Graves, Upper Mill Cemetery, Circa 1806 – 10/365

Graves, Upper Mill Cemetery, Circa 1806 – 10/365, Archive 365, McIntosh County, Darien, Georgia, July 2008, photo © 2008-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It was blistering hot and steamy the afternoon we visited the Upper Mill Cemetery in Darien, Georgia. On a search for ancestral archives, Liz, Mom and I took a road trip from Augusta, Georgia to St. Simons Island where we spent a few days and visited with relatives. We then drove north stopping in Fort Frederica and Upper Mill Cemetery in Darien. Our last stop was Savannah, a city I hope to visit again someday. Looking through these photographs, I realize how important it is to document your travels. It’s been four years since I have returned to the South. Each photo conjures the heat, humidity, live oaks, Gold Coast breezes, white packed sand, and the pilgrimage to Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home.

_______________________________

ARCHIVE 365 is a photo collaboration between skywire7 and QuoinMonkey featuring images from our archives. We will alternate posting once a day in our Flickr sets from July 1st 2012 through June 30th 2013. You can view our photographs at skywire7 Archive 365 set on Flickr and QuoinMonkey Archive 365 set on Flickr.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, July 10, 2012

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Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle

Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle, outside the Birchwood Cafe, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

I had planned a post on writing for this sunny Friday afternoon. But the day felt like Summer, and I ran out of steam. So with fans blazing across the studio, and windows still open at 9pm, I’ve opted for something simpler.

I was running back through the photographic archives when this little gem of a bench caught my attention. It reminds me of days gone by, times when we ran slip sliding through the sprinkler, guzzled soft drinks, drank gallons of Kool-Aid, and even flavored garden hose water — anything to keep the sweltering Southern heat at bay.

Did you have a favorite childhood soft drink? You can’t be from Georgia and not love Coca-Cola (I’m a big Coke Zero fan). My other favorite was RC Cola (Royal Crown). In 1905, Claude Hatcher, a young graduate pharmacist from Columbus, Georgia, began creating soft drinks in the basement of his family’s wholesale grocery business. RC Cola was born (I used to love their jingles).

Diet Rite (an RC product) came along in 1958 and was the first diet soda ever to be sold (in limited quantities). In 1962, Diet Rite Cola was introduced nationwide and rose to #4 in 18 months. Thus began America’s love affair with the diet soft drink.

The weathered bench in the photograph that boasts “Diet-Rite — Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle” is outside the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis. Remember cyclamate and saccharin (my grandmother used to sweeten her coffee with it)? Well, all that’s changed; Diet Rite is now sweetened with 21st Century low-cal Splenda.

Diet-Rite and RC Cola, along with Coca-Cola, remind me of my childhood in Georgia. We used to drop Planters Peanuts into a frosty blue-green bottle of Co-Cola (Southern dialect shortens the word) from the metal vending machine at my Granddaddy’s shop. Forget the can; you haven’t tasted cola until you’ve taken a long cold swig from a glass bottle. I still buy them once in a while during seasonal appearances on the grocery store shelf.

So what’s your favorite summer soft drink memory? Shasta, Bubba Cola, RC, Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Clicquot Club, Schweppe’s, Fanta, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush? Or maybe your parents didn’t let you drink soda. What was their replacement (or their “no sugar” bribe)?

Oh, by the way, (here comes the healthy part of this post) you won’t want to miss the food at the Birchwood, a cool cafe with great ice cream and a wide range of natural and organic foods. The Birchwood was established in 1926 by the Bursch family; the cafe was originally a dairy. It’s not quite Summer yet, but I bet the tables outside the Birchwood were hopping with Good Real Food (and a few natural colas) on this shiny April day!

           

Good Real Food, Izzy’s At The Birchwood, Orange Crush, Drink Clicquot Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, all photos © 2007-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, April 3rd, 2008

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Girl Scout Cookie Season (All Roads Lead To Savannah)

Samoas, Caramel deLites, Samoa Smile, 4 1/3, Hole In One, Girl Scout Cookie Season, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

From the moment visionary Juliette Gordon Low exclaimed “I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we’re going to start it tonight!,” the fate of the Girl Scout Cookie was sealed. Her providential encounter with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, led to that historic day on March 12, 1912, when Low gathered 18 girls to register the first troop of American Girl Guides (changed to Girl Scouts in 1913).

