In this day and age of trips to the moon, instant communication with anyone on the planet via computers, and all the modern inventions and accomplishments, it might seem unreal to know there is someone like me still living…who once attended a one-room school house in a horse and buggy. It’s tantamount to shock and awe when receiving an e-mail or call from my son flying thousands of feet in the air.
There have been many other advanced civilizations, like Atlantis and the Incas. One of my great pleasures is all the programs on the history channel. Entertaining and educational, we can travel back in time with the vivid reenactments of events. To be ignorant of what occurred before we were born leaves a hole in our souls as to what is happening today.
I graduated from high school when I was 17 years old and attended a large county country school most of those years. However, for one season I attended a one-room school house. I had a slew of aunts and uncles, some older and a couple of them younger than me. Some were school teachers.
Here’s another story about my life in the little Northeast Georgia community of Ocee. In the sixties and seventies, the area consisted of mostly abandoned farmlands, yet now it’s thriving and overbuilt with homes and offices. Back then, the neighbors all had land between their homes. Just below the 18 acres I lived on was a working farm, growing an abundance of things, with a large cattle-farming area. It was one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. Rolling hills, grain growing fields, beautiful wooded areas, and pastures of horses and cows grazing.
A country gentleman managed the farm. I was always so impressed by his knowledge and expertise about operating an animal and grain-growing farm. He frequently stopped by my antique shop…always driving a tractor. I never saw him drive a car. His name was Brumbelow, but I called hum Mr. B. He was always so pleasant to talk to. He was illiterate, could not read or write, but so knowledgeable about the practical things in life and a wonderful neighbor that would do anything to help anyone.
One day, one of my other neighbors stopped by and told me Mr. B was in the hospital. When I asked what for, she replied, “ignorance.” I laughed and thought that was so funny, as she was the ignorant one to reply with such an answer. Her comeback referred to his lack of literacy, which did not register with me immediately at the time.
I kept thinking about the remark, and began realizing that in fact ignorance is the very reason any of us become ill and hospitalized, even if we can read and write. Most of the time when we become ill, we do not know what’s wrong with us, what caused it, or how to fix it. So we run to a doctor and frequently he does not know what the problem is, what caused it, or how to fix it. Then doctors commonly misdiagnose and prescribe the wrong medicine. Therefore, we get sick and go to a hospital. When you really think about it, the problem in many cases stems from ignorance.
From time to time, I have reflected back on that incident and conversation with the neighbor and realized she touched a nerve at the core of my ignorance. She caused me to think deeply on the subject of illness and how we’re often ignore about that subject altogether. In retrospect, it proved a great lesson in education for me.
My life has been so varied because all of the different kinds of people I’ve met along the way. For example, living in Japan, playing bridge with members of the Imperial Household, wining and dining with royalty. These experiences were exciting and fascinating, but no more than others, like being friends with Mr. B., whom I admired a great deal because of his harmony with the land and his ability to farm and create from the earth.
Despite the fact that the Nobility of the Japanese Empire was fascinating for me to have a peak into, I understood it had only been 5 years prior to that time in which they ventured from behind the walls and mote. One partner I played with was in her eighties and often wondered what life must have been like living behind castle walls all those years.
I believe education is simply an acquisition of knowledge, regardless of where it comes from. It could be in a classroom, or stem from an old illiterate farmer.
And in this connection, I believe there are so many ‘octogenarians’ out there with so much knowledge about so many things which should be shared with the generations following them. I invite you to use this wonderful medium of communication—the Internet–to express some of your ideas. Think about it and try it.
Let Freedom Ring!
From time to time, I’ll write about a time between the late sixties and mid-seventies, when I lived in the country in a little community just above Atlanta, called Ocee. This was just a small community with a country store, church, school, scattered neighbors, with me and my family in the center. It was actually near the town of Alpharetta, surrounded by two other communities called Lick Skillet and Shake Rag. After being there awhile, some called me the “mayor.”
I had only been there a short time when I flew out to Colorado to take a course in philosophy. When the other students asked me where I was from, and I replied Alpharetta, Georgia, they wanted to know where it was. When I responded that it was between Shake Rag and Lick Skillet, they said they had never heard of it. I replied, “neither had I before moving there.”
I wanted to live some place where I could raise my young son to teach him about things of nature, where he could learn how to be self-sustaining. In this connection, I acquired a few living creatures, namely chickens, pigs, dogs, and a pony for him (when he was just out of the rocking horse phase).
I named all the animals. One rooster I named Marshall Dillon. Two hens were named Bonnie and Clyde. My two dogs, one a collie and the other a German Shepherd, were named Miss Cookie and Taco. The pig was named Arnold, while the parakeet I named Mahatma Ghandai. The pony’s name was Tip-Toe.
After my husband’s military retirement in the sixties, we moved out in the country onto 18 acres. I wanted to learn how to live self-sufficiently. I wanted a garden to grow food, chickens for eggs, and pigs for meat. Despite the fact that I grew up on a farm, I really knew very little about how to do things living in the country.
My neighbor was an airline pilot, and when he came home from flights, he plowed gardens, so I hired him to plow about an acre of soil so I could plant a garden. I planted peas, green beans, corn, squash, okra, tomatoes and a variety of other things. I planted several things down in a furrow that should have been planted up on a mound, and conversely, some things that should have been on top of the mound, I planted in the furrow
At the edge of my rock house was an old country store, over 100 years old. Local farmers would come and spit tobacco sitting around an old potbellied stove. I was not one of the locals from that area and they watched everything I did. They nicknamed me Miss Tomato. They kidded me about planting an upside down garden. After planting my first garden, I took off for a summer session at college. When I returned, my garden had grown, and so had the weeds, but I pulled the weeds back and gathered a few things that survived the absence of care.
When I went to the little store, the locals started asking me for seeds from my garden. I inquired as to why they wanted my seeds, reminding them they were all seasoned farmers and should have their own seeds. They informed me they wanted my seeds because I was the only person they knew that could plant a garden in the spring, do nothing to it, and return in the fall and gather stuff from it. In addition to me being the only person they knew who planted things upside down. I was the local yokel joke. But they were good neighbors and all was done in fun.
Shortly thereafter, the old country store went out of business. I knew nothing about operating a business, but used that old store building to start an antique business I then ran for almost 10 years. I would go to auctions and buy and sell, and had a ball doing it.
The following year I knew a bit more about vegetable gardening, and tended to it and grew an abundance of vegetables. In the summer, I set up a little vegetable stand in front of the store and sold baskets of tomatoes, corn, beans, among other things.
My son was 5 years old at the time and he helped me and followed me around listening while I sold antiques. It wasn’t long before he could mimic what I said and I allowed him to help me sell things. Customers were impressed as they listened to this kid talk.
Continued are other stories about my life living in the country…
Let Freedom Ring!
JUST ME,
AC
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