Intimations of Spring…an Odyssey

 

The solar calendar still reads winter. The South Georgia almanac says: “Spring.”

* * *

We’re driving on a sandy dirt road somewhere in Atkinson County, Georgia. No map, no GPS, no hurry.

The morning sun casts long shadows through the oaks. A sack of sausage and biscuits sits on the seat between us. Cups of steaming Starbucks are squeezed between our knees.

Without warning Wayne jams on the brakes of his old red pickup truck. It swerves and skids sideways in the soft sandy backroad. It stops just short of the ditch.

“What the…?” I yell. Tiny drops of coffee slosh on my jeans.

“Look,” he shouts. “There, between the oaks.  See ‘em?”

Barely visible through the thick undergrowth a pair of black, accusatory eyes stare at us. We feel like grave robbers, violating the sanctity of a place occupied by ghosts.

“Let’s check it out,” Wayne says.

Wayne is Wayne Morgan, a noted photographer with a country boy’s eye for the unusual. Slightly off-center myself, we make a perfect pair. We slide out of the truck.

An eerie and windless silence of the timeless place greets us. It seems locked in suspended animation of a forgotten past. We walk cautiously up the overgrown driveway while shards of sunlight warm the forest floor. Steam rises, dissipates and slowly disappears.

A derelict structure emerges. Its boards are blanched from years of neglect and decomposition. Peering from it are two hollow and blackened holes, like empty eye sockets in a bleached skull.  The vision adds surrealism to the marred relic.

Gray beards of Spanish moss descend like a mist from the gnarled limbs of the massive water oaks. The setting evokes a gothic sense of foreboding. We gaze in stunned silence at the scene. Nothing moves.

We’re here by chance. Life led the way. Country dirt roads always lead somewhere, even if to nowhere special. ‘Nowhere special’ is where the exceptional is found. Which is our mission…affirmations of Spring. 

Atkinson County is basically nowhere. Little has happened here since Bill Atkinson was governor in 1894. It’s a perfect place to find genuine evidence of spring.

The artifact we see is a ruined vestige of the tenant farming era. A black, moldy velvet sofa sits on the rotting porch. Beer cans and broken glass surround it. The sofa seems to crawl with parasitic tenants, giving the illusion it’s alive. We walk inside by a sagging screen door hanging by its hinges.

Debris litters the floors. Splintered remnants of wooden furniture lie scattered throughout. Broken glass covers the discolored linoleum. The wallpaper, long since faded and green with mildew, appears to melt from the walls.  Nothing of value remains.

We sift through papers yellowed with age. One is a postcard with palm trees, postmarked Daytona Beach.  It’s addressed to Waldo Winslow, Sandy Bottom, Georgia.

Terse and barely legible from water stains, it reads, “I’m not coming back, Waldo. I’m sick and tired of the cold and picking tobacco and cotton. You can take your 80 acres and…”  Nothing more is legible. It’s signed, “Goodbye, your wife, Yolanda.”

“Can’t much blame her, you?” Wayne says. “Must have been a hard life here.  Heck, those palm trees look inviting to me, too.”

“I guess,” I reply feeling a tinge of sorrow for old Waldo. “Wonder what happened to him?”

Through a shattered kitchen window we see a weathered marble tombstone. It’s half-covered by Carolina jasmine vines. He looks at me, “Waldo’s still here. See?”

We walk down the dark hallway and go outside. I pick up an old Prince Albert tobacco can.  It’s closed tightly.  I pry the top open, look at the contents. 

“Wayne, here’s what we’re looking for, right inside this tobacco can,” I say.

In the sunlight we empty the can. Inside are dried daffodils, like the kind found pressed between pages of old books.

“What do you make of this?” Wayne asks.  But he knows, even as I do.

Waldo had saved some daffodils from another time as a reminder that though winter slays, spring resurrects.  They apparently nurtured his hope for better times, and that his fallow fields would soon burst with new life.

“Guess Yolanda wasn’t convinced,” Wayne says, “They don’t compare to palm trees.”

“Let’s give ‘em back to Waldo,” Wayne says. We scatter them on the sunken earth that held his dust beneath the headstone.

“So long, Waldo,” Wayne says, uttering the shortest eulogy in history. He shoves the Prince Albert can into the back pocket of his jeans. We leave.

Wayne’s Nikon shudder clicks, capturing the moment, and we turn and walk back into today. “What did you see?” I ask.

“Look,” he says. Around the base of that wretched skeleton of a house, yellow blossoms of daffodils were bursting forth in the sunlight. “There’s evidence of Spring,” Wayne says.

