Flashback

While perusing the enormous stash of photos on this old laptop I found this video of Sam at Compass Lake, Florida. He was dancing on the beach with a friend's children when he was about 18 months old. Sam is a people-pleaser and a huge copy-cat to boot. It is so cute how he watches the girls and tries to imitate their dance moves. He is still like that now. He is a parrot to his sister and she has to be careful about what she says or things they watch on television because it will pop right of his mouth sometimes. One day I will write about the sticky situations Sam's mouth has gotten us into, but for now just this quick flashback to a lazy lake weekend. Time is flying by faster than I want to sit here and think about. Seems like just last week I bought those swim trunks...

Roots

I'm stuck. Again. I am like my friend's basil plant, growing roots anywhere you put me. My roots are currently sunk in deep out here in the country and I love being home, but lately I have developed a raging case of cabin fever. These wonderful walls are closing in on me and I sometimes have trouble breathing. Yes, this is symptomatic of anxiety and I could easily take a chill pill and get over it. But I'd rather leave for a while and go somewhere far, far away.

My maternal grandparents can be traced back to 14th century England where Berengar de Langestan was born in Devon around 1330. They migrated throughout England and eventually crossed the Atlantic to the New World and down to Wakulla County. My paternal grandparents have been traced back to Thomas Boykin, born around 1620 in Kent, England. His family followed a similar migration pattern and some eventually ended up in LaGrange, Georgia where my father was born. With marriages occurring on both side of the family, the bloodline contains dashes of German, French and whatever those folks in Barbados are. But the majority of what makes up this entity known as myself is English and Creek. So why am I so drawn to the Mediterranean?

I have been enamored of Italy and the Greek Isles since high school when I first studied the art and culture in Humanities class. In 2007 I got the opportunity of a lifetime when I was awarded a travel fellowship in honor of one of my high school teachers. I enlisted a friend as a travel buddy and headed straight for the Aegean Sea. Ah, the sun, the water, the architecture, the art, the people, the food, the wine, the room service! It was a whirlwind tour of Athens, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini, Patmos, and Ephesus, Turkey but those are eight red-letter days on the calendar of my life. Holledays as I call them.

I am overdue for another Holleday. Like most single parents, my life is a vicious cycle of work, laundry, cooking, dishwashing, chauffeuring, refereeing, counseling, and money managing. During the school year I feel like an automaton on a track with no chance of escape unless the power goes out. Seriously. Power outage = adventure. That is sad. Especially when I live within an hour of the most beautiful coastline in our country. But that is work, too. I am so drained that the thought of taking my kids on vacation this summer is more daunting than staying home with them. That is the same work in a different location. No, I need to get away. I need the Aegean Queen with her stewards and culinary artists and Greek ports of call. I need the azure sea and sunshine that melts on my skin like buttah. I need the ancient wisdom of ruined temples and my guide, Georges, with his yellow umbrella. I need someone to yank me out of this daydream before I sprout roots!

Angel Guardians

When my daughter was born I had a definite idea of what motherhood would be like. I had been given charge of a little angel and it was my job to teach her how to walk and talk and feed herself as well as teach her values and model appropriate behaviors. I had a good mother model and felt I was up for the task. I had no idea that this child would be the greatest teacher I have ever had.

When she was just five months old, Sara saved my life. She didn't pull me from a burning building or shove me from the path of an oncoming train. She just looked at me. She looked me in the eyes with a gaze so intense I felt that I had been slapped in the forehead. We were in a terrible domestic situation and Sara knew it was time to go. Her father's official diagnosis includes the words sociopath and paranoid, but I think of him as an emotional terrorist. I was sinking further into depression and codependency and he was starting to terrorize Sara. We had to get out. It was terrifying to grab the bull by the horns, but after earnest prayers for guidance I told him I was leaving. He was furious and threw a violent tantrum during which I made a desperate call to authorities. He told me that if I had him arrested he would lose his job and would come after us. So I lied to the police and called my parents to come get me. It would take two days for them to get to us in Ohio and I was afraid he would seriously hurt me and Sara by then, but I had no vehicle and no money and was forced to sit tight and wait. Then the most amazing calm manifested in our house. Something inside me whispered it was alright now and I had the overwhelming sensation that there were angels posted to watch over us. He was extremely relaxed and quiet and over the next two days he was almost solicitous. The house had been freed from fear and anxiety and was filled with an incredible sense of peace. Had those angels not been there I would have thought it was the calm before yet another storm. Had I stayed in that situation I would have died. He may not have killed me physically, but he would have kept on until he smothered my spirit and made me weak and emotionally dead. And then he would have done the same to my baby girl.

I believe that there are angels walking among us. Sometimes I recognize them in those people that I casually refer to as saints... those people who are always there to help anyone in need as well as those who exude the same kind of peacefulness that I felt back in Ohio. Sometimes I recognize them in total strangers. None of us are who we appear to be. My infant daughter possessed intelligence and strength far beyond my own and it took her telling me to before I gathered myself up to get us out of a bad situation. I could say it was just my maternal instinct taking over. Maybe it was. But there were powerful forces at work in that house that night. I have felt them frequently and sometimes thought that maybe I could actually call upon upon them, but I've come to realize that they exist in me. They exist in all of us. We can call upon them because we are the power. We are our own force of nature. We are the children of God and possess the power of love that is the root of all good.

I think what Sara did in that gaze was summon up all the love in me. My love for her was greater than my fear of her father. And I think some of it spilled over onto him and let him know that it was okay to let us go. Thirteen years later, Sara stood up to her father herself and told him she'd had enough of his abuse. She did at thirteen what I was afraid to do at twenty-six. She summoned up her love of herself and did something huge on her own behalf. She has taught me several lessons like that one. In a recent conversation I told Sara that she was too good a person to let herself be used as a doormat or taken for granted by someone she really cared for. And I got slapped in the forehead again. I was blind to my own similar situation. So I summoned up my love for myself and modeled the appropriate behavior by addressing the problem. After all, it is my job to teach my little angel about life. But sometimes I wonder if my guardian angel isn't sleeping under my own roof.

