Everyday Hero

Yesterday was all about me. It was my birthday and I got gifts and lunch and dinner with friends and salutations from across the country. I felt so special but am glad birthdays only come once a year because if I had that kind of day too often no one would be able to stand me. I could easily get used to a tiara!

Today wasn't about me at all. Today was about humanity. Helping those in need without a single selfish thought. My best friend from college is a social worker. She has a client who is getting back on his feet after hitting rock bottom. He is a black man a little older than me (you know, 29.5) who had gotten this far in his life before anyone recognized that he had a major mental health problem. He was found living in a run down trailer with no water or power and was sleeping on the floor. Now, after lots of help from my friend and her treatment team, he is stabilized, has a part-time job and just got his own apartment and he's darned excited about his future.

The daughter of a Grady county tobacco farmer, my friend was privately educated through high school and college. She then got her master's degree in social work on her own with a zillion dollars in student loans and more part-time jobs than I can list. As a youngster, she worked on the farm tending livestock until she was big enough to crop tobacco and drive a tractor. This woman is not afraid of work. And she can't leave it at the office.

Today I drove her to Forsyth, Georgia, to pick up a piece of furniture for her client. Last week she had visited a warehouse there that houses a business for the sale of used hotel furniture and accessories and she purchased an item for the client. It was slightly too large to go into her car, so she had to leave it until she could arrange for a larger vehicle. This woman has come running every time I have needed her so naturally I agreed to go with her to get the piece today. On the way up there, she told me all about the client and how genuinely nice he is and how he really wants to work and support himself and be okay. It was clear she cared for him. After all, she gave up another Saturday and enlisted a friend to help. When we got to the warehouse, she gave me the task of looking for some framed artwork because the donated wall decorations he had were too girlie. And he really likes blue. She set out to find a coffee table and other items in his budget that would would be functional and look nice.

I was so touched by the genuine concern my friend has for her client. She wanted to get things for him that were not only functional, but fit his meager decor and personal taste. She wants for him to be successful as well as happy. How wonderful is that? And she is a social worker...one of the most underpaid, under-appreciated over-worked careers out there besides teaching. She is extremely intelligent and could have gone into any career she chose, but my friend decided to dedicate her life to helping others. If everyone in the medical and mental health professions were as dedicated to helping people rather than processing patients, our planet would truly be a healthier, happier place.

I am constantly getting attitude adjustments from my friends and my kids, whether they mean to give them or not. I was so inspired today and realized how selfish I am. I am a teacher and I do care about my students, but I don't drive 400 miles round trip on my days off for them. Nor do I spend chunks of my own cash on faith that they will reimburse me for it. I sincerely hope that her co-workers are also inspired by her and that everyone she works with will strive to be as dedicated and then pass that on. We should all be as fortunate to have a social worker, doctor, mental health care provider or teacher as dedicated as she is. So cheers, Cuzin, and thank you for your selfless spirit and the mostly thankless job you do!

Falling-off Lessons

     The first time I fell off a horse I did not get back on.  I just lay there looking up her nose and she just stood there looking down at me like I was a dumb-ass.  We weren't running or even blazing a rugged trail, she just dipped in a little low spot and I tumbled right over her head and landed flat on my back.  I had been running my mouth and not paying attention.  Subsequent chiropractic examination revealed I had displaced my shoulder blades and several ribs.  Nothing life-threatening but a most uncomfortable lesson in paying attention.

     I wonder if these two strapping young fellas ever fell off their horse. They are my cousins Wiley and Elmo Willis and that is their dad, Albert Reece Willis, who married the daughter of my great-aunt Ellaphair Anderson.  Albert was from Tifton, but his family was living in the area of Glenmora, Louisiana, where he worked in a turpentine camp when this photo was taken in 1919.  Those boys look like they could probably take off on that horse and tear through those woods bareback and barefoot.  Even at their young age they were more than likely responsible for the care of that horse as well as others used for transportation.  And I couldn't even stay on one walking across a sod field.
   

