family, battling the Shawnee and British in Northern Kentucky and Southern Indiana. A story I read in a biography of Daniel Boone told the story of how the Kentucky settlers were following a band of Shawnee towards the Ohio River. When they got close, McGary convinced the settlers that they should take on the Shawnee against Daniel Boone's better judgment. The result was a disaster for the settlers and the death of Daniel Boone's son, Israel. I don't know if this McGary was related to me, but it is possible. My French ancestors, the Agees, left Nantes to escape religious persecution by King Louis XIV and the Catholic Church and to emigrated to England in support of King William and Queen Mary in the Glorious Revolution which supplanted the Stuart claimants to the throne of England. They were awarded land in Manakin, Virginia, never to return to their native France. My paternal grandmother was born a Cooley. The family is descended from an ancient Ulster family about whom the earliest epic poetry in Ireland revolves. When my ancestor married a Scots Presbyterian, his Catholic family in Dublin kicked him out of the house for marrying a Presbyterian and sent him and his wife to Tennessee. A generation later, their son married a young lady descended from the Flemish weavers who had escaped Catholic persecution and settled in England. Upon marrying this son of Ireland, her family refused to allow her to return home because she had married an Irishman. Finally, my great, great grandfather was married to Mary Catherine Jefferson, a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, grandfather to the third president. Despite writing the defining mission statement of this country, based on the supposition that we citizens are all created by God equal, my distant cousin continued to own slaves and apparently had children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, who probably was his sister-in-law by this father in law. The members of my family who came to this country came to escape a variety of injustices. In some circumstances, they got their justice upon the establishment of this country and the opportunities which were available in the New World. However, when they got here they tried to make a new life for themselves and their families. Most of them were farmers and merchants. Many owned slaves. Even after the Civil War was fought and African-Americans were freed, my ancestors lived in a society which placed those former slaves in a state of neo-servitude as share-croppers and prison labor. African-Americans continually prevented from rising in society by Jim Crow laws and the social attitudes of white citizens. Still, when I was born, this culture was in transition, both politically and socially. Despite a basic intolerance and bias toward these members of our society, changes were happening in the South. I don't remember separate water fountains where I lived. I don't remember hearing the "n" word being used in polite conversation in my family. I know there were jokes and stories told, but it wasn't a common occurance in my family. But we aren't that far removed from the Georgia which changed the state flag in the 50's to include the confederate battle flag as a component part to show their solidarity with other southern states who were fighting the dictates of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The flag wasn't changed to a different flag until about ten years ago. Knowing that, is it that unusual that a media icon like Paula Deen, who grew up in segregated Albany, Georgia, which saw a lot of racial strife in the 50's and 60's, would admit to using racial slang? I would argue that it would be a little more believable if she had admitted to using such racial slang under more common circumstances. In the racially charged world of the South in the 50's and 60's, that language was common in white culture. To deny it is somewhat akin to the post World War II Germans who denied that they were Nazis or supporters of the German government during the heyday of German National Socialism. Expecting people who grew up in the segregated South to have never used racial slang is naive and ignores the recent history of the region. On the other hand, punishing people for things they said in the past, in light of the changes which have been made in our culture over the past fifty years, is intolerance, plain and simple. Such behavior is far from helpful to the cause of racial tolerance and social growth in our country. In the United States, we live in a multi-cultural society. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners live next door to each other and share neighborhood facilities and the streets upon which we live. The work of racial tolerance is not over. But the intolerance of the past should not be punished today.