Big Shoes To Fill

I bet my grandpa is getting a fine chuckle out of this. We spent the morning at the Smith Creek cemetery where Major's side of the Langston family is buried. That is his mother, Fannie, behind my son Sam in this photo. My daughter Sara thought it was so neat to see the graves of all the folks she has only heard about in stories since I started my ancestry project. She even fussed at me for not giving her a "cool" name like Esther or NoraLee. Really? The name of the mother of Isaac, the prophet of the Lord, is not cool enough?

My mother began to call Sam "Little Major" quite some time ago as he is so much like grandpa and Sam now refers to himself that way. He listens to all the Major tales quite intently and even uses him against me sometimes. When Sam got a small pocketknife a while back he insisted on carrying it around in his pocket, even to school. When I told him that he had to leave it in the car he got really upset with me and emphatically told me that "Major would always have a knife in his pocket, mama...always!" Well. He left the knife in the car.

Major Lee Langston was born in 1904 and raised with a heap of other Langstons down in Smith Creek, Florida. He was a jack-of-all trades. He built a swinging bridge and several other projects around the sloughs in the forest and he built the big house on the homestead for his mama and lived there with Margaret and the kids until my mom was a year old and they moved to Tallahassee. He worked as a barber for a while, but never got it out if his system because he was forever combing our hair. Poor Pat had to endure grandpa's fine toothed comb just about every time we visited until he was too big to sit in Major's lap. Grandpa also worked as a ship builder, carpenter, wood turner, inventor, hunter, and whatever you call the person who washes a body for laying out before burial. When I was really young, he worked for the Florida Fish and Game Commission as a nighttime security guard. Sometimes my mom would drop me off there to visit and grandpa would take me with him on his rounds. He showed me the mail room and the big boss's office and even where one of the clerks had a pet tarantula in an aquarium in his office. It was amazing. I loved going to grandpa's work.

Sam has a lot of Major's personality traits. He had a sunny disposition and loved to talk. He could talk to customer sales representatives and before they hung up he'd know where they were from, who their people were and might even be relatives. Mom gave Sam grandpa's office telephone and it is perched proudly atop my coffee table. I halfway expect it to ring. He also loved to find out how things worked and preferred to watch animals rather than kill them. My older cousins told me about how grandpa took them turkey hunting one afternoon and made them watch and watch a whole flock of turkeys until they all flew away. He didn't ever give them the signal to shoot. They were furious and wanted to know why he did that. Grandpa simply answered, "wasn't it more fun to watch them than to kill them?" Major was also quite particular in his attire. Grandma Margaret had trained him to never leave the house looking sloppy. He took that to heart one afternoon before going to the bank. He was dirty from working in his shop so he put on a clean pair of paints over the soiled ones. When he reached the teller at the bank, he had forgotten that his wallet was in the first pair of pants so he unzipped them and proceeded to pull them down. The teller hit the alarm, the police were called and another Major story was born. Sam has been known to get to school and have on his pajama bottoms under his jeans. And he loves button-down madras shirts.

Some parts of Major's life seem almost legendary. It is no wonder my son idolizes him. The photos Sam has seen of his great-grandfather involve alligators and bears and guns. My mother has one of his inventions (the Major Masher) in her workshop. Our house is full of items he made while fiddling with his lathe. His memory is alive and well and his footprints are all around. Eventually Sam will hear the story of grandpa's 1965 murder conviction, but that is another story...

Strong Women

I was raised by strong women. Women who value independence and work. My grandmother Margaret worked from early childhood, helping her mother tend children and cook for the men who were working in the logging camps. She later ran a large boarding house in Tallahassee where my mother grew up working alongside her. Then she worked in several dress shops before setting up her own home-based alterations and dressmaking business. My grandfather worked all over the place and did everything from barbering to ship-building, but Margaret will tell you she kept the household going. And she did. She was raised by Jennie, you know.

My mother is just like her. She never does anything half-way. She will tell you that if you aren't going to do something right then you shouldn't bother doing it at all. That is not a bad thing, but boy was it hard growing up trying to meet those standards. I gave up long ago. I will not iron for her or fold her laundry. She is just going to do it over again anyway. However, in my desperate attempt to make mom happy, I have learned to do quite a few things pretty well.

This is my mother around 1960. She attended boarding school in Thomasville, but since she was a Langston, she spent a good bit of time in the woods of Wakulla and Leon counties and couldn't help but learn to shoot a rifle. In curlers, no less. She is quite a formidable opponent now, so I doubt she backed down from much back then. I remember when she bought a pistol shortly after her divorce. Pat and I spent what seemed like hundreds of hours in the back of the jeep waiting on her to finish lessons at the shooting range. Had to do it right, ya know. Mom packed that pistol in a red felt bag and it went into the glove compartment of the car every time we left the house for the weekend. My mama was prepared for anything. Always.

My mom was the best dad ever. Left with a young son after her divorce, she made sure he had plenty of opportunities and equipment to learn all things manly. By the time we were in high school, Pat was the head fixer-upper, plumber and mechanic for our family. He had my granddaddy's mechanical mind so he learned quickly and of course mom made sure he did it all right the first time. Or at least the second. And you know what they say about birds of a feather so mom also had strong women friends as a support system. She and Pat Otwell and Billie Moore managed to get us raised up into productive and well-adjusted adults.

Pat and I also had a strong step-mother. Becky had managed to get my non-motivated, relaxed and happy dad to quit his job and apply for another one even though it meant moving half-way across the country. She also got him into Alcoholics Anonymous and stayed with him through what must have been hell as he got sober. She was a wonderful step-parent in that she never once made Pat and I feel like we weren't part of her family, too. All chores were distributed equally and everyone got equal amount of Christmas and Birthday. She worked full-time so the five of us had to look out for each other while doing useful things like making bread from scratch and watering the lawn. As we were growing up in this part-time blended family, all of us kids grew to love each other as brother and sisters and we felt this way to adulthood. We are all scattered about the country now, but I still count them as family. Miss Becky is responsible for that. She gave us structure and responsibility when we spent the weekends and summers with her and dad and that kind of environment is good for kids...makes us better grownups.

