Old Sweet Song of Georgia

My thoughts 'done gone down to Georgia'. Here's why, my daughter's class is studying the southeast states and I said i could bring some grits and read Joel Chandler Harris aloud to them, mebbe haul along a mess o boiled peanuts an some ice cold Co-Colas.

But what would I say about Georgia? Georgia made me who I am. The parts of me that love friendly transparency, honest discussions where each can say their truth, knee slapping good jokes, passionate preaching and praying out loud. That is Georgia in me, I am Georgia.

The food makes Georgia. Barbecue with spicy vinegary sauce, hash that soaks into paper plates in tomato-ey goodness, pimiento cheese sandwiches on a hot day, fried pork skins dipped in Tabasco sauce, buttery black eyed peas, Lima beans, beet greens, fried catfish and hush puppies.

So much soul food a person can't get through the list. Georgia has a rich culture of food. It stretches from the seafood, oysters and shrimp on the coast, peanuts or Vidalia onions in the agriculture plains. Sliced tomatoes on toast and watermelon dropped in the patch so you can pick up a split piece and eat it warm from the sun. Smoked salty hams and cornbread, apples and peaches near or in the smoky mountain area. Grits to go with every type of dish you make. You can taste Georgia in my brothers smoked meats, my Dad's BBQ sauce, fried catfish, hush puppies, my family's peanut brittle, and all the good cooking we get when we're at Grandpa's.

Georgia has history that starts as a foundational State of America. Before that is has the Cherokee who lived in stationary dwellings and were advanced in agriculture. They built burial mounds that still stand today. When plowing up red Georgia clay your blades might turn up a hunting arrowhead with each carving mark clearly shown in the sharpened flint. There are cemetaries hidden under large live oaks hung with funereal drapery of Spanish moss, etchings on tombstones show dates from revolutionary war times. There are old battlefields marked by cannon ball furrows and cannon stations. There is a large slave market bell on Louisville's Main Street, a piece of Georgia's past that reminds us to be better than we were. The old courthouse was the site of Yazoo land fraud, Main Street holds to its historical past and the old stories live on. We explored many an old southern mansion covered in kudzu and moss whose intricate deck rail carvings showed southern royalty once lived there. If we saw nearby old shacks with tin roofs or any old house back in the woods we'd set out to walk through them and know a bit of their story. We also liked to spook ourselves with ghost legends associated with some of the places.

Fishing in creeks and wooded ponds filled my childhood. Bike rides down the steep hill to Clark's Mill Pond happened at least once a week. Chasing snakes away from the waterfall so we could walk along the dam's edge. Climbing up the old mill house to look into the cool dark depths at the huge round mill stones. Laying in the sun on a patch of grass beside the flowing artesian well in the swamp. Finding the headwaters of Clark's Mill Pond among the cypress trees with all their exquisite knees blocking our boat and then following the creek the other way by foot in the swamp till we ended up behind Grandpa Toews place.

We watched Dad clear land as we sat beside him on the old Cat, then catfish ponds got built, a drainage for some of the swamp was dug. We found muscadine grapes and cold springs way back in the forest. Old trees became well known landmarks in our adventures, we only had to look up and find the big way marks above us to keep from getting lost. We did get lost sometimes, but only for a few hours. The woods were friendly places in our childhood.

Georgia is boiling up cane juice in the sugar shack back by the swamp. It's boiled peanuts during autumn peanut harvest. Its grinding grits and cornmeal with the power of a hit and miss engine. It's picking up dead catfish, visiting all day with James Cook while he preaches the gospel and prays out loud interspersed with singing together. He's getting all ready for the next weekend of Baptist preaching. It's basketball games with Elisha Blacksheare and neighbour Jasper teaching you how to shift gears and pull a trailer. Georgia is baseball with Dale watching , cheering and calling out the plays and the rules. Tag football with the same crowd.

Georgia is crashing your bike in a patch of cockleburrs and a shop worker comes to carry you out. It's hams and turkeys hanging full in the smokehouse as gifts for all those shop workers. It's black brothers and uncles being part of your family circle. It's a brick house with a U set in the masonry for Unruh. It's mistletoe hanging up high in the live oak beside the house. Mockingbird whistling on the house peak.

