We are deep in summer now. I can walk outside -- as I just did, with Lola -- before 10 a.m. and feel the hot Georgia sun beating on my head, and hear the thrum of insects. Everything is green, and the flowers are in bloom again due to last week's rain.
A hot day is ahead [91, according to weather.com] and I see no signs of rain today.
That feeling of being outside, in the sun, and hearing those noises, connects me to my childhood, and it connects me to my ancestors. They stood under the hot Georgia sun, decades ago, and thought probably the same type thoughts as me.
Will it rain today? Do I need to water the flowers and the gardens? Should I wear a hat? What should I fix for supper?
I ponder the fact that I am a descendant of generations who have dealt with the Georgia summer, and we all survived, and managed, and taught our children how to cope. Don't go out walking in the middle of the day, if you can help it. Do your chores early, before the heat of the day is the worst. If you have to be out, wear a hat. Drink iced tea or lemonade.
My grandfather used to cool off his children with alcohol rubs at bedtime.
I imagine up north kids get a similar education about how to deal with cold weather.
But there's also this fact. In the heat, when one isn't particularly energetic, we tell stories. We talk about the past. We tell stories we were told by our grannies. We might sing songs that were sung a hundred years ago, or two hundred. I still know all the words to "Yankee Doodle Dandy" which I think I learned around age 5. Mama learned her first song as a toddler -- "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
Historian and author Shelby Foote said "The southern man doesn't live in the past. The past lives in him."
I was telling Mother last night that I used to be so impatient with reading educational materials, once I finished school. I found history deadly dull, at times.
Now, I don't. I take time to read every issue of Georgia Backroads Magazine. I get started watching something on PBS like The Civil War and I am mesmerized and sad, and time has suddenly vanished.
I think about my dad telling me and Bruce about the Civil War battles fought around here. We have seen all the important battlefields in the southeast, and listened to Dad explain the battles with great animation. He read voraciously and most of his reading was history.
I often think about the recent afternoon that I spent with my friend David Moore at Oakland Cemetery and the blog entry I wrote.
David and I talked about the fact that both our dads were longtime members of historical societies and revered history, and when we were young we didn't "get it."(My dad was one of the founders of Historic Augusta.) David's dad, Virlyn Moore, was a leading member of the Atlanta Historical Society and a prominent athlete.
We are all connected, Georgians whose family roots go deep. David's dad played baseball with my grandfather at some point, possibly for the Atlanta Crackers -- the minor league team that was the main source of baseball pride here before the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. Papaw played for them in the early 1930's.
Sometimes when I get too worried about money, or Michael, or the house, or any number of other things, it helps me to remember that I am not facing anything worse than what generations before me faced, and we have endured. My ancestors lived through the Civil War and worse -- reconstruction. Hard times for all Georgians during those years.
Mother and I were both saying yesterday how much we love the photo below, of my grandparents Wilma and Bob Hasty, taken in 1923. They were young and in love and had just gotten married.
Mamaw was born in 1899 to Beulah Phillips Butler, who was born in 1870, just a few years after the civil war. Undoubtedly, Mamaw's grandmother held her and cared for her, and 63 years later Mamaw held me and cared for me. I am awed thinking of that fact, that hands that touched my grandmother belonged to folks who survived the Civil War. We are linked in time.
The past is all around us, and any person who loves history finds themself, at some point in life, realizing how important it is to preserve it. We have to preserve places like Oakland Cemetery, because if we lose that connection we will be truly lost.
We are all connected, all end products of generations who have endured. We will leave our photos and stories and songs behind for future generations, and we owe them a great legacy.