So thanks, moms. I appreciate the toughness now that I am raising my own children. I am nowhere near as structured as my mother thinks I should be, but that is okay...I know a few good therapists.

Acceptance

These are my paternal grandparents, William Sterling Boykin, Jr. and Annie Askew Phillips Boykin. The photo was taken about 1945 at the Shell Island Fish Camp in St. Marks, Florida and is the only photo of my grandfather I have ever seen. I remember my grandmother mostly from my earliest childhood when we would occasionally go get her from her group home in Wakulla County and have her stay with us for a few days. Her memory was really bad by then as she had what is now known as Alzheimer's disease. She lived in a home with a woman who looked after her and a couple of more ladies in similar condition. By the time I was in middle school, Grannie Annie had been put in a nursing home in Medart. My father took us to see her there once when he came to pick us up for a summer vacation. She was clearly unaware of who any of us were and I remember my father crying for most of the drive back to Tallahassee. She died in 1987 when I was a freshman in college and I remember my step-mother telling me how deeply that affected my dad.

Sterling and Annie had seven children of which my father, Charles Holle Boykin, was the baby. Sterling "drank himself to death" in 1957 when Charlie was fifteen years old. I assume this means he died from liver and heart disease caused by years of excessive drinking. Alcoholism is an inherited disease that at least two of the Boykin children suffered from. I recently learned that Uncle Billy, the oldest, was also an alcoholic who was abusive and had been arrested at least once because of it. My father is also a recovering alcoholic but he was not the abusive type. He'd get lit after work and be a relaxed and happy guy. This was unacceptable to my mother and they divorced when I was eight largely because of my dad having no motivation to do anything other than be a relaxed and happy guy. While married to his second wife, he began going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and he eventually quit drinking. At one point he was going to meetings five nights a week and even after fifteen years of sobriety he was still attending two or three.

The Boykin children also inherited the Alzheimer's disease gene. Aunt Kathryn developed it many years ago. I can remember her introducing herself to me no less than three times the last time I saw her. "Hi, I'm Kathryn. And who might you be?" I answered, "I'm Kathryn Holle Boykin and I was named after you!" She giggled like a schoolgirl each time. She was an avid golfer but they eventually had to take her clubs away because she got confused so easily. Aunt Kathryn died in February in a nursing home where she had been since Alzheimer's had robbed her mind and her body had begun to shut down. My father recently went into a nursing home as well. Two years ago, he left the suburban home where he lived with his wife and began to walk into the town of Lexington, South Carolina. He was determined to get to his AA meeting because it was his job to start the coffee. He had no idea where the meeting was. At that time he was in the fourth stage of Alzheimer's and when the police found him he was combative and it was an ugly scene. My step-sisters arranged to move the folks to Virginia where the oldest daughter could monitor them in an assisted living community. There is no recovery from Alzheimer's and its nature is to worsen until death. This month my step-mother moved in with her younger daughter and Charlie went into a healthcare facility where he will likely die.

To have regrets would imply that I could have done something to change the way things have turned out. I have no regrets where my father is concerned. I confronted my issues with him many years ago and placed the ball firmly in his court. And he dropped it. Again. Game over. I hate that we never had the close father-daughter relationship that so many of my friends and other relatives had. I hate that my children don't have a Grandpa Charlie. I hate that my step-sisters have had to deal with the fallout of alcoholism and Alzheimer's disease. But there is nothing I could have done to have changed any of it so I don't beat myself up over it. Maybe that sounds harsh, but that doesn't bother me either.

Because I have educated myself about alcoholism and its effects on the drinker as well as those around him, I understand my father. He spent his formative years with a heavy drinker and that affected him. He was a crappy dad. But how could he have been a better one when he didn't have an adequate model for it? I saw my father cry a lot. And I believe those were tears of regret. During my junior year of college, I went to visit him in Virginia and my step-mother told me that my father cried frequently and told her how much he missed me and my brother, but when she prompted him to call us he wouldn't. When we went to visit him, we watched TV with him for hours. He just couldn't talk to us about anything on a personal level. The last five years or so, our phone conversations were literally about the weather. I think that the emotional distance had gotten so vast that dad just didn't know where to begin to fix it. And he regretted that.

It is hard to hold a grudge against someone who doesn't even remember the conflict, so I forgave my dad ages ago. I am sorry that he never got to resolve the things that nagged him and kept him in AA meetings for two decades. I am sorry that he never learned to reach out and remain close even to his own dying mother. His brother Allen recently asked me if I felt my dad had abandoned me and I admitted that yes, I did, but I am okay with it because I have used that hurt to make myself be a better parent. My father's legacy won't be mine. I choose to remember my dad as the smiling man who never met a stranger and would tell a bad joke to death. Dwelling on and regretting the past is non-productive and I have lots to do.

Me and My Gang

These raggamuffins standing in a creek in the middle of a snake-infested forest didn't know it then, but they were the richest kids in the world. This tendril of Quincy Creek ran through our neighborhood, looping around my house and straightening out to run behind the Otwells' place, where this photo was taken. That's Shanna Otwell in her underwear and me with my ponytails held up by yarn bows. Pat was always outgrowing his clothes and his smiley shirt was about due for replacement.

Shanna's sister Lara was my first best friend. Pat spent the bulk of his younger days with our next-door neighbors, John and Neely Morgan. Joey Ferolito and the Standley girls, Dot, Michelle and Stephanie rounded out our crew. And a motley crew we were. I guess by today's standards we would have been a gang...the Oak Park Gang...although I seriously doubt we would have ever scribbled our tag on anyone's tool shed. We were not raised that way. Our most serious offense was probably the unauthorized consumption of Kay Morgan's paper cups. She always had the kind with the comic strips on them and we found ourselves drinking gallons of Kool-Aid just to read some more.