     My daughter has taken several years of riding lessons with several great instructors.  That's her riding Dude (he's a  bona fide cowhorse) while instructor Chuck follows along.  Chuck (a bona fide cowboy) targeted her anxiety by making her fall off the horse and get back on during her very first lesson.  That made lots of sense.  If her biggest fear was falling off, then she should go ahead and get that out of the way so that she could move on.  I think that concept could be applied to many situations.  Lord knows my fear of failure has kept me from trying lots of things.
     Why is it that some people can dive headlong into a project or a relationship or even a new career without a single moment of anxiety, while some of us are paralyzed by the thought alone?  If I had that type of personality I would be making a heap more money and high school would have been way more fun.  But I have been meandering through my life, sticking my toe in the water here and there to make sure it was okay before I committed to taking many swims.  Since my strokes in 2009, I have thought a lot about my life and resolved some things within myself to clear out some mental baggage.  My anxiety about making changes and trying new things is one of the issues I continue to work on.  I have to alter the way I adapt to anything different than what I have gotten used to.  For example, I totally freaked out this Spring when I learned that my teaching position of fifteen years has been eliminated.  I have other certification so it wasn't like I was going to lose my job, but a mental fuse blew at the thought of having to change anything I did at work.  Turns out, this is a good change.  I have gotten bored with my underfunded art position and now face the challenge of organizing a pre-kindergarten classroom and acclimating twenty four-year-olds to a school climate.  It is an adventure that I find myself looking forward to. And the Pre-K department has lots more supply money!
     So from here on I will try to look at each pitfall like my tumble off that horse.  While it may have knocked the wind out of me and left me feeling kind of stupid, it didn't kill me.  I can get back on and keep moseying along.  Sure, there will be other dips in the road and some of them might be dangerous, but I have fallen before and gotten back up.  And even though a horse's muzzle is charming in its own way, the view is much better from the top.

Pre-mid-life Crisis

     Recently, I packed up the kids and trekked down to Wakulla county to the Mt. Elon Baptist Church of Smith Creek to photograph tombstones of my maternal relatives for my family tree.  The day was hot and muggy and the cemetery was covered in grasshoppers and it took right at 10 minutes for the first child to ask, "Are you done yet?"  Using the uber-fabulous Billion Graves iphone application which uploads my headstone photos right to a website, I was done in about 45 minutes.  Had the kids not been with me I might have stayed all day since I was having flashbacks of the family events my mom used to drag us kids to down there. All the Langston relatives were from Smith Creek and I remember playing in some of their yards and sneaking into their kitchens for second helpings of desserts.  But now here they all were together again in this one big churchyard.

     This is Jacob Jonathan Richard Langston who was married to my great grand aunt Laura Langston.  (That also happened to be her maiden name. Shhhhhh.) These are their two oldest daughters, Annie and Elma.  I have no recollection of him, but can remember Grandpa Major mentioning JR frequently.  I sure wish I had paid closer attention to those stories.  I absolutely adore this photo which was taken in 1906 and is in superb condition.  The young family is all dressed up and proud.  Uncle JR is looking away, but gently holding Annie's little hand.  She has huge bows in her hair and both girls have on really nice dresses, however neither has shoes. I have noticed that a lot in these old photos.  The families could borrow fine clothes from the photographer's wagon or wear their own made special for the occasion, but I rarely see anyone with shiny shoes.  Aunt Laura is almost smiling, another rarity in photos of that time.
     I vividly recall attending Aunt Laura's 100th birthday celebration in  1982.  I was in the ninth grade and the day before I had managed to borrow a jacket from a junior that I had an enormous crush on and wandered around sniffing the Polo cologne on it.  I imagine this is the only reason I remember Aunt Laura's birthday!  She died the following winter, just twelve days shy of one hundred and one years old.
     Wow.  Imagine living a century.  That would mean I am not yet middle-aged and looking at spending more years elderly than young.  Yikes.  What in the world would I do with all that time?  I'd have a good thirty-five years of retirement, but they would be arthritic years in which my doctors would constantly harp at me about my weight.  Retirement and Social Security probably wouldn't be worth what they are now, which isn't much, so I'd have to do some kind of other job like baby-sitting or even take in sewing.  That means I need to get my mother to teach me a few things about that now.  Maybe in 20 years I will have finished my family tree and really understand Ancestry.com and people will pay me to do theirs.  Jinkies.  I never really think about planning for the future, but with folks in my family living this long I might better start paying attention in those fringe benefit meetings at school.  And I need to steer my children toward really profitable career paths since one of them will probably have to take me in at some point.  Oh goodness, I forgot about my impending Alzheimer's.  Scratch that odd job plan...I will be lost inside my own house.  Maybe I need to go lie down before all this gives me a heart attack and I don't make it to fifty!

