Memorial Day

Major General Jeff Bannister did not die in combat but he did die while still on active duty, much too young, as he neared retirement. So for Memorial Day weekend I'd like to remind my Floyd County friends, and especially my McHenry students, teachers, and friends, of this proud son of our school, our county, and our nation. 

45 Hazel Street

 My cousin Andy McCullough posted these pictures on Facebook on April 15, 2023. Oh my, this house holds such a beloved part in my childhood memories! 45 Hazel Street is on the corner of Palmetto Street in the little cotton mill town of Porterdale, just outside Covington Georgia. Osprey Mill if Bibb Manufacturing Company was just two or three minute walk up Palmetto and across Ivy Street.

Here is what Andy wrote:

Belinda, Laura [Andy's sisters] and I got together this weekend. Dad’s [Lavay McCullough] birthday is tomorrow. One place we visited was Porterdale (as well as Oxford where we lived when I was born). Here’s a few photos of 45 Hazel Street. I happened to meet the owner who drove up as we were leaving - a nice young black lady named Laquisha. I told her of Grandma Baird and Dad. She was very moved to know some of the history of the home. She said she felt blessed to live there.

And the comments on the post as of May 9, 2024:

Christen Melton

Is this where my great-grandfather Charlie Baird would have lived?

Janice Richardson

That is the water tower that my dad, Jerry Baird, climbed when he was about 3. Story is he about gave my grandparents, Charlie and Ruth Baird, a heart attack.

I have fond memories of eating Granny Baird’s tea cakes every time we came to visit

Deborah Shaw Lewis

That looks in much better shape than the last time my sisters and I drove Mama by that house.

Sandra Caruso

Andy, back in June of 2018 my daughter Vicki and I went to visit Aunt Ruth and later we went to Porterdale to visit the family homes. We met up with Beth who was our very knowledgeable tour guide so 45 Hazel Street was our first stop. It looked clean and taken care of but it looks better now. I took several photos of the houses, the mill, the church and the cemetery but they are all on my old phone. How nice to have been able to have that wonderful conversation.

Jane Baird Lathem

So many wonderful memories of that home!

Belinda Sward

It was both joyful and emotional to visit the places, homes and grave sites. Especially special to do this with Andy McCullough and Laura.

Janice Shaw Crouse

Much better kept!

In the sixties my folks, Charles and Ruth Shaw, bought at house cattycornered across the street from #45. It was a duplex and Mama Baird lived in the side toward Palmetto St. Aunt Mary and Uncle Pierce continued to live at #45. I remember visiting with them here on this porch after I was grown... maybe about 1970 or so.

There was a tiny flower garden in front to the right of the front steps. I thought of it as Aunt Mary's garden but it was likely as much Mama Baird's. I remember skating and hopscotch on the sidewalk out front. The front room behind the porch was Mama Baird's bedroom/sitting room. We did a lot of our informal visiting there. The front room on the right, I think, was Aunt Mary's bedroom and a sitting room. I loved all of Aunt Mary's little ceramic animals on the shelves. 

Of course in my childhood memories the wooden deck was not there. The small shed roof at the back covered an open porch on which a small bathroom had been enclosed on the left end. The the far gable at the back covered the kitchen. 

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The two windows on the side toward the stop sign were the front sitting room that I think may have also been Aunt Mary's bedroom. Behind it was another sleeping room. I think it had been the "boys room" when my Mother was growing up there. There was a large (at least from a kid's perspective) central hall. I remember a cot at the back of it where I sometimes slept when we visited overnight. 

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The front room at the far side was Mama Baird's room. 

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There was a large Chinaberry tree in the back yard not far from the back door. It had a low crotch which made a great lair from which those hard yellow Chinaberries could be chunked at sisters and cousins. 

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The house was built on brick pillars with open spaces between. Mama Baird used the relative spaciousness under the kitchen to store plants and bulbs over winter. 

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There was an alleyway behind the house that served the folks on our side of Hazel Street and the folks on Ivy Street that ran parallel. Mother remembered when the alleyway gave access for the "honey wagons" to clean out the privies. The privies were gone in my earliest memories. The Osprey Mill took up the opposite side of Ivy.

For GrandShaw from Lillian

I wish this were dated. Perhaps Lillian was seven or eight? That would put it around 1995 or 96? It is a note that Lillian wrote to her grandfather, Charles Columbus Shaw, who died almost two years before she was born. She heard many stories about her granddaddy and was very sad that she had never gotten to know him. They would have been kindred spirits, that's for sure! Both really grabbed/grab life by the mane and rode/ride it joyously.

for GrandShaw

I Love you!

I wish that I could talk to you right now!

I wish I could see you!

from Lillian

Dekie's Garden and Tango!

 We enjoyed two special events today. 

Dekie Hicks invited us to an informal party in her beautiful backyard in Summerville Park. We enjoyed visiting with several new and old friends. Most were folks involved in the League of Women Voters or the Rome Area Writers group. I didn't take any pictures till it was about over. Not included in these pictures are our friends Sherri and Paul Culotta, Marsha Atkins, and Nedra Manners. 