Our gang seemed to live outside. The 1970's were safer years. Kids could roam the streets without mothers worrying we might get snatched. Cartoons came on television on Saturday mornings only. At noon they were replaced by professional wrestling which was in its infancy and not the least bit interesting to us. We had more important things to do. We had to assemble. Our meeting place was The Sand Pile. The city had begun to cut a ditch through part of the neighborhood to help keep water from pooling on the street, which was only paved for a quarter way around Circle Drive back then. The pavement stopped at Joey's driveway and that is also where the ditch ended. The sides of the ditch were huge piles of red clay and sand that had been dug out to allow the water to drain when Quincy Creek overflowed which happened every time we had significant rainfall. That ditch and its banks were our Ground Zero.

At some point in the 1980's I heard that Gadsden County had the highest population of rattlesnakes per square mile than any other in the state. That surprised me because all us kids were all in those woods all the time and we never saw one. I remember seeing an indigo snake in my yard once, and my mom killed and oak snake on our porch, but we must have had those vipers running scared. Of course, we were always accompanied by a dog or four. Frank Morgan had some pure-bred hunting dogs that were kept in a pen and the Otwells had an Airedale imported from North Georgia who lived inside, so our loyal companions were mutts that had wandered into our lives and liked it enough to stay. They all had names like Brownie, Naomi, and Caspar and they kept up with us and were formidable enough that the snakes kept their distance. When I close my eyes and remember, I can still hear the squeals of laughter and playful barking echoing off those creek banks.

When I remember my early years it seems like it was always summertime, I guess because, since I have aged, summer is the only true leisure time I have. But as a kid, we seemed to have more leisure time than kids today because we didn't live in front of the television. There was no cable, no cartoon networks, no video games and no DVDs. And since one doesn't miss what one never had, we lived the good life. When I got older I discovered novels and lived with my nose in a book, but those little kid years were full of outdoor play with the rest of the neighborhood. Dot's house had an unfinished basement that we used as a clubhouse and her daddy helped us rig a tree-house of sorts. Dot later fell out of that and broke her arm. Larry Otwell taught us a little about gardening, capitalizing on the cheap labor of kids who thought it was fun. Joe Ferolito tried to teach us the rules of basketball, but Joey was a ball-hog, I mean superstar, so we quickly got bored with that and returned to the creek.

Wonderful happy memories of a childhood that didn't cost much. We spent countless hours in the woods making forts out of palmetto fronds, running to someone's house for snacks or lunch and then right back to our very important work. I am sure our moms kept tabs on us as we traveled in a noisy pack from one end of the ditch to the other. At night the bath water was muddy and we had to be checked for ticks, but we slept like logs. And we were happy. We weren't constantly nagging our parents for the newest cool toy or video. We were free from the influence of media telling us what was cool and what we should want.

I now live on a farm with hundreds of acres of forest, a beautiful creek and a couple of ponds. My son plays in the yard under my watchful eye and my daughter rides the trails on her four-wheeler, checking in every 20 minutes or so to keep me from worrying. They are never allowed to go in those woods or near the creek without an adult. I have extreme anxiety about venomous snakes having looked them up on the Internet and seen how horrible they are. I worry that my daughter will be snatched by a predator lurking in the woods because the daily news reports it happening every day. My children have some good times, but I know their happiness is curtailed by my anxiety over a perceived reality and their exposure to a culture that is highly influenced by the media and its agenda. They have a lot more stuff than we did as kids, but they aren't nearly as rich as we were.

Looking Back, Facing Forward

I remember the day I became white. It was my friend Liza's birthday and she was inviting members of our Kindergarten class to her upcoming party. Ohhhh, I was excited! I loved birthday parties and I especially loved Liza. She was a really dark skinny black girl with her hair plaited in cornrows. It was always fuzzy because she went a long time before she would have it redone. And her mama used those cheap little red, yellow and blue rubber bands on the ends of the plaits. I thought she was awesome but she didn't invite me to her party.

"Why didn't you invite me?," I asked Liza. "Because you white," she said. "What do you mean?," I asked. "You white and white people don't go to black people house." Oh. I didn't go to the party, nor did I forget the incident.

I was born and raised in Gadsden County and went to public school through seventh grade. I am not sure if my parents were lower middle class or upper lower class because we lived a good life with everything we needed and quite a bit of the stuff we wanted. My mom worked for Talquin and then Higdon Grocery Company while my dad worked for Higdon Furniture Company. They had black and white friends and we socialized with many of them. As in we went to their house. Kinda blew Liza's proclamation away. My folks didn't model the prejudices that are still so common in the South which is why Liza's declaration of my ethnicity threw me. I hadn't ever been a color before.

Looking at this photo of my great-great-aunt Ellafair Anderson Jackson I can't help but wonder what color Liza would have called her. Ellafair was Creek Indian. One hundred percent. But what was Creek? Ellafair had some very strong ethnic characteristics: thick lips, dark skin, course hair. I am still learning about Creek history and culture so I am not surprised to have just read that other Muskogean tribes were absorbed by the Creek, who held blackslaves and intermarried with them. This explains a lot, including my nose. I am extremely interested in finding out more about this branch of my family tree, especially Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Tom Anderson who was a Creek Chief. He is my Holy Grail.

As our country becomes increasingly more multi-cultural and multi-racial, I find myself teaching more tolerance than anything else in my classroom. Since beginning my ancestral research I have thrown “because you think I am white” into discussions about race with students. This throws them because most of them are learning their attitudes from their parents and are conditioned to identify others by their appearance while wearing their own color on their sleeve. They don’t know what to do with a woman who looks white but has a black nose and claims to be Native American. What would Liza do?

Higher Hopes

I worry that I am failing this little boy. I wasn't much older than him when my dad left me and my brother and moved away with his new wife and her three kids. My mother has incredible strength and all kinds of good sense so she did what she could to fill the gap. I learned to hit a softball, my brother played in the middle school band and then on the high school football team. We were both active in scouting. Pat learned mechanics and basic household plumbing due to the need for it on the homestead. Still something was missing. Mom explained the divorce to us very simply and the whole process wasn't much of an upset to our lives. She never said a bad word about my dad and he respected her (and us, I guess) enough to return the favor. We were encouraged to write to dad and call him regularly whether he did the same for us or not. So for me, the relationship with my father became one-sided fairly early in my life and eventually dissolved completely.