Soul Food

So it wasn't the Greek vacation I have been pining for, but I sure enjoyed my two days on the Forgotten Coast. I knew I was way past due for a break when I got down there and had left the key to the condo back at home. Thank goodness the contractor was coming to finish up on Monday and had the spare key! If we had come home to get mine, I would have just stayed here and I believe that would have been really bad for my soul.

My College BFF also happens to be a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. How blessed am I? There I was, fit to be tied after four weeks of being home all day with Sammy and in the dumps about my love life and anxious about all sorts of other things out of my control. And then I got two days of professional counseling from one of the most intelligent people in my life...with no co-pay. The timing couldn't have been better.

I'm a talker. And I don't mind sharing my weird little thoughts and all my opinions with my besties. This drives my mother crazy. She would be just as content if she didn't see or speak to another person for a week. She doesn't understand my need for interaction and girl-talk. "It's not like y'all are solving the world's problems." My friends don't live far from me and I see most of them frequently, but I can still have hour-long phone conversations with any of them on any given day. And no, we don't solve the problems of the world. But we vent frustrations, share how-tos, listen to each others' perspectives, gripe about kids and the price of gas and yes, okay, there may be a little gossip going on. It feeds our need for a sense of camaraderie. And it saves our sanity. One of my friends had been nudging me to do something about the demise of my most recent relationship and then this one arrived to help me process it and move on. How utterly perfect is that? (Pun most definitely intended.)

The Lord puts people in our lives for a reason. Some are passers-by and some grow roots. We may not realize what some have taught us until they have moved on and we may see our blessings from others each day. Either way, we are enriched by the friendships we create and the familial relationships that we foster. I count my friends with my blessings each day. And I truly hope that I am as much of a blessing to them as they are to me. This weekend was full of porch time and meaningful conversation and I have come home feeling relieved of some emotional baggage. The salty Gulf breeze, steady hum of trawlers and wise and gentle counsel of a dear friend was food for my soul. Thanks, Cuzin!

Land-locked

I haven't left home in a year. Sure, I have been to the grocery store and run over to Tallahassee for appointments and of course to work but I haven't Left Home...as in Gone Away. And it is high time I did. My home on the farm is a wonderful place and I am in it as much as possible, but I have dug my overnight bag out from way back in the closet and I am packing for a lazy weekend at the coast. My best friend from college is on her way down to pick me up and we are going to do a whole lot of nothing for two days. No cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, no "mama, come see if you can fit in THIS fort!"

I used to treat myself to a cruise weekend once a year and it was good for my soul. Turning over my little ones to my mom and going off for some guilt-free me time got easier every year and broke the monotony of single-momhood. Kept my sights on the horizon, too. But lately I have become quite mentally land-locked, seeing only as far ahead as what to cook for supper and worrying about what trouble Sam can get into between the two ponds. It's time to go elsewhere and look at the sunset over something other than a field of peanuts.

If I am feeling this way, I imagine my kids are, too, so I think a family vacation is in order for the Fall. I am going to plan that....when I get back.

Walking My Talk

If life is a series of tests, then this one is my mid-term exam. Yesterday I got my heart broken. Yep, broke right down the middle. It had been cracked for some time and I knew it wouldn't hold very much longer, but that didn't keep me from hanging on. Hanging on and feeling like an idiot. But a couple of people in my life saw that, too, and rubbed my nose in it and challenged me to do something about it before I fell into the pathetic loser category. No, they didn't actually say that, but it had been looping through my mind like a breaking news ticker for a couple of months.

