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.

The best laid plans.....

For the past few evenings, Cindy and I have found ourselves going to bed later and later and finding myself waking up later and later. I suppose that is the natural result of the first action; however, it would be nice if the behavior would change on its own. Nevertheless, I had told Cindy that we need to go to bed sooner and she agreed and tonight, when she first fell asleep with the television on and the ipad in her lap, and I noticed, because I wasn't napping, and I suggested we go to bed and we did. But now, a few hours later at 2:17, I am awake again and watching television and trying to get my body back in slumber, while simultaneously writing this blog. Damn it.

Relative weather patterns

I drove down to Bonaire today. Home of former governor, Sonny Perdue. Yesterday, I was driving around Central and South Georgia like the steel ball in a pinball machine. Yesterday, the sky was partly cloudy, but basically dry. It was starting to warm up from the cool, wet weather we have been having lately. Today, on the other hand, it got warm quickly and continued until it reached late March hot in Georgia. I accepted a closing in Bonaire this afternoon. The news was filled up with stories about the tornados which struck Oklahoma City yesterday. John was at ground zero through a coincidence of computer apps trying to find a cheap motel room. Cheap motel room turned out to mean sleep with your head near a tornado's devastation. After downloading the loan package, I headed down to Bonaire. The skies were blue with big billows of clouds presaging the rain which would come later. I drove down I-75 toward Macon, then flipped off down 41 toward Robins Air Force Base and my destination in Bonaire. I was talking to John on the phone, as he was telling me stories about his adventures in tornado alley. I drove past the flight museum on the south end of Robins Air Force base. I would like to make another visit to the museum. It is a hidden treasure in that part of the state. The contrast between the relative peace and quiet of Houston County and what happened in Oklahoma was striking. Even a rain shower which showed up on the northside of Macon was gentle and kissed with the sunlight above the clouds. I made it home in the darkness and was able to eat supper with Cindy for a change. This is a large country. So much can happen in one part of the country while the other parts of the country are untouched. I am wondering about the fronts which are headed our way. We have escaped so much violent weather over the years. I wonder when it might be our turn. But it was so beautiful today. So beautiful.

Mother's Day thoughts

It is a pretty day for all the mothers. Cindy has been sleeping late today. We are basically ready to pack the car and get on the road to Dunwoody for Maggie's graduation and the Mother's Day Celebration. It is odd that these colleges are having their graduation ceremonies on Mother's Day Weekend. That is the way that Presbyterian College has been doing it for a long time. Is there a need to combine the celebration of graduation from higher education with the celebration of our mothers? At PC it might make sense, since PC was started as a college for the orphans at the Thornwell home in Clinton, SC. I'm not sure that is the derivation, but it is something to consider. Parenthood is an interesting concept in regard to the differing roles of the father and the mother. The mother is impregnated and she carries the physical burden of the maturation and birth of the child. She has the real, physical connection to the child. It is automatic and immediate. As the child grows in her womb, she cannot help but feel the growth of the child within. The father, on the other hand, is somewhat more tenuous. There is no physical connection, except the sensory connection, and the connection, in some sense, requires the effort of the father. It is an easy thing for a father to walk away. Perhaps that is why it seems to happen so often. It is true that the mother to abandon the child. This too does happen. But she has to turn her back on that physical connection from the gestation period. That has to be hard for a mother to disconnect. It seems common for situations where young mothers have to "grow up" and become a responsible parent to her child, while the father continues to play the carefree adolescent. There is a scene in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities in which the main character comes to his father, a New York lawyer, for assistance when the law comes down on him after the incident in which he runs over the child in the Bronx. The character looks for emotional support and help from his father, but his father offers little more than legal aphorisms toward his legal problem. The main character realizes that his father, despite his age, has not progressed much past seventeen years of age, in consideration of his emotional life. And so it seems with fathers as concerns their children. Mothers are different. It was only after my father passed on that I realized the emotional elements of my father in my life. I remembered how emotional and sentimental my father was. I realized how much I was like him. I saw the poet and artist within him. I see it in my father in law. But today is Mother's Day. I have always been proud of my grandmothers. My grandmother Gary worked in the clerk's office in Christian County and compiled marriage records for books for genealogical research. She was loving and kind and but smart and disciplined. My grandmother Baynham was a teacher and a businesswoman and she took care of the farmhouse and raising my father and caring for my grandfather and was smart and funny and loving. And now that my father is gone, I see the toughness and wisdom of my mother. She is surviving because she took care of the important things. She still does. When I was in college it occurred to me that my father seemed to come to the wrong conclusions for all the right reasons and that my mother always found the right conclusions for the wrong reasons. That may be so, but it is still a matter of conjecture. My mother contiues to give me suppport . She is still my mother. Happy MOther's Day, momma.

My favorite moments

There is a moment in the afternoon Where the gold of the day is refined By the growing darkness And light and shadow are combined To slow down the running of the day Through my mind and I pop A soft jazz tape in the player And the car flows through the miles and minutes Into the sanctuary of the evening In a sweet twist of taffy pull through time

Overcast skies

I was hopeful that we might have seen a temporary end to the overcast skies and the precipitation, but I drove South to Camilla and found some and then the skies seemed to get darker as I returned to the middle of ths state and now the radar shows showers all around and it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and so on and so on and so on until we have our fill, I guess. After I came home this afternoon, I went out on the back porch and found it cool, but not that cool and so I pulled the tv and the modum out on the back porch and watched "Remember the Titans" and then watched a bit more, then came inside and finished the last of a giant slice of red velvet cake, which I had never tasted until I was an adult and which is one of my favorite cakes nowadays and, anyway, Cindy and I finished off the cake and I am now sitting and watching JImmy KImmel and Cindy is taking her third or fourth nap in the green chair since I came home. She doesn't want to go to bed and she doesn't like the green chair, but she seems to be able to find slumber, in spurts, as is. I need to go to sleep soon. I am working on it. I wanted to write about it first.