I had higher hopes for my son. His father and I weren't exactly in love when Sam came along and I told him that he had a year to show me that he would be a committed dad. I went above and beyond to make sure he had opportunities to do that, taking my newborn to the grandparents' home every weekend and spending the day so that they could all be part of Sam's life and he a part of theirs. The way it should be. His father would come visit for an hour or so and then have some excuse to leave. I know infants are boring and he he said he would be more involved when Sam was older.

Sam is older. He is asking the tough questions. Why didn't I ever get married? Why doesn't he have a daddy at home all the time? Sheesh, boy. I gently explain that things don't always work out the way we hope, but that we are our own family and take care of each other, right? Right. I am a firm believer that we are all right we were are supposed to be. God knows what He is doing and has a plan. I know that I would never have been happy in a long-term relationship with Sam's father as I see so much of my own father in him. He is content with mediocre in all things. Except beer and football. Miller Lite and FSU all the way. My mother had the same complaint about my dad and when I was older she explained that is why she divorced him when we were so young. She didn't want us growing up and being influenced by someone with no drive or direction. Gumption was the word she used. Charles had no gumption.

I can't describe the punch in my gut when I saw my daddy drive by my house with his three step-daughters. They lived down the street from us if you can imagine. We had not been allowed to play with those three little girls because of something my mom heard, and then my dad married their mom. Fortunately, this didn't last long as they moved to Kentucky for my dad's new job. Then came the summer visitation and pseudo-family vacations. We had good times and I am grateful for the experiences.

That was when I was nine. When I was fourteen my mom met the man that I now refer to as dad. Jack's youngest son was a senior in high school when we met him and I hope he didn't ever experience any of the step-sibling anxiety I had. I was awful in the beginning. Jack tried so hard to win me over when he first came around and I resented that. I had a really messed up idea that he was trying to replace my dad...and that was a bad thing. Really? Oh, to be a teenager again. Not. Anyway, Jack won me over and is still around and he didn't replace my dad...he was far more than that. As a parent now I am humbled by what Jack did that he didn't have to do.

Now my Sammy is growing up with a single mom and sister who absolutely adore him, but I know inside he wants more. He wants what dads give their sons. I am not half as tough as my mother and I take the easy route when it comes to Sam because he is such a force to reckon with. He is headstrong, super intelligent and doesn't require much rest. An exhausting combination. Maybe I should have had him in my twenties because now I am just not into building the tree fort and am horrified by the critters I find in glass jars around the house. I am not hopeful that my children will have the caliber of step-dad that I have and am okay with that on the personal side. I'll get by. But I would like to think that it is possible for Sam to have a strong father-figure before I damage him too much. Then again, I may be underestimating Sammy.

Family Portraits

My mother recently told me that this is one of her most favorite pictures of her. I was quite surprised as there are some absolutely gorgeous photographs of her taken when she was in high school and a little older. She is a strikingly beautiful woman with a strong nose, defined brow and deep green eyes. She never, ever leaves the house without a bit of makeup, neat hair and presentable clothes. I cannot count the times she has chided me for taking my children out without being spit-shined and photo-ready. As I have gone through all these old photos I know where this comes from.

My grandmother, Margaret Langston, was a seamstress. She made everything from wedding gowns to custom rag dolls. When I was little, she worked in the alterations room for Reinhaeur's department store and later had her own little business at home. Her customers included the wealthy women who shopped the department stores as well as a governor's wife or two. The woman knew her stuff. Her sister, Dolly Thomas, was a milliner among other things. Until their last years, I never saw either of them that they weren't dressed to go out, even if they were staying home. They had a seemingly endless supply of pantsuits and dresses with matching sensible shoes and handbags. Grandmother's purse weighed no less than 15 pounds and I used to cringe when she asked me to go retrieve it for her. Aunt Doll had some mighty fine headpieces as well and most of the photos of her feature them. She had extremely long hair and kept it neatly pinned in an intricate stack on her head, topped with a headpiece...not a hat. My grandfather was also expected to be sartorially resplendent as Margaret would not be seen with a slob. I often wondered where a man who grew up in the woods of Smith Creek acquired such good taste in clothes.

The Langston and Anderson families have been well documented in photos for several generations. Mom described the travelling photographers who used to make their rounds through Leon, Wakulla and Liberty counties, bringing with them a variety of clothes and props and sometimes backdrops. These families were proud and the took advantage of photo opportunities, dressing in their own or borrowed clothes and even included some prized possessions like guns and hunting dogs or furniture. When cameras were developed for public consumption my grandmother and her sisters immediately purchased them. My aunt Grace even had a color one in the early 1940s.

As a parent, I have become aware of the high price of fine portraits. I had my daughter at the department stores every time their "special" ads showed up in the paper and spent a fortune by the time she was 5. My grandmother had some beautiful portraits made of her children. My mother's high school portraits make her look grown and glamorous but they were simply black and white or lightly color-enhanced.

I mentioned to mom how surprising it is that a seamstress with Margaret's meager beginnings could afford such quality things. When she died, Grandma had no less than 5 sets of fine china and most of her furniture was mahogany. Mom explained that Margaret had always had a taste for fine things and would do whatever amount of work necessary to fund it. I remember her always having a stack of alterations to make by her chair or piled up on the sewing machine. Mom thinks it all originated when her Creek ancestors took Christian names and didn't look back. They were minorities and downright unfashionable. While I understand the familial pride, I regret that this part of our heritage is so far in the past. My ancestry search literally dead ends at Margaret's great-grandfather, Tom Anderson, who was supposedly a Creek chief in Alabama. I am still learning about the Dawes Rolls and other methods by which the native Americans were kept track of, but this side is all still a mystery and I am sure this will be a life-long project. Still, it would be nice if I could find some scrap of evidence to light the way.