Liz and I passed Juliette Gordon Low’s Savannah home on a breezy morning bus tour last summer. Later that day, we would take Mom to see the childhood home of writer Flannery O’Connor, but the tour of Low’s home will have to wait until the next trip South. Juliette Gordon Low was a writer, too. Known as “Daisy” to family and friends, she supported and developed a lifetime interest in the Arts. She wrote poems and plays, sketched, and later became a skilled painter and sculptor.

She was also deaf and spent her life advocating for girls with disabilities at a time when they were excluded from many activities. Juliette suffered chronic ear infections and lost hearing in one ear from improper treatment. At 26, she would lose hearing in her second ear on her wedding day after a grain of good-luck rice lodged in her ear, puncturing the eardrum and resulting in an infection and total loss of hearing.

Long before women had the right to vote, Low was instrumental in encouraging girls to develop self-reliance and resourcefulness, not only in homemaking, but in future roles as professional women in the arts, sciences, business, and marketing so their organization would be self-supporting. Cookie sales began as early as 1917 with the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which (with mothers as technical advisors) baked cookies and sold them in the high school cafeteria as a service project.

After claiming humble beginnings as a simple sugar cookie (click for an original Girl Scout recipe), the Girl Scout Cookie business is thriving. Once packaged in wax paper bags, sealed with a sticker, and sold door to door for 25 to 35 cents per dozen, there are now over a dozen varieties of Girl Scout Cookies sold all over the world. When I was a Girl Scout in the 1960’s, there were about 14 bakers (now there are two or three), Girl Scout Cookies were being wrapped in printed aluminum foil or cellophane, and a number of varieties were available including Chocolate Mint, Shortbread, and Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies.

What’s your favorite Girl Scout Cookie? Today there are eleven varieties, including three mandatory ones — Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwich (Do-si-dos), and Shortbread (Trefoils). I’m a Samoa fan (or Caramel deLite, depending on the baker). Liz’s #1 is the Thin Mint. I’m also the resident Cookie Monster. Just last week, I finished up our last box for the year, when Liz and I happened to step into a Walgreens yesterday and guess what? Right smack dab inside the door was a huge table of Girl Scout Cookies, complete with two Troop leaders and three Girl Scouts (sporting Junior Girl Scout Cookie Biz Badges).

What was the first thing we did? Buy two more boxes, one Samoa, one Shortbread. And, sadly, you can never eat just one!

After doing the research for this piece last weekend, I felt qualified to strike up a conversation about “Daisy” Gordon with one of the Girl Scouts in Walgreens. She was excited to tell me that their troop was writing a play for Juliette Gordon Low to be presented at their next meeting. “What’s the bestselling cookie this year?” I asked her mother. “Oh, the Thin Mint, hands down,” she said. “Followed by your friend (tap, tap, tap the box), the Samoa!”

Did you belong to the Girl Scouts? Were your parents involved (my mother was once the Troop Leader of Troop 38)? Or maybe you were a member of another girls service organization. If so, you owe part of what you learned to Juliette Gordon Low. She has had ships, schools, and even a stamp named after her; on July 3, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed a bill authorizing a stamp in her honor, one of the few dedicated to women.

At a time when she was down and drifting through life, Low’s chance meeting with Robert Baden-Powell inspired her to pay it forward. Her legacy lives on in the 3.7 million members, and over 50 million girls, women, and men who have belonged to the Girl Scouts. On January 17, 1927, at age 67, Juliette Gordon Low died from breast cancer at her Savannah, Georgia, home on Lafayette Square.

Low was baptized, confirmed, married, and buried (in her Girl Scout uniform) at Georgia’s first church, and John Wesley’s only American parish, Christ Church Savannah. It was on those same steps in 1912 that she recruited many of the 18 original Girl Scouts. After her death, her friends honored her by establishing the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund, which finances international projects for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world.

Resources:

• Girl Scout Cookie History
• Juliette Gordon Low Biography
• Girl Scout Museum
• Savannah Birthplace of Juliet Gordon Low
• Juliette Gordon Low Biography, Family History, Portrait Gallery
• Test Your Juliette Gordon Low Quotient
• Girl Scout Cookie FAQ’s
• Girl Scout Cookies — Varieties, Photos, Ordering, Nutritional Values

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, March 9th, 2009

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Georgia’s Scottish Highlanders (On Tartan & Targe)

The Black Watch Tartan & Targe, Fort Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia, July 2008, all photos © 2008-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

brand new lease on life
back in the memoir saddle
where do I begin?

ancestors calling
haunting photos of Georgia —
let’s start with the Scots

family line(age),
saturated memories;
everything passed down.