I will not trash the man because I love him dearly. I know that in time those feelings will turn to something else, but for now my evil-ex-girlfriend behavior is limited to juvenile photo manipulation. (That was surprisingly liberating, by the way.) He is not a bad guy and I don't think for a minute he set out to hurt me. But he did. Failing to hold up his end of the bargain hurt me. He should have told me long ago he wanted out as opposed to stringing me along with excuses. But whatever. Can't go back. Sam Walton is nagging at me in that clipped, nasal Yankee voice of his: "You gotta walk your talk."

It is easy to write down my thoughts about the world and lessons I have learned. It is easy to cheer others on and support their endeavors to stand up for themselves and take something positive away from their bad situations. It is easy to tell my daughter that she should be a strong woman and not let anyone take her for granted. It is not as easy to practice what I preach. Change scares me and I settle easily into what is comfortable whether it is working for me or not. And that is not the behavior I should be modelling for my impressionable teenage daughter. She saw what was happening before I had the courage to admit it to myself. About a month ago she even told me not to complain unless I was planning on doing something about it. Damn. Maybe she should be the mom.

But she was right. Mama didn't raise me this way. She is the "get over it" queen and would be appalled that I have stood for this for so long. No, I didn't tell my mama my relationship had headed south because I didn't want to hear what she would have to say...the truth. "You teach people how to treat you." (Mom is a Dr. Phil-aholic.)

So after a good night's sleep and some earnest prayer I am up this morning doing what I tell others to do...finding what good has come out of my bad situation. Looking for the lesson. Counting my blessings. I am grateful that my children have not witnessed a nasty break-up. We just kind of fell apart and I didn't get the memo that it was over. There was no yelling and screaming or tearful dish-throwing tantrum. Hell, he may not even know I finally quit him! I am grateful for the really good year that we did have. We vacationed with the kids, he literally held my hand all the way through my stroke trauma, we supported each other as single parents, helping out with kids and listening to each other's woes. We were very good for each other. Both teams agree on that. I guess some people don't know what to do with a good thing when they have it. I am grateful for having experienced true romance. I didn't date in high school and college wasn't much better. My only other relationships were two bad ones that resulted in children that I am raising by myself. This time I was showered with affection, got flowers, went on real dates, was called darlin' and had someone holding my hand in public. Those might be little things to romance veterans, but they were huge to me and I really miss them. There's the lesson. Now I know what I want.

I will not let this harden my heart and I will not be bitter. I will not be one of those women who lump men into a big pile of lowered expectations. This experience has not been all bad and now that I know what it feels like to be in a good relationship I will look forward to another. It still hurts and I will throw myself into a project to keep my mind off of it, but in time I will be back out there. Now, where is that other picture of us....

Life Is (Always) Good

I am a survivor. Through the grace of God and a bit of my own self-determination I have been delivered from some bad situations. Most recently I am a stroke survivor, having had two mini-strokes in December of 2009. Not knowing the signs of stroke caused me to dismiss the first one as a case of dehydration, but there was no mistaking the second. I lost control of my right arm and had no sensation in it for several hours. My speech was slurred and I had a blinding headache. Cat scan and MRI revealed the evidence of what had happened and other procedures found the cause to be a hole in the back of my heart that was just large enough to allow blood to pool and clot. I was lucky. The permanent damage is minimal and the condition is treatable, but the effect on my life has been huge.

My first thought when I lost the use of my arm was, "How am I going to fit this into my life?" It wasn't, "Why is this happening to me?" I immediately went into survival mode and mentally made plans to live with a paralyzed arm. My mama's motto is "get over it" and she can't tolerate anyone who chooses to languish in misery if there is something they can do about it. I guess some of that rubbed off, because as terrified as I was I didn't get to the self-pity stage or even experience the depression that is common after stroke. I experienced fear because my dad has had several strokes and has been severely debilitated by them and I am a single parent. My children and their welfare were my biggest concerns.