I should have gotten myself into a picture: I wore my usual Greek Fisherman's cap and also my sandals with socks -- seemed appropriate for a yard full of reminders of our storytelling friend and Dekie's husband, John Shultz, on the second anniversary of his death. How we miss that friend.

Here are a couple of pictures:

R-L: Rebecca, Jean, Sheila, Dekie, Ellen

Another person at the event was Sylvia Eidson who as a major sponsor of the Rome Symphony, had complimentary tickets to this night's symphony performance at the Rome City Auditorium, "Tango!" We were glad to have those and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

The first half of the performance included special performances (with the symphony) of 2023's winning instrumental and vocal "Young Artist" winners: Roy Lee on violin soprano Flynn Allen.  Wow. 

The rest of the program consisted of about eight tango numbers. The first "Blue Tango" included the talents of the Rome Youth Symphony. Another featured Nick Hoy on violin. Four of the tangos were accompanied by amazing (and sensual) dances by Jael Montilla and Jesus Matias.

We were so glad to get to visit with a few old friends before the concert and during intermission. Ruth Cain, Lillian's kindergarten teacher. We talked a while and shared grandkid pictures on our phones with Fran Buice. Also several of my high school classmates and others.

Our Flowers Today

 

"Fried Chicken" at the Folk School

I had a great time on a quick trip to Brasstown, North Carolina and the John C. Campbell Folk School. I shared a family style dinner at the dining hall with Kanute, Walt, Walt's wife Debra and several other folks who are students or instructors at the school.

L-R: Walt Belcher, Me, Kanute Rarey

I was great to share a stage with these two friends, I enjoyed their performances greatly. I had intended to tell my signature "Prowler" story, but decided at the last minute to tell my "Fried Chicken" tall tale. It is a reworking of a piece of the "Old Dry Frye" folk tale. I tell it in the first person and add characters and settings from my own experience. I had a ball. Since the story is. a short one it freed me up to interact more with the audience, and on a whim, opened by singing a bit of "Methodist Pie."

I hope our late beloved family friend, the Rev. Y.A. Bailey, would forgive me for this absolutely fictional story that I placed him in. As far as I know Preacher Bailey did NOT have false teeth! Here's a simplified version of the story. 

Fried Chicken/Preacher Bailey’s Teeth

I am a double Methodist preachers kid. My Daddy was a Methodist preacher and my Mama still is. But it goes deeper than that. I’ve got sisters and cousins married to Methodist preachers. I’ve got at least three cousins who backslid and became Baptist preachers. My great-great granddaddy, Boggan Mask, was a licensed exhorter in the Methodist Church and actually baptized the baby boy who would end up marrying Boggan’s granddaughter and thereby get to be my granddaddy, Wilson Baird. And Wilson Baird did some Methodist lay preaching himself.

So you can see how I grew up to be a storyteller. And I know something about Methodist preachers and I know something about dinners on the grounds. When I was a kid every country Methodist churchyard had, besides a cemetery, and an outhouse, a bunch of tables under a shelter of some sort. Every chance the church got in fine weather there was a dinner on the grounds! Un-unh! 

Banana sandwiches or even better something called banana croquets, fried okra, creamed corn, greens, and casseroles, and macaroni and cheese, and desserts of all kinds, but always, always, always, fried chicken. My daddy wasn’t a big man, but his plate at those things was always mounded high. He said it was a duty. He had to try a little of everything to avoid hurt feelings.

Well, one Sunday, out at Bethel Church there next to the creek, Preacher Bailey was waxing eloquent, between bites, telling some fine tale. With his plate in one hand he swapped his sweet tea in the other back and forth with a fork full of casserole or a fistful of chicken. Now he did his talking in a strange way. I don’t know why, some medical problem he had, but he talked... [... breathing in.  Like this . Even preaching. I was always fascinated by that.]*  But I reckon he sneezed like everyone else, cause with his hands occupied like that, and in mid-sentence, the pollen got to him and a big sneeze came on him and he turned his head away from us and toward the creek and sneezed explosively. AND out popped his false teeth. They went flying right into the middle of that muddy little creek and plopped down and out of sight. 

Well everybody got busy trying to fish ‘em out. There were a few cane poles leaned against a sycamore there and folks were poking those out in the water. Then somebody came running with some rakes they kept there at the church and tried raking ‘em out of the water. But it was all to no avail.

It was then that my Methodist preacher heritage and experience came in handy. I knew those fellows with the poles would never fish those teeth out with empty hooks. AND I knew the bait to use. 

Preacher Bailey had a chicken leg left on his plate that still had some meat on it. I grabbed it and snagged it onto the hook on one of those poles. Why, I want you to know those teeth snapped onto that chicken leg as soon as it hit the water and I jerked ‘em to shore in no time.