May Day

Today is May Day. For most people in Western culture, this is the day when the Soviet Union trotted out their large, intercontinental ballistic missile and marched in lockstep in front of the old, grey men on the dias above. In traditional English culture, the young ladies of the village dressed in their Spring finery and danced around a large pole, decorated with colorful ribbons and celebrated Spring and the joy and abandon of life itself. I had an English professor at W&L who referred to this as the first day of outdoor sexual intercourse. Personally, I like the traditional English version. The old communist version was a celebration of raw power and death, a celebration at odds with the time of year and the usual weather of early May. The English tradition is a more appropriate celebration, which draws the villagers out into nature, where we celebrate the raw, flow of Springtime. Even in a day of grey clouds and brisk, cool winds, it is not too far beyond us to fail to consider the wisteria and the late-blooming azaleas and the remnants of the dogwoods that are still hanging around. The warmth is hidden within the tapestry of Spring. The rain comes and goes, but we are still a day away from the warmth and sunshine. The three year old colts will run on Saturday, rain or shine. It is time to feel the new life flowing through us and celebrate the life that God grants us.

Enjoying the journey

Travelling through central Georgia from Tifton to Columbus, I utilized Highway 82 to make a quick trip of it. Everything seemed very green from the recent rains. A multiplicity of greens rivaling Ireland in its lushness. There are a number of these four lanes across the agricultural center of our state, and signs for tomatoes and onions and peas and beans and every kind of locally grown vegetable and fruit. Then the promise of peaches and pecans in their season. Peanuts and melons. The fruits of the crimson Georgia clay. This is the sweet season in Georgia. Azaleas in bloom. Creamy dogwood blossoms. The lavender whisteria hanging from the trees in our backyard. The temperatures are moderate. Cool in the morning, warm in the afternoon. I blew down the highway and landed in Columbus about thirty minutes late. Not bad for a journey which was supposed to take me about fortyfive minutes longer. I was flying low below radar, apparently. I am glad I didn't see too many policecars along the way. That would have been an unpleasant interlude in an otherwise enjoyable afternoon. It ended with a tall amber beer and a chicken sandwich in front of two large screen televisions showing the Braves beating the Nationals in Atlanta and the Brooklyn Nets beating the Chicago Bulls in Brooklyn. Just another jaunt through the Springtime darkness between Columbus and Griffin, one and one half hours to home.

Watching crazy Americans running through the capital of Germany

Cindy and I had stopped watching The Amazing Race on Sunday nights. Listening to the contestants as they maneuvered the journeys around the world became boresome. I was tired of hearing their schemes and their problems and whining. But tonight was different. We went back to last week's episode, the one we missed on our journey from Bayou Lacombe, Louisiana across the coast of Mississippi to Mobile and up through the darkness of South Alabama to a motel room just east of Montgomery. What a long, unpleasant journey, losing an hour because of an accident on I-10 and an hour in Wentzell's Oyster House on the north side of Mobile for our last Gulf Coast seafood supper for awhile. Boy did I eat a lot of seafood in those four or five days. Anyway, it just so happened that last week's episode sent the contestants from Switzerland to Dresden, Germany and on to Berlin. I have always wanted to visit Berlin. Despite the negative connotations, I have always wanted to visit Berlin. So much history. So much meaning for my world. I am a child of the 50's. I was born before the creation of the Berlin Wall became a physical symbol of the chasm between the East and the West, Russia and the United States. I could sit in my room and dread the dropping of atomic bombs and the quick end of our world, but the concrete and barbed wire and machine guns and soldiers. The grey and brown and lack of color. But now it includes an end to that struggle and the joy of freedom that led the people to dance and sing and drink and chant and take sledge hammers to the wall and destroy that terrible symbol of an inability to communicate and get along. What joy. What a moment of release and fun and victory over the desire to control people through force. Anyway, we watched the episode and you could see a modern, vibrant city which seems to have overcome its black history. I want to go and see myself. I want to place a physical connection to the history of the twentieth century and the ultimate victory of peace and freedom and joy. I want to go. I can't wait. Tonight was just a taste.

Sunday afternoon rain and an impending trip to Apalachicola

It rained last night and the thunder and lightning woke the dog and sent him on an excursion upstairs and around the living room, barking. I am not quite sure what he was looking for, but he left a trail of doggy droppings through the living room. I found them when I stepped on one of them in the darkness trying to find the dog. Cindy put the dog in bed with us and I cleaned up the trail. One of those lovely perks of dog ownership. Or ownership by the dog. We woke up late this morning and I was only able to go to church. Cindy stayed home. She was at the table on the backporch, grading papers. The dog was on his bed in the kitchen staring out at Cindy on the backporch. It was beginning to rain again when I got home. It has been raining ever since. Almost eight o'clock pm and I finally found the way into my blog. I hope I will be able to continue. It is quite a comfort. Cindy and I are going to a closing I have in Camilla on Friday, to be followed by a weekend trip to Apalachicola. I am looking forward to more seafood and sunshine and maybe some time in the water at the beach on St. George. There is nothing better than crossing over the bridge from East Point to St. George, watching the oystermen plying their trade on the waters of Apalachicola Bay. The last natural oyster beds in North America. A great place.