Georgia’s Scottish Highlanders: Memoir Calls Again

Life circumstances have bestowed upon me the gift of time. I called Mom last weekend and we began talking ancestry again (one of our favorite topics). I’m not sure if I’ll be visiting Georgia this summer, but the seed has been planted. I’ve renewed the research catalogue we use for the family tree. And have begun going back through the photographs taken over the last two summers in Georgia and South Carolina.

History excites me; I love the ghosts of the past. Especially if they are connected to the history of our family. Mom has (almost) traced our ancestry back to the Scottish Highlanders in Darien, Georgia (Irish side of family, perhaps Scots-Irish). When we were at John Wesley’s place (English clergyman and founder of Methodism) on St. Simons Island, we read several accounts in old ledgers that led us to believe a member of our family was a Scottish Highlander. The search goes on for that one definitive piece of recorded evidence to back it up.

The Highlanders were known for their battle skills and the British recruited them to help settle the Colonies. Scottish troops serving in the British Army were sent to Georgia in 1736 to set up a new outpost. Under the leadership of General James Oglethorpe, these men established the settlement of Darien and a sawmill along the Altamaha River.

Mom, Liz, and I visited the buzzing wildness of Fort King George last summer. We braved the dripping humidity to walk through one of the ancient cemeteries at the edge of Darien, and the perimeter of a tabby building, now a historic site, that was one of the first black churches in the area (at the time many people in Darien were against slavery). It’s a sleepy, quiet river town. And boy, was it hot there last July!

Warrior Shield: History of the Targe

We had driven to Darien after our stay on beautiful St. Simons Island and a visit to Fort Frederica. St. Simons played a pivotal role in the struggle for empire between the competing colonial interests of England and Spain. Georgia’s fate was decided in 1742 when Spanish and British forces clashed on the Island. Fort Frederica’s troops defeated the Spanish, ensuring Georgia’s future as a British colony. Today, the archeological remnants of Frederica are protected by the National Park Service.

While Liz was out taking video of a British reenactment at Fort Frederica (complete with musket fire), Mom and I, sweat-covered and tired, slipped into the historical area where it was cool and checked out the books and exhibits. I was immediately drawn to the glass case with what looked like a life-sized mandala shield that turned out to be a targe.

One of our ancestors may have worn The Black Watch Tartan (plaid fabric) authorized for use by the Scottish troops serving in the British Army. Or maybe they carried a targe. I did find a link to the history of the targe written by a man who is still constructing them by hand — John Stewart, The Targeman. According to his site, the targe dates back to the 16th Century and was once the Scottish Highlander’s first line of defense. I was fascinated by the details in these excerpts:

Construction —
Targes are round shields between 18″ and 21″ (45–55 cm) in diameter with an inside formed from two very thin layers of flat wooden boards, the grain of each layer at right angles to the other. Targes were fixed together with small wooden pegs, forming plywood. The front was covered with a tough cowhide that was fixed to the wood with many brass, or in some cases, silver, nails. Sometimes brass plates were also fixed to the face for strength and decoration.

Some targes had center bosses of brass, and a few of these could accept a long steel spike which screwed into a small “puddle” of lead which was fixed to the wood, under the boss. When not in use, the spike could be unscrewed and placed in a sheath on the back of the targe.

Materials —
Most targes had their back covered with cow and goat, and 80% of original targes still show straw, crude wool and other stuffing material beneath their ruined skins. Some targes, usually those actually used in battle, had their backs covered in a piece of red cloth taken from the uniform of a government soldier (a “Redcoat”) that the owner had killed in battle.

Design —
The face of a targe was often decorated with embossed Celtic style patterns. Typically two general patterns were used – concentric circles, or a centre boss with subsidiary bosses around this. An exception is the targe in Perth Museum in Scotland which is of a star design (see photo at his site). Although some targe designs appear to have been more popular than others, there is very little to indicate that there ever were “clan” designs.

The targe reminds me of a protective mandala — a warrior shield. Yet I had to wonder how much protection it actually provided in times of war. The Targeman answered that question, too. He mentioned that after the disastrous defeat of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the carrying of the targe would have been banned, and many may have been destroyed or put to other uses.

