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.