I now live with a shark in the water. That can be a source of great anxiety if I let it, but my doctors have assured me that I am on the best stroke prevention medication protocol currently available and that, combined with a reduced-stress liefestyle, should allow me to live stroke-free for the rest of my days. There it is....reduced-stress lifestyle. I had a teenager and a pre-schooler and was single-handedly managing a household while working full-time and they were telling me to reduce stress. Oh, boy. Something had to give. I couldn't give away my kids, marriage wasn't happening and I had to work full-time. The only changes I could make immediately were on the inside.

When tragedy struck my heart called out and people came running. Dear friends stayed with me in the hospital while my mom and others managed my children. Even after I got home, people were still diligently checking on me and taking care of things so I could recover and life could return to normal. A new kind of normal. The love and concern that had been showered on me and the kids was amazing. We go through life interacting with others regularly but often don't have any idea how we feel about each other. And we take so much for granted. I had gotten out of the habit of counting my blessings each day. I have so much to be thankful for and this medical emergency was a big fat reminder of it. The first step in my stress-reduction program was to acknowledge all that I had to live for.

Living a grateful life is not hard and by its nature will reduce stress. When we acknowledge all the good things we already have, we are less inclined to worry too much about having more. More things, more associates, more activity, more status and a myriad of other pseudo-blessings that our culture and media tell us we should want to have. I already had a wonderful place to live, two healthy children, good relationships with immediate family, close friendships, a little romance and a car that cranked every time. Everything required for happy living. And now I am so grateful for it. I thank God for all of it every day. Since that dark day in December the sunrise reflecting off the cow barn is brighter, the moonlight reflecting off the silo is sweeter and I love that noisy rooster more than ever. I notice more of the little things and let a lot of the bigger things slide. Of course I still get edgy and my daughter says Grouchy is my middle name, but that is a natural reaction to the stresses that still exist, especially at bill-paying time. But I am not chasing my tail trying to keep up with the Joneses...who are they, anyway? I am enjoying my children while I can as I know college isn't that far off and I have begun to resolve things that nag at my spirit. I have become painfully aware of how short our lives really are and that they can end or even turn for the worse without notice. There is no time for the drama on which so much energy gets wasted.

There is a merchandiser called Life Is Good and they have some really cute items depicting the simple pleasures in life. I have one of their bumper stickers somewhere. But I have noticed that a lot of people use the sentiment only to express when things are going their way. Having looked into the abyss of permanent paralysis or even death due to stroke, I am here to tell you that life is always good. Consider the alternative. Situations get bad, but life is always good. We can take something good away from even the most horrible situations if we try. We can find a blessing anywhere if we look for one. We all have bad days and it is tempting to ask if things can get any worse. Yes, yes they can. But with the love of the people in our lives we get through them and life is very good. Always.

Shutterbugs

I come from a long line of photography enthusiasts. When starting this project I came across a lot of old family photos including quite a few of my grandparents as younger folks and even one of my grandmother at five years old. There were a lot of pictures of my mom and her siblings as children as well as old tin-types of her grandparents. All of these are black and white photographs. Except for Aunt Fay's. Her real name was Grace, but somewhere along the line I believe she became Fay because some grandchild literally couldn't say Grace. Sometime in the mid-forties she bought a camera that used color film, so I have some delightful color photos of my mom and her brother in Aunt Fay's garden.

This is Aunt Fay on a fishing trip in 1948.  I have no memories of her at all, although I do remember where her house used to be out on Thomasville Road, right before you get to Ox Bottom.  My Aunt Kathryn lived on Ox Bottom so I always got reminded of Aunt Fay's house before we passed it.  It was a huge old two-story plantation style home and I always wanted to see the inside.

My grandmother, Fay's sister Margaret, also lived in a huge house.  Hers was three stories and is still standing on St. Francis Street.  A law firm bought and restored it to its original grandeur several years ago.  Grandma ran a boarding house there, but I only remember Mr. Earhardt who lived on the second floor.  He was nice and I remember sitting on the front steps with him talking about how mean my cousin Jim was.  He helped me put my Barbie's head back on after Jim pulled it off.  Funny the things we remember.