Gardens of Stone, Indeed!

Phase Three of my Great Ancestry Project involves some legwork. Since I have about exhausted my initial supply of old family photos and have uploaded them onto my Ancestry.com family tree, it is time to go cemetery-hopping. I used to think this was the dumbest thing ever. Why would anyone want to wander around looking at boring old tombstones? I can remember Grandma Margaret and her sister Dolly taking my brother and me out on these "adventures" when we were too young to protest. Aunt Doll would pack a basket with bottles of Fresca and Tab and some cream cheese sandwiches and off we'd go. We would picnic atop the family slabs.

I don't pack picnics and have only been to one cemetery so far, but it is no coincidence that I started with the very one we used to visit with Margaret and Doll. St. John's Cemetery is part of St. John's Freewill Baptist Church and is located within a couple of miles of Interstate 10 in Bonifay, Florida. My grandmother's mother, Jennie Anderson Perdue is buried there as well as a few of her children and a sibling or two along with a heaping helping of cousins. I had to refer to my mobile version of my family tree to keep all the last names straight.

Up to this point I have gotten to know my family as faces and names on a two-dimensional family tree application. I can see them in my mind as they relate to me and each other on limbs of the tree. I made two trips to the cemetery this month. The first time I was on my way to take my daughter to camp and had a short time to acquaint myself with the locations of people I was certain of and photograph their headstones. Afterwords, I went back to the family tree to reference other stones with familiar names. Bringing my daughter back from camp, I returned to the cemetery and easily located those relatives. I have learned that vital records are great sources of information, but tombstones are even greater for validations of those. Census takers have often misspelled names in their records and so it is nice to see them as they were chiseled into stones. I am frequently humbled by the rampant illiteracy of the olden days.

While identifying photos with my mother describing people and places and events, I got a feel for the personalities of quite a few ancestors. When I returned to St. John's the last time, I got a sense that they were hanging around. Not in a haunting way, rather they were now in familial clusters including some folks I knew a little more about. My direct ancestors Jennie and Margaret were over there with Ellafere and Devader and Agnes, while on the other side there were the Weeks' bunch that Artemus married into and beyond that were some Yates' who were Martha's in-laws. The place felt so much more three-dimensional and relevant. I almost wished I'd packed a picnic.

Major Discoveries

When I first began this ancestry project I had a stack of really old, mostly unidentified photos and tintypes accompanied by a few anecdotal notes my mother got from Grandpa Major shortly before he died. Some of the comments he made seemed a bit ridiculous to me and I chalked that up to his failing mind. Shame on me. As I have utilized the Ancestry.com webpage and its myriad of record databases, I have made some interesting discoveries that have me apologizing to Major quite frequently. Take this photo as a prime example.

According to Grandpa Major this is Gaston Eubanks, son of his mother's cousin Buddy. He also said that the Eubanks were from the Cayman Islands. What? All of Fannie's people migrated from South Carolina for several generations before settling in Smith Creek, Florida. How could they be from the Caymans, too? Well, thanks to Ancestry, I came across immigration records from the late 1600s and early 1700s that show that many English families sailed to Barbados. Some continued on to North America while others obviously stayed. I imagine the climate was a wonderful change for those used to dreary English weather. I have not yet found the documents on the Eubanks bunch, but I have located the Baptism records for my 9th great grandfather William Speights in Barbados in 1680.

This is all pretty remarkable stuff and I love finding evidence that Major's memory was impeccable and he did know what he was talking about.

On forgetting...

I am on the verge of tears most of the time now. I was unprepared for the surge of emotions that would accompany a lifetime of photographs and even less prepared for the regret I would feel for not having known my ancestors or their stories. I am ashamed that these people who lived long, full lives are now amongst the ranks of the forgotten. And what about my extended family who are still living? Why am I not closer to them? With today's telecommunication systems there is no excuse for being out of touch. I have the urge to reach out to them all and have huge family meals together where we exchange photos and tell stories about the old folks as well as our own children. I am also afraid of being forgotten. Is it because my ego demands the attention or is it that I don't feel like I have done anything memorable? My life has not been extraordinary, but surely my children will have Grandma Holle tales for the little ones. But even stronger than my fear of being forgotten is that of forgetting. Reliving my earliest years in the old photographs, I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of my memories. There are so many rich details to authenticate them. I can still hear the clank of wood and metal as Pat and I would try to get water from the old pump at Smith Creek. I can smell the rusty water that came up first and taste the cold minerals. The aroma of long-leaf pine was almost overwhelming. I hear the seagulls swarming as my father caught a small shark off the eastern tip of St. George Island and smell the propane in the little grill outside our tent. I hear the endless barking of neighborhood dogs and smell the dense mulch of the creek banks deep inside Circle Drive. I smell my grandpa's cologne as it tries to cover his old man scent. It feels like I can remember everything if I try. Why do I remember so much of those earliest years, but I cannot remember my grocery list? With Alzheimer's looming large in my future I am in panic mode. I don't want to forget it all. I don't want to forget my past and then my present and then my own children. This idea scares me to death. I have watched both of my grandmothers die with Alzheimer's and my father is in the latter stages of it. It is very real to me and I feel powerless over it. I am almost overcome with the urge to plan ahead for it. I'll make name tags and photo-albums so that I can at least pretend to remember people. Being forgotten hurts. I don't want to hurt anyone.

I think I remember hearing....