 * * *

Wayne grinds the gears and the truck lurches forward, speeding down the dirt road to somewhere. It’s a good day to be alive.

 

 Bud Hearn

February 24, 2023

 

 

The Chinese Spy Balloon Spoof

 

Not since Orson Welles’s radio version of War of the Worlds aired in 1938 has such panic ensued with the sighting of a white Chinese balloon overhead. How do we make sense of it? Read on.  

There it was, for days, visible with the naked eye, this white balloon, a gigantic surveillance eye in the sky, causing wide-spread panic and speculation as to its purpose. Old news now.  

But rumors persist. As it passed over the continental US, people fled to fallout shelters, curling up in fetal positions in basements, hiding under tables and beds and putting their heads between their knees and kissing their tooshes goodbye. So ominous was its presence even hard-core Montanan para-military goons cringed in fear, hiding like marmots for shelter under rocks and crevices.

The devout gathered in cemeteries, waiting for graves to open, speculating as to the time for the promised Rapture of the Redeemed where they’d be reunited in paradise with all those washed in the blood, free from slavery, work, all credit card and student loan debt and where Benevolent mercies flowed like Covid stimulus checks.  

In Washington much confusion reigned as the gravity of the situation griped and quashed the nerve and response fibers of all leadership. There was a great clamor in assembling the think tanks for ‘narratives and conversations’ to quell the restless speculation of the populace. Investigative committees were promised. What did this balloon portend? Was its message a warning, a threat, a joke? Explanations are demanded.

The President was called. “I’ll take care of it,” he says. “I’m busy now.” Such assurances from POTUS frightens the jittery public more than the overhead intruder. Chuck and Hakeem were dispatched to retrieve him.  

After a diligent search in Scranton, he was found in the basement of his beach home, shooting marbles with Hunter and cleaning up loose ends by deleting laptop digital trails while twirling rosary beads to keep the Avenging angel at bay.

Meanwhile the nation continued to speculate on this white balloon, this errant blimp, this silent wandering menace in the sky. Questions without answers breed discontent, fear, panic. The country is on edge, demanding answers. For lack of other options, it was suggested that Blimpken cancel his trip as a show of gall at the invasion of airspace.  

Conversations continue. Shoot it down, some say. But life and limb beneath a wide debris field is untenantable. Besides, China says it’s just a harmless, off-the-leash hot air blimp extracting meteorological data, right? So, what to do remains the dilemma du jour.

Some speculated it could have been dispatched to keep the US honest in its pledge to reduce all CO2 emissions after Kerry demanded more money, money, money at the Davos climate conference. China had heard about the ban on gas stoves but doubted the follow-through. Plus, some speculated it had contracted with Elon to map out all EV charging stations promised in the Inflation Reduction Ruse. Last count there was none.

As we know, blimps and dirigibles are filled with gas, hydrogen or helium. It was perhaps looking for a refueling station, but as it drifted over it bypassed DC since the only gas coming out of that Swamp is methane.  

But when the balloon reached the Carolina low country, things changed. This is Geechee country where Edisto River swamps and azaleas set the ambience for laid-back living and where Yankees and uninvited intruders are seldom met anymore with Dobermans and double barrels. Still, everyone in these parts knows you don’t disturb a Saturday afternoon low country boil, not even with a Beijing blimp.  

But here it is, taking its own sweet time looking for an invitation to land. And true to its creed, the Confederacy lives on, and this balloon will get the same thrashing Ft. Sumter did. Take it out, is the cry.

Memory is still fresh in the die-hard minds of some, and respect is still demanded for the remaining spirit of the Confederacy where the faithful have saved their Confederate sawbucks for the anticipated resurrection of REL. So, with the one missile remaining from the depleted Ukraine drain, the menace disintegrates in a puff of smoke over Myrtle Beach before it can dock for an upcoming election conference with the resident of Mar a Lago.  

But the saga is not over, for speculation continues unabated about the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of this egregious trespass. After all, America since 1776 has a long history with balloons and bubbles of all sorts, and speculation is the continued favored gold rush of many seekers of instant wealth. Some win, most lose, others beg for the dole. Until the balloon pops.       

Let’s move on from the white Chinese balloon diversion and the name calling and not get caught up in the impending explosion of the debt ceiling. That balloon will burst on its own. Let’s get down to business and real speculation: will it be the Chiefs or the Eagles, Mahomes or Hurts?

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Put up or shut up.

 

Bud Hearn

February 9, 2023