Sheila and I drove up to Helen yesterday to help celebrate our dear friend Mildred Greear's 100th birthday! Wow. It was a drive-through celebration. For two hours cars filled with well-wishers drove up and down quiet Carrie Cox Drive honking horns, shouting, and waving posters and balloons along the Chattahoochee River (really just a big creek at that point) just a few hundred yards from the bustle of Helen's Fall tourists and just across the pasture from Mildred's "Pine Tree Cottage".
Sheila stood through our sunroof waving our Happy Birthday poster and a 42 year old "Mildred Greear for State Senate" poster. We were invited to park and greet Mildred from a closer proximity (masked of course). Mildred was kind enough to inscribe the poster and two copies of her major volume of poetry, Moving Gone Dancing, for Lillian and Brannon. If you haven't read any of Mildred's poetry, find a copy.
Mildred has been my teaching mentor and friend since the early seventies when she organized and helped teach an outdoor learning workshop at Floyd County's (then) Outdoor Classroom on Texas Valley Road near Huffacre Road. My students will remember my "Apple lesson" that opened each school year in my classes from 1999 till 2013. A recap and review of the Apple lesson on the last day of the school year were added a year or two later. Though the lesson developed and changed and grew over the years, it was inspired by a similar lesson that Mildred invented.
I could spend a while extolling the ingenuity, creativity, and integrity that is Mildred Greear and the love and joy she and Philip have given Sheila and me and our daughters. Type Greear into the search bar at the top of this page to see more about these friends.
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