John Allen Perdue, my maternal great-grandfather, was born in 1854 in Alabama. Maybe. My Aunt Doll insisted that John Allen and his younger brother Joseph were orphans from France and were taken in by an older couple who did not adopt them. However, there is archival evidence that their parents lived in Alabama and the boys were born there. I have not yet been able to find a death record for John Allen. He left his wife Jennie within a couple of years of this photo which was taken around 1917. That is according to my mother who remembers her mother telling her about it. Grandma Margaret said that John Allen had a penchant for whiskey and she felt like this is what ultimately caused him to leave the family. Aunt Doll worshipped the man and would never had thought, much less stated, such a thing. And all this is hearsay anyway.
Memories are tricky. I think I remember lots of things. When searching for information on my ancestors I am relying heavily on information gathered by my mother before my grandfather died. His memory was quite good up until he died and he remembered the funniest things about people which has made the stories so much more human. But there is not nearly enough of this kind of information. When siblings have totally different memories of the same situations, it is hard to find the truth. And when you factor in that these things are all being told as recalled by my mother things get even murkier.
Pictures like this one of Grandpa John make me feel sad. Knowing that life was hard back then working in logging camps and driving cattle here and there in those hot, dense, insect-laden Wakulla forests makes me have both sympathy and admiration for him. Knowing what a harsh woman Jennie was leaves me unable to blame him for drinking and leaving. Knowing how much Doll adored him makes me angry that he bailed on them. Margaret wasn't even 3 years old, for crying out loud. But then I have to consider that John was 63 at the time of this photo. He had been married before Jennie and had two children with his first wife. The story goes that Jennie wanted John Allen from the minute she met him. But she was almost six feet tall and she'd had 5 children with her first husband John Gibson. So Jennie starved herself to get John Allen Perdue. (I can't help but think that the more things change, the more they stay the same!) No one is clear on whether Jennie waited for John Allen's first wife to die or if he left her, but Jennie ended up with her man. She knew what she wanted and did what she had to to get it. Jennie was born to pure Creek parents but was ashamed of her "color" and never admitted to being Creek herself because they were an undesirable minority. There is no discrepancy amongst the grandchildren about that part of Jennie's story. She considered herself to be white.
Anyway, I find myself wishing I had listened closer when grandma Margaret talked about the old days. I wish I had gotten this urge to know my family before I went through my selfish college days. Those were the times when all Jennie's girls were available to discuss it...and Lord knows they could discuss it. I want to know more about John Allen and Jennie and I really want to ask Jennie who her mother was. I am stuck on her side of the tree. It's like I have gotten a new book and I am really enjoying it but now I find some pages are missing.

I go back....

Looking at the myriad old family pictures has stirred up a storm of emotions in me. My mother has always had a camera and felt the need to capture important gatherings as well as the everyday happenings in our lives. I have always said I had a rich and full childhood and mom's collection of photos of our family camping days just reinforces it.
My parents divorced in 1975. There is no evidence of discourse in any of the old photos of them and it was presented to us and implemented with very little disruption in our little lives. We spent so much time together as a family either camping, boating or visiting relatives. Relatives were a big deal when I was little. We spent lots of time at my grandparents home in Tallahassee. We took quite a few trips to see my Aunt Ann's family in Montgomery. We went down to Sopchoppy to visit my dad's people and sometimes brought Granny Annie home to stay with us for a few days.
The camping weekends were awesome. St. George Island used to be completely open to the public from one end to the other. My dad lived to fish and we would drive all the way down to the east end of the island and pitch a tent. I remember Pat and I would spend hours trying to catch minnows for bait and chase sand crabs into their holes. We had a huge tent and a great Coleman gas grill and a water tank on top of the Jeep so we could even shower. Daddy built a portable wooden pantry that doubled as a kitchen counter. My mama didn't do anything halfway, especially when it had to do with cooking and cleaning.
When I allow myself to mentally relive this part of my life it is very easy to regret that it ended. I can't help but wonder what it might have been like if daddy had stayed forever. I know everything happens for a reason and we are always right where we are supposed to be, but what harm is there in wondering? Would it always have been as idyllic as the pictures and my memories portrayed it? Probably not. But sometimes it just feels good to think it would have.

Highway to Hell?

That's how I used to feel as a little kid riding for what seemed like days down to Smith Creek. That's the old family homestead down there on the right and my mom would load us up with grandparents and go visit quite regularly. The house was falling in then and is gone now, but the old folks lust loved to walk around and talk about how it used to be and sometimes pick up a relic of days gone by. Sometimes we would do something fun like walk down to the old swinging bridge and get eaten up by mosquitos. Other times we had to pick mayhaws and get eaten up by mosquitos. Every now and then we'd stop by and visit other old folks like Uncle Hamp or Eunice and get eaten up by mosquitos.

As a child I didn't take an interest in the old days or how I was related to anyone in Smith Creek because my little world didn't have room for all that. But now that I realize my own memory is fading I am feeling the urge to put some things down in writing for my family to appreciate when they are older. I have always known that the ancestors from Georgia and Alabama moved to Wakulla and Leon counties and that times were hard back then. But now as I listen to my mother tell me the stories that her parents told her the pictures seem more colorful and the people more real. I am finding that I am a lot like my Grandma Fanny and that my son is about as particular as Grandpa Major.

Most of my morning was spent immersed in black and white photos with my mother narrating events from many years ago. I was so absorbed in thinking about it all that I didnt quite recognize my own house when I got here and felt lonely when my daughter drove off. I can't wait to learn more about all these people and hope to get a lot of input from other living relatives as I continue this project.

Up and running...

This adventure started when I innocently asked, "who's this?" The back of this old photo says "Guy Reiser (Geo. West) and Ring." Well, Ring was Grandpa Charlie's dog so why was this person in a portrait with him? And why did he use an alias?

Why? Who? What? Where? Lots of question go along with lots of photos and tin types from as far back as the mid 1800s. Most of them can be identified as family members but then are are some seemingly random ones like this one of Guy and Ring. I found out that Guy had worked for Grandpa Charlie for a couple of years. And the backdrop for this photo looks like one in the photo in yesterday's post so I assume Guy needed some props and Charlie's were handy.

I have learned a lot in these first 24 hours of my ancestral adventure. My friend got me started on the Ancestry.com website and I am hooked. I am a visual-spatial learner so having it all literally mapped out helps me picture connections and retain them as I discover more family photos and my mom rembers parts of names. This week I will go meet with my Aunt Ina Boykin and fill in some gaps on my paternal side. Another friend has done extensive research on his Creek ancestors and has connected me with sources to locate my maternal grandmother's people. I am both excited and overwhelmed by it all. History has never interested me and I cannot say that I am suddenly into it, rather I am fascinated by these people that I have heard of over Thanksgiving dinner for the better part of my life. The stories connected with them are entertaining and I get the feeling that I really would have liked most of the relatives in person.