It took some doing to pry the chicken leg out of those teeth, but after that Preacher Bailey rinsed ‘em a little in his sweet tea and plopped ‘em back in his mouth, and was ready for another plate full of fine eating.

If you want catfish, use worms. For perch, I recommend minnows. But if you need to catch a Methodist preacher, or his teeth, fried chicken’s the bait to use.

* I demonstrate the way Preacher Bailey talked with the bracketed words.

Kolomoki Mounds State Park

I wonder how many times we have driven down US Highway 27 right past the sign to Kolomoki Mounds State Park in the 53 years of our marriage. Sure we have averaged passing that way at least four times a year. That means we have passed within a stone's throw of the place a couple hundred times or more. Today, on a whim, we finally stopped by. 

From my Facebook Page: "Driving home from the family reunion in north Florida, on a whim, we took an hour to visit Kolomoki Mounds State Park. Glad we did. Not only did we see the mounds but we also saw a wild cousin of my Gopher Tortoise buddies at Arrowhead AND we got to ride on Flea Hop Road."

We decided to visit the Temple Mound and took this selfie at its base. 

This (and the following picture) is some of the signage from the visitor center/museum.

I always like to make pictures of some of the signage at places like this. We may be able to use such signage to spur ideas for use at Arrowhead.

After helping a very dusty Gopher Tortoise across the road I took his picture...

... adding my hat to the second shot for scale.

To get to and from Kolomoki Mounds from the North, one must travel Flea Hop Road. We thought that was worthy of a photo. 

Happy Birthday Clementine!

When Brannon turned six years old in 1989 we did up this (below) little letter-sized cardstock notice on our relatively new MacIntosh computer and b&w Laserwriter printer. I used a font called "Flintstone" and made an outline version so the letters could be colored. Somehow several of these have survived 35 years and I found them in a box of junk. I think I also made some great big letters, one per page, to string up on the front porch --- or maybe I'm mixing that up with welcome home stuff we posted when Brannon spend a few days in Tallahassee with Sheila's parents.
 

So since today is our eldest granddaughters sixth birthday I did up a similar poster for Clementine. Of course nowadays pixelated black and white won't do. I tried to pick out a couple of snapshots that roughly approximate the ages of the older placard.

Dear Clementine,

Oh! How much happiness you have brought to your Grandshaw and Granny these last six years. We love you to the moon and a back! It is so much fun to tell stories to you and to act out stories with you and to just be silly together. Oh! How I wish we could be way out in California to help you celebrate today. I wouldn't even fuss if you (or Ruth or Suzie) stole my hat. 

I hope you have bushels of fun. Granny and I sent you a couple of books that we think you'll like. I sure wish I was there to read them with you.

During the eclipse yesterday I thought of the "moon-promise" I made to you when you were born. Whenever I see that old moon in the sky I know that you can probably see it out in California too. So I throw a kiss toward it and trust that kiss will ricochet off the moon and bounce to you (and Ruth and Suz) way out there 2000 miles away. And I imagine kisses from you bouncing our way! 

Give your little sisters an extra hug for us, and your Mom and Dad. Maybe you can "FaceTime" us tonight -- or tomorrow if things get too busy today -- and tell us all about your celebration.

I love you!

Grandshaw

P.S. Here's what I wrote to you SIX years ago....

http://aloneonalimb.blogspot.com/2018/04/granshaw-letter-one.html

 

35 Photos of Jordan

My store of photos of Jordan is smaller than that of our longer-serving son-in-law whom we honored a couple of weeks ago, but still my Mac Photos library still holds 714 images of Jordan. That's crazy. So I have chosen a fairly random 35 of them to represent him on this his thirty-fifth birthday. 

Jordan this is only your first birthday as an official part of the Shaw/Baird bunch, but we have already learned to love and admire you. We wish for you a whole year of joy, love, and adventure and many many happy returns!

On the levee

At Armuchee's Schroeders/Sam's ...

...and at the original Schroeders

During the holiday season of 2022 Jordan introduced us to his Hanukkah traditions. He and Lillian also made off with several LPs from our record collection. 

Jordan joined Lillian in one of our family traditions -- Christmas Eve participating in the Live Nativity at our church. They stood as Joseph and Mary on December 24, 2022.

One sign that Lil and Jordan are kindred spirits is their joint passion for music.

Jordan with his parents and brothers Daniel and Adam as well as Daniel's wife Rosie and son Graham.

Jordan with his parents Louis and Leslie

At Stone Mountain

Sheila and I had a great time introducing Jordan to folk singer/storyteller John McCutcheon at Eddie's Attic in Decatur

Ice Cream in Kennesaw

A special treat for us was the opportunity to host so many of the Jordan's family for a brunch at our house the day after their wedding. It was great to get to meet the great group of folks who are now part of our daughter's family.

As Uncle Jordan to Lillian's nieces Jordan seems to enjoy his new family just as Aunt Lillian has enthusiastically joined the Friedman's.

Under the railroad bridge on the Riverwalk near Little Dry Creek