Epilogue

It gave me an eerie feeling knowing I was walking the same ground my ancestors had centuries before. It’s not that all of this historical detail will make it into a memoir — it’s terra firma, a place to stand. The composting of past experience lays the ground for the person I have become. What if an ancestor’s Black Watch Tartan and Targe, in some strange way, blazed the way for the mandala practice last year? And the circle archetype must hold both war and peace.

Resources & Information:

• Fort King George at The New Georgia Encyclopedia — History and Archaeology
• Fort King George in Darien at Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites — including information about Scottish Heritage Day Encampment in March
• The Targeman – Hand Crafted Traditional Scottish Highland Targes by John Stewart
• Fort Frederica at The New Georgia Encyclopedia – History and Archaeology
• Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island at The National Park Service
• Electric Scotland — info on the history of Scotland, the Scots and Scots-Irish, people and places of Scots descent around the world, Scottish clans, tartans and genealogy
• The Fiery Cross – Award-Winning Newsletter For Clan An Cu, The Highland Independent Company of Darien – newsletter with current day photographs of tartans and targes, a Commentary on whether the Highlanders carried targes into battle (p.7), and a letter of praise from Fort Frederica National Monument (p.5)  — Because of all your hard work, “the Scots remain the backbone of the parks living history program.”

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, March 5th, 2009

-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), Coloring Mandalas, W. H. Murray – Providence Moves Too

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“Assassin’s Bullet Kills Kennedy” – Where Were You?

Assassin’s Bullet Kills Kennedy, vintage newspaper found last summer in a box of old family photographs, November 23rd, 1963, The Augusta Chronicle — South’s Oldest Newspaper — Est. 1785, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s the anniversary week of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Could it possibly be that 45 years have passed? Last summer, when rummaging through family photographs at my uncle’s, I happened upon a vintage newspaper that headlined Saturday Morning, November 23rd, 1963, the day after the Kennedy shooting. The handwriting of some member of my family was in the top left corner — “killed Friday morning.”

The Kennedy assassination rattled me as a child. I wrote about it a few years ago, and discovered Bryan Woolley’s Dallas Times Herald account of the facts from the morning of November 22nd, 1963. It was strange to be holding a yellowed newspaper from that day, one that had circulated through the town where I was born. There were front page interviews, reactions of everyday people walking down Broad Street.

Where were you the day Kennedy was shot?

Though I was young, I clearly remember the headline photograph of LBJ, Lady Bird and Jackie. It wasn’t until later I would learn it was taken aboard Air Force One by White House photographer, Cecil Stoughton, at the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson. Stoughton was close to the Kennedys and rode in the fifth car in the motorcade. He heard the shots that fatally wounded JFK; he was at Parkland Hospital when Kennedy died.

 

The Augusta Chronicle Caption — Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as President in the cabin of the presidential plane as Mrs. John F. Kennedy stands at his side. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes administers the oath. Background, Jack Valenti, administrative assistant to Johnson, Albert Thomas, D-Tex; Mrs. Johnson and Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Tex. This photo was made by Capt. Cecil Stoughton, official White House photographer, who was the only camera-man allowed to record the ceremony.

Out of the 12,000 negatives Stoughton shot during the Kennedy years, none would be as important as these – he was the only photographer allowed aboard Air Force One that day. And his were the only shots that proved Johnson had actually been sworn in. According to Stoughton’s son, “He took about 20 pictures but the first one almost didn’t happen because his Hasselblad, the Rolls-Royce of cameras, malfunctioned.” A photographer’s nightmare.

From Bryan Woolley’s account of the facts, here’s exactly what happened in those few moments that changed Cecil Stoughton’s life, and the world:

Judge Hughes boarded the plane at 2:35 and was handed a      
small white card with the oath scrawled on it. Capt. Cecil        
Stoughton, an Army Signal Corps photographer, tried to arrange    
the crowd in the cramped stateroom so that he could take a        
picture of the ceremony. “We’ll wait for Mrs. Kennedy,” Johnson   
said. “I want her here.”                                          
                                                                  
     Mrs. Kennedy came out of the bedroom still wearing the       
blood-soaked pink suit. Johnson pressed her hand and said, “This  
is the saddest moment of my life.” The photographer placed her on 
Johnson’s left, Lady Bird on his right. Judge Hughes, the first   
woman to administer the presidential oath, was shaking.           
                                                                  
     “What about a Bible?” asked one of the witnesses. Someone    
remembered that President Kennedy had kept a Bible in the bedroom 
and went to get it.                                               
                                                                  
     “I do solemnly swear…”                                     
                                                                  
     The oath lasted 28 seconds. At 2:38 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson  
became the 36th President of the United States. The big jet’s     
engines already were screaming. “Now, let’s get airborne,” he     
said. 