Georgia is growing up with American Saddlebred horses named General, Scarlet, Souvenir, Wings, Justin and Diamond. General was a retired show jumper, Souvenir was retired from fancy equestrian shows but could still prance with her feet lifted high, and Scarlet was a gentle old mare anyone could ride if they could get her to go. Each horse gave us memories but most of all they gave me a place to pour my heart out in the evenings as I sat on the gate and talked to them.

Our home has always had a dachshund dog. Pretzel was the one who'd always find snakes to kill when I went blackberry picking way back in the woods. I was often frightened she'd get bit by a rattler and die.

My brothers had to milk a cow each morning. The milk went in our freezer for a quick chill before breakfast and Mom churned butter from the cream. Neighbours often pulled on the yard to buy butter from the freezer. We always ran the buttermilk out to the shop to Joe Amos because he liked to drink it. The dairy bulls gave us a fright quite a few times. You know they're mean if they have a ring in their nose and the way your Dad survived the bull attack and pinning down was by twisting that ring. I always made sure there was a tree near that I could run behind when I crossed the pasture to head to the woods.

We swam in the catfish pond or the neighbour's pond on hot days, mud wasn't a big deal if one was hot and dirty already. Sometimes we swam at night under the light of the moon. A bike ride through the cool woods was refreshing, I don't know how Mom let me be gone for hours everyday but I was often outside somewhere in the woods or with animals. We built forts, watched tadpoles change, left notes in hidden caches for the neighbour children to find and tried to ride on calves. A cousin dumped tadpole eggs down my back more than once. We also used to swing at cow patties with baseball bats to splatter each other.

Georgia to me is big family gatherings in the garage and wild games of bear around the corner and ghost stories around the fire. Dad liked to pull taffy and we all liked to eat it.

Georgia has the gorgeous coastal area with stories of pirates and cotton shipping, Gone With The Wind and Victorian mansions. Then it has the plains with views of sunsets over white cotton. Cotton blowing on the roadsides when they start hauling the big packed bales down the road. Dairy farms and pecan trees. Then there's the Blue Ridge mountains full of skilled tradesmen and craftsmen. Blacksmiths forging handy tools and old mills making flour can still be found in those Ga mountain villages.

Georgia has a lot of churches and a lot of people who care about a person on sight and quickly show love and good cheer, they aren't scared to butt into your business or just have a good laugh with you. Georgia is in the thick part of what is called The Bible Belt. The Rooks neighbours liked it if we sang a hymn and had a prayer before we left their house. We liked to explore the pine hill church cemetery and open the baptismal well to look down the steps and imagine getting ducked under the water there. Dad said any time you visit a local church they'll put you on the front pew and they really did. Dad and my brother got seated in with the choir at one funeral. They could have put robes on too and joined in with the swaying and clapping. Well, you do have to join in with the swaying rhythm if people on both sides of you are bumping you. Southerners are open about praising the Lord. Grandma's good friend from Midville joined our church and she sat on the front pew at her baptism and sang aloud, "Nobody but You, Lord...nobody but You...You brought me over, You carried me through."

You can find bits of Georgia in Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, novels by Charles Martin, classics like Gone With The Wind or many books mentioning the Civil war or the Underground Railroad. You can hear Georgia in quite a few folk, country or bluegrass songs. The state song, Georgia On My Mind, was actually written as an ode to a former lover named Georgia and adapted for our state, "Melodies bring memories that linger in my heart. Make me think of Georgia, why did we ever part? Some sweet day, when blossoms fall, and all the world's a song, I'll go back to Georgia, cuz that's where I belong."

Georgia for me is an address on Clark's Mill Road in Louisville. It is home. You can sit on the front porch in the evening, watch the sun set behind the pecan trees , the neighbours might be listening to a Braves game or just country music on their front porch, the whippoorwill will call from the trees and the cicadas will take turns singing. When the shadows lengthen you can go inside and sleep inside an air-conditioned home and dream.

"I said, Georgia, Georgia...A song of you comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines. Other arms reach out to me, other eyes smile tenderly. Still in peaceful dreams I see, the road leads back to you."

...always back to you, Georgia on my mind.