This is my mother and her older brother Pat in Fay's garden in 1948.  My brother Pat is named after mom's brother.  He and his family live down in Wakulla and lately our paths only cross at funerals.  I adore this photo of them.  Mom looks just like me and my brother and it is in color!  My grandmother also took quite a few photos so we have bunches of my handsome grandfather.  My brother and I have had cameras since we were in middle school.  Mom always sent us off to my dad's for the summer with a small camera that used the 110 film.  We were uptown back then.
No occasion can happen without someone taking pictures.  My daughter and my brother both have an appreciation for photography as an art form.  Sara even uses photo enhancement applications to deck out her pictures for sharing with friends.  Pat likes to take nature photos and can make something as simple as an okra blossom a work of art.  This penchant for pictures has served our family well.  Our immediate family history is well-documented.  I am amazed at the countless photos I have of just my two children.  I really wish I had more photos from my father's side of the family.  I am sure there are a few shutterbugs among them as well.  I just have to go find them.

Independents Day

My family celebrated the 200th anniversary of American Independence doing what we loved most - camping on St. George Island, Florida. Thirty-five years later I spent the day home with Sam while Sara had a full day of work in Greensboro. We tried to figure out why our new cheap pool won't hold water and built three forts throughout the house, but keeping busy didn't keep me from feeling sorry for myself. In fact, I could have been crowned Queen of the Fourth of July Pity Party Parade. Holidays remind of how lonely I am....or think I am. I am usually a positive person, but celebration days sometimes get me down. See, I always wanted a great big happy family full of grandparents and parents and a heap of siblings....like the Waltons that I used to watch on television. And now that I am studying the family history and discovering that some of my great-greats had 10 or even 18 children I almost feel like a failure.

I remember when I was younger mama used to pile us into the car and we would go celebrate with folks at big gatherings like Aunt Laura's 100th birthday or the Kyles' 50th wedding anniversary. And there would be lots of folks there that we would only see at such events. My mom's parents are gone now and since she and dad divorced when Pat and I were really young we didn't really get to spend much time with his side of family. So it is pretty much just us now. And considering his business and other commitments it is amazing we see each other as often as we do.

So I started this day in a big old self-pitying funk. How awful. The rest of the country was celebrating its independence with family-filled cook-outs and beach trips and all sorts of other fantastic family happenings I thought of that were anything but the solitary misery I was in. I was almost dreading going back to Greensboro to get Sara and see the fireworks from my friend's yard. But I did it, with a fat black rain cloud following the whole way.

When I arrived at my friend's house, I got a phone call from another friend who was in worse shape than I was. Having spent the whole day at a cook-out with his large family he was fit to be tied. The arguing, the yelling, the finger-pointing. What a horrible holiday. He wished he had just stayed home. Another friend soon texted me that she was threatening to pack up her kids and leave her family's holiday vacation. She just couldn't take the family drama another minute. I said a silent prayer of apology for my self-pity. I had been reminded to be careful what I wished for. As much as I think I want a huge family, I also know it can be a double-edged sword. More cooks in the kitchen. More flies on the wall.

When I got off the phone, my daughter was helping move horses to pasture away from the fireworks so Sam and I pitched in and got ready to feed up. As soon as he and Sara rode off with the buckets the bottom fell out. I was stuck in the barn while a fairly heavy rain fell. The steady hum of the rain on the tin barn and the mist blowing in through the stalls was refreshing and I just stood there and absorbed it. About that time Sara dropped Sam off and the fireworks began despite the weather. Sam took off to dance in the field and I watched him from the barn as he jumped for joy with each colorful explosion. He was having the time of his life in that downpour. At that moment I realized again that I am always right where I am supposed to be. This evening my daughter was forced to face her weather anxiety head-on and was so proud of herself and my son had a fireworks experience I know he will never forget. And I got to watch it all, uninterrupted. No one asking for condiments, no one gossiping about another, no one complaining. Just me and my kids...our little family.

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.