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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4668 Registered: 11-1998 |
Poem of the Week When Does the First Train Leave for Atlanta? Gary Blankenship red dirt or yellow clay did not clog our lives or ruin the wash in ‘49 our world was colored gray and stained brown from granite gravel and Cascade mud 3000 miles from the red hills of Georgia too few years gone by too many blowouts ‘long the way for Grandpa to quit fighting long-dead feuds with cheap whiskey and bad beer too few curves and passes too many cold nights and hot days hoeing beans for Grandma to accept his fight was real as her 16 babies and not an old drunk’s raves In our town in 1949, there were no what we now lump together as minorities. No coloreds, Indians, or Mexicans. No one with a name that ended in vowels or started with Gold. There were Catholics, but mostly they were German. Smedley’s Pass was white folk on the road to nowhere and not in any hurry to get there. Farmers and loggers and a few veterans trying to forget the war. in ‘49 they sent Dot to the sanitarium Buddy drowned in Willow Lake Carl lost his arm in a mill accident Henry screamed in his sleep about killing Japs Alice lost a boy-baby Frank packed up his family and moved to San Diego Grandpa swore at Grandma for not getting the red and yellow mud cleaned off his boots that he couldn’t take Livie to the dance looking like no hick hill farmer mud on his boots Grandma prayed for the crazy old man to die prayed for the Lord God Jesus to forgive her for those evil thoughts for sins past and yet to come in ‘49 I was seven years old and lived with my grandparents. Within a half day’s walk lived three uncles, two aunts, and several grown cousins. I spent a fair amount of time hiking to their houses and sleeping under the stars, listening to coyotes and hoot owls. Henry, unmarried, lived with us. Dorothy had been until she got the TB. white trash not quite there were too many war heroes dairy farmers and logging truck drivers in the family to be considered white trash and by marriage a bookkeeper a forest ranger the owner of the Smedley’s Pass Café and the best auto mechanic in town and we weren’t okies or arkies just Georgia clay which had birthed Cascade mud for sixty-odd years but we were close In 1949, I found out how close. Sundays, the women and a few of the older men went to church, babies and the girl-children in tow. Us boys would have to go unless we could find an excuse, like helping Uncle Willie with haying or Aunt Hilda’s husband fix his bulldozer. This Sunday, I had to help Grandpa and Henry find the Jersey milker, who had wandered into the woods to calf. the west woods nettles and thistle blackberry and blackcap at the edges hemlock oregon grape scrub alder and hazelnut inside (Grandpa carried a flask Henry the shotgun in case bears caught the Jersey’s scent I’d snuck a few cookies from the cupboard) brambles from one end to the other where giant fir once towered by the creek skunk cabbage salmonberry devils club (she would head to the water always did I, small enough to get under the brush would be the first to find her always was) to my left Grandpa and Henry sought an easier path followed a deer trail to the creek to my left I heard them arguing (I could see Grandpa pulling on the flask could see Henry’s grip tighten could hear…) In 1949, towns as small as Smedley’s Pass were as stratified as any Hindu city. Families as large as ours were even more so. Mabel, married to the café and Paula to the bookkeeper, thought they were better than Sally with her father’s disease or Olive married to a gypsy logger. Unwed mothers and bastard children at the bottom of the family heap. you shiftless sum-bitch milkin’ battle fatigue stress my ass you’re just a lazy bastard old man shut your filthy mouth you don’t be calling me no bastard you don’t be talking that way about mama you don’t know nothing you stupid kid you think I don’t know the bitch was humping with my brother why do you think I waited for him on the jacksonville road and why do you think he’s buried in red and yellow clay ‘stead of brown mud SHUT UP YOU OLD SON OF BITCH SHUT UP BEFORE I (I could see Henry’s fingers on the trigger I could see Grandpa reach for the shotgun, I could see the jersey breech-birthing by the creek when I heard…) you as much a bastard as that sissy boy of Clara’s In 1949, I now understood why the kids at school whispered behind my back, and why I’d best stay away from some of the older kids. I understood that the difference between an Okie and a drunk Georgia redneck was far less than the 60 years that separated them when they first stepped into brown Cascade mud. in ‘49 they buried Henry in the valley plot Grandma went to live with Mabel her world confined to broadcasts of the Reverend Jimmy Tomlison of the Church of Living Fires of Atlanta Georgia and I with Olive in ‘49 Grandpa sat on the porch of the house where his children were birthed and watched Henry and the Jersey die until he could not tell which was which in ‘51 Dorothy was buried next to Henry I caught rheumatic fever and Mother came home for Dorothy’s funeral married to another Hank from over Bartown way |