Well I'll be dogged....

This is a photograph of my great-grandfather Charlie Caleb Elijah Langston taken around 1910. Grandpa Charlie as my mom called him. And that's his bloodhound, Ring, and a lever action Marlin. Charlie was born in 1875 somewhere in the Carolinas and he loved to hunt. At some point he moved to Florida where my grandfather was born in the Smith Creek community of Wakulla county. Charlie would buy dogs from all over and train them to hunt bear in the woods of Wakulla and Liberty counties. Sometimes he trained the dogs then sold them to other hunters and some he kept for himself, like old Ring here. Charlie was married to my great-grandmother, Mary Francis Langston. She just happened to be another Langston from Smith Creek....Charlie didn't marry his cousin. Mary Francis was known as Fannie by most folks. According to my grandmother she was a strange bird. She even put her wedding ring on Charlie's dog's collar which is why he was called Ring. No one ever knew why she did that but I suppose it is because Charlie spent more time with that dog than with Fannie.

BFF? BFFs? BFsF?

I have almost completed a photo album project on FaceBook called The 30 Day Photo Challenge in which I have been given a prompt to relate to each day's photo. Looking back over 27 photos I see almost all of my favorite people....my best friends. After 42 years of friendship I don't have a best friend...I have several. I make friends easily and have a zillion acquaintances, but when I bond with someone it is pretty much for life. It is true that people come in and out of our lives while some are only around for a season. I have had several seasons and through the miracle of FaceBook have reconnected with some of those seasonal friends. Other friends and I have been separated for years at a time but still fall right back in line when we reconnect. This drives my mother crazy. She is someone who prefers a solitary existence and doesn't require the camaraderie of girlfriends or even neighbors. She doesn't understand my need for chat or a confidante.

Someone once asked, "what makes your best friend your best friend?" Where shall I start? My best friends are all completely different from each other. I joke that they all like me but they really don't care much for each other. And really, without me in common they wouldn't ever interact. And I think that is why they are my best friends. Each of them has a unique quality that compliments me...or brings out something in me that doesn't get expressed otherwise. One of them forces me to see both sides of everything. I can be terribly judgemental and opinionated when I feel threatened or emotionally injured and this friend points out my selfishness. Another friend has the gift of perspective. She knows me and my history so well that she cuts right through my baggage and shows me where my focus should be. Another friend is probably clinically insane but she makes me step out of my box and experience new things that make no sense at the time but later I am glad I did them.

I have my two Best Friends From High School, my two Best Friends From College, my three Best Friends From My Hippie Days, my four Best Friends Since I Moved Back Home and my three Best Friends From Work. Sadly, one of these women has passed away. One moved away and didn't look back and another fell into a different circle of friends but I'd still meet either of them for lunch if they called. Clearly, I am not a bridge burner.

Yesterday I reflected on all the neighbors I have had over the years, but unlike them, my Best Friends remain as such. Some of us are in contact almost daily while others only check in once in a while. But just like we need different things from different people, we need them in varying quantities as well. I have a very small immediate family and my extended family is spread throughout the country so my best friends are my chosen sisters. My relationships with them are extremely important to me and my sense of well-being. They bring out the best in me and put up with my worst. They really are God's way of taking care of me and I am so grateful for all of them.

And like a good neighbor....

...State Farm is there. Really? What is a good neighbor? Someone who is always there when you need them and even when you don't like the insurance company advertises? That seems terribly one-sided. These past six months have been the first period of my life in which I have had no neighbors. The farm is not particularly lonely since the owner is in and out all the time, but it sure is quiet. While I have grown up, moved away and come back to stay, my childhood neighbors have all moved away permanently. I have connected with the Otwell and Standley girls on FaceBook and my dad married the mother of the three Ward girls so they are family now. My next set of neighbors consisted of dorm mates at Converse College, many of whom have connected with me on FaceBook. Since college, I have lived in South Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio before coming back to Florida to stay. In South Carolina I was a nanny for a nice family in an "uppity" neighborhood before moving downtown to live my hippie days. Those townie neighbors were quite tolerant of the raucous parties my roomies and I had and were even nice enough to let me babysit when I was really broke. And they gave me a great tuna casserole recipe! After a couple of years there I met my daughter's father and we moved to Tennessee where my life fell apart. Those days were filled with isolation and sadness. I saw the neighbors through my window but never even knew their names. After my daughter was born we moved to Ohio. The guy who lived next door was quite nice and often asked if I was alright but never interfered. I have only moved twice since coming home 15 years ago. I lived on the busiest street in town for 9 years and had permanent neighbors to my left and a steady stream of short-term renters to my right. The retirees on the left side tolerated my foster dogs and their nervous barking as well as my daughter and our friends, but they never were particularly friendly. Despite my daily hellos the woman may have spoken to me an average of once per year. The man however was somewhat chatty, at least until the old lady grunted or glared and made him go inside. The only right side neighbor I got to know was a wonderfully effeminate young black man who loved to fix a cocktail and chat in the driveway. He had some interesting visitors. When the kids and I moved to the farm a couple of years ago, we were without neignbors for a month or so until a young couple and their dogs moved into the small house across the way. That was overall a very good neighbor experience. They let Sam come play in their yard with their dogs and flock of guineas and we pet sat for them. They had dinner here sometimes and we'd enjoy a bonfire over there sometimes. I borrowed coffee and they borrowed butter. When Sam and I were away, Sara would have one of the neighbor dogs come stay with her. It was so comfortable and easy...just like in Mayberry, USA. But they moved away for work and family. So now I am in neighbor limbo, waiting to see who may be next to traipse through my life. It is interesting to look back over 40 years and remember the people and places dotted throughout. I am sure many of them have no recollection of me, but for some reason they stand out in my memories. I get attached to places and people quite easily but have gotten used to moving on.