LBJ & Jackie Kennedy, JFK In Augusta Chronicle – “Little People Numbed,” Lee Harvey Oswald, shots of vintage copy of The Augusta Chronicle, November 23rd, 1963, Augusta, Georgia, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The Augusta Chronicle Caption — Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in Dallas and charged Friday night with the murder of President Kennedy. Oswald was captured in a downtown Dallas theater after an alert cashier notified police a suspicious looking man had entered the theater shortly after the shooting. Oswald attempted to shoot his captors inside the theater but his pistol misfired. Four years ago Oswald said he was applying for Russian citizenship. His wife is Russian.

Stoughton had an amazing collection of photographs and memorabilia. He appeared on Public Television’s Antiques Roadshow in June 2007 where they estimated his collection at $75,000. Cecil Stoughton died a few weeks ago, on Monday, November 3rd, 2008. By some odd twist of fate, a pre-scheduled, taped segment of his 2007 Antiques Roadshow episode was rebroadcast that Monday night, about an hour after he died.

World Feels Shot’s Impact, vintage copy of The Augusta Chronicle — South’s Oldest Newspaper — Est. 1785, November 23rd, 1963, Augusta, Georgia, all photos © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

There is one last thing that struck me about The Augusta Chronicle account. Above the headline World Feels Shot’s Impact is a smaller headline — Little People Numbed. It reminded me of our recent presidential elections in this country, how the whole world was watching — and how it was the little people — everywoman, everyman — who really made the difference.

The Augusta Chronicle  – World Feels Shot’s Impact
Saturday, November 23rd, 2008

Word of President Kennedy’s assassination struck the world’s capitals with shattering impact, leaving heads of state and the man in the street stunned and grief-stricken. While messages of condolence poured into the White House from presidents, premiers and crowned heads, the little people of many lands reacted with numbed disbelief.

Pubs in London and cafes in Paris fell silent, as the news came over radio and television.

In Moscow, a Russian girl walked weeping along the street. At U.N. headquarters in New York, delegates of 111 nations bowed their heads in a moment of silence.

In Buenos Aires, newspapers sounded sirens reserved for news of the utmost gravity.

Britain’s Prime Minister Douglas-Home sent condolences and Sir Winston Churchill branded the slaying a monstrous act.

“The loss to the United States and to the world is incalculable,” Sir Winston declared. “Those who come after Mr. Kennedy must strive the more to achieve the ideals of world peace and happiness and dignity to which his presidency was dedicated.”

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

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Flannery O’Connor (Part I) — The House I Grew Up In

Flannery O’Connor — The House I Grew Up In, Savannah, Georgia, July 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s almost time to leave the South. It seems like I’ve been gone forever. I had hoped to write more from the road but, I tell you, I’ve just been too exhausted when I drop into bed at night. That on-the-road research and writing takes a toll. And so does the heat. Yesterday it was 95 with a heat index of 108. Humidity like that saps my energy, and takes my breath away. This is the South of Flannery O’Connor.

To really get to know a writer, you need to walk in her shoes, live for a while where she lived, breathe the air she breathed, visit the places she called home. Flannery spent her childhood years until the age of 13 in the heart of the Historic District of Savannah, Georgia. She lived in an 1856 Savannah gray brick home owned by her beloved Cousin Katie. At the time the O’Connors lived in Savannah (from March 25th, 1925 to March, 1938 when the family moved to Milledgeville, Georgia) the population was three to four times greater than it is today.

According to the notes from a talk by Bill Dawers at the O’Connor home last December, a dozen or more people might have lived in the modest home in Lafayette Square in a dwelling that now houses only two or three. Savannah was more integrated with regard to race and class in the 1930’s, too. Before the automobile and the suburbs, nearly all Savannahians lived north of Victory Drive and people from all walks of life bumped into each other on Savannah’s city streets.

The two days we visited Savannah were sweltering hot; the evenings surrendered to cool breezes pooling off the river. We ate at a place called Moon River and walked through Greene Square (one of Oglethorpe’s many city squares) on the way back to our hotel room that night. Our visit was brief, as we spent most of our time down on St. Simons Island about 80 miles south; every minute counted. Our last stop heading out of Savannah was Flannery’s childhood home in Lafayette Square. She could see the spire of the Catholic church where her family worshipped from their second story bedroom.

The Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home Foundation celebrated her March 25th birthday on Friday, April 11th, by having a cookout and celebratory burning of the 207 East Charlton Street mortgage papers that had just been retired. Their vision of establishing, preserving, and maintaining the birthplace of writer Flannery O’Connor began in 1987. I am grateful for their perseverance. 

A generous donation from Jerry Bruckheimer (whose wife, Linda, has long been a fan of O’Connor) restored a 1950’s kitchen back to the family library where Flannery learned to write and read. Many people have donated time, money, and original family furnishings, and the Florencourt Sisters, Louise and Frances, keep the aim true to the writer. It’s a partnership between many that works for the good of all.

My small donation was to purchase a few books before we left and the friendly and knowledgeable guide closed the doors for the day on Flannery’s childhood home. One came highly recommended — The Letters of Flannery O’Connor: The Habit Of Being. The guide told me if I want to learn about writing, read Flannery’s letters. I highly recommend them. Flannery called herself an “innocent speller” and I’m encouraged to see the humility she embodied through her casual misspellings and religious letter writing.

Before she flew back to Minneapolis earlier this week, Liz and I started reading the letters out loud to one another. My favorite time was sitting over Clarks Hill in the sultry afternoon heat, barely able to move, with the neighbor’s peacocks welting out their prehistoric caw in the distance. Flannery loved peacocks. In fact, she loved all birds, domestic and wild. Her letters are full of fowl references and a wicked Southern sense of humor that rattles my funny bone (I can relate, having grown up with it myself).

The Habit Of Being is a thick tome. I’m reading her letters in chronological order from beginning to end. The sweat that pours off of me each day I’ve spent in the South only reinforces childhood memories of the slowness with which people move, the Southern drawl that rolls off the front of the mouth, the sweet iced tea and grits, the longing for that one next simple breeze.

Flannery died in 1964 at the age of 39. She suffered from lupus. It did not keep her from writing two collections of short stories (A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Everything That Rises Must Converge) and two novels (Wise Blood, The Violent Bear It Away), and winning the O. Henry Award three times as well as being the posthumous winner of the National Book Award in 1972. Flannery lives on in her work and the lively letters edited by her close friend, Sally Fitzgerald.

         

Though she doesn’t write much about Savannah or her childhood in the letters, Flannery calls Cousin Katie’s home on Lafayette Square “the house I grew up in.” She slept in the room on the second floor over the kitchen with bright windows that look out over what was then a dirt courtyard. At the age of five, she taught a chicken, a buff Cochin Bantam, to walk backwards in that very courtyard (there are 15 seconds of movie to prove it). And she makes this comment in a letter to Maryat Lee: “I think you probably collect most of your experiences as a child — when you really had nothing else to do — and then transfer it to other situations when you write.”

It is to this end, that our childhood homes hold the weight of being. Think about the house you grew up in. Is it surrounded by farmland, an urban parking lot, mountains, desert, rivers or streams?

I travel back to the quicksand, red clay, and gangly pines of the Southern hometown where I spent my childhood (same years as Flannery, birth to 13) in hopes of learning what I am made of. I always drive by the house I grew up in. It’s a part of me that has taken years to understand. I’m still gathering like a maniac. I’m still unraveling.

Flannery O’Connor’s Childhood Home, Savannah, Georgia, July 2008,
all photos © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Post Script:

We were not permitted to take photographs inside the Flannery O’Connor home except in one location. I did capture a few images of the writer there. But I think I’ll save them for Part II. Part I is about home and the sense of place that surrounds us growing up. In Part II, I hope to talk more about what I’ve learned about Flannery from her letters, visiting her Savannah home, and the way she lived her life.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, August 1st, 2008

-related to posts: Homing Instinct,  You Can’t Go Back – 15 Haiku, Memories Of The Savannah, Excavating Memories, Book Talk — Do You Let Yourself Read?

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haiku for the live oak

Live Oak, Epworth By The Sea, St. Simons Island, Georgia, July 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

breathtaking live oaks
hold centuries of secrets
red sassafras skies

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, July 26th, 2008

-related to post:  haiku (one-a-day)

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