Being Little in the Rural South 

it is a unique sort of thing, experiencing childhood in the country. and not just country like out in a rural area, perhaps with trees and fields and a sparse population density- southern country. what exactly is it that defines Southern Country? obviously the simple explanation is mere location, but that assumption, although in many respects correct, does not even begin to delve into the murky depths of the traits which cause a particular area to be potentially Southern Country. most people who themselves did not spring forth from such a background have the unfortunate tendency to immediately form a mental image including trailer parks, empty beer cans, multitudes of small dirty children clinging to a woman with greasy hair (who would be smoking a cigarette [in that drooping way, about to fall from her lips, but somehow defying gravity; hanging there, even as she yells "Earl! We’s got folks here from town!"]), men named Bubba, and hunting trips. which is all true. but to limit an entire lifestyle to that is to oversimplify it- to make into a two-dimensional drawing something that is, in fact, an intricate, entire world. one which is as brightly colored as anyone’s everyday life. the characters in these scenes are not simply stereotypes, they are real people, with dreams and hate and all the gray areas in between, although their dreams can be as far removed from a suburbanite’s as Ganymede from Earth.

i remember my childhood in pieces. it is as if my memories are a handful of sand i picked up at the seashore- tiny, often irrelevant bits remain heaped in small mounds stretching to the very tips of my fingers, while the true bulk has slipped through, blending back in with a beachful of grains of possibilities. my dreams, sleeping and awake, are often far more tangible to me than the moments of reality i can still cling to that have passed years ago. when i think back on the times i spent with my father when i was little, it is then that i get a real impression of Southern Country life. and that is all i really have- an impression made up of all the separately insignificant moments that i do remember.

i remember being very small, living out in what i would now know to call a rural area, spending hours and days, i suppose, exploring the acres of woods behind our house. there were trails that twisted for miles back there and my brothers and i would make forts in some of the ditches. i was never afraid of getting dirty. bugs were interesting and when we went fishing, worms were ok to touch. my father often took the three of us fishing in the lake that was at the very back reaches of our property.

i don’t think he really had any idea of how to relate to his children. i don’t remember him ever asking me what i wanted, or even what i liked, to do. it was always assumed that we would participate in his activities. therefore, i have memories of fishing- not of any specific time, more generalities: getting my line caught in tree branches when i was casting out, seeing the little orange and yellow bobber jerked under the surface, where it would become a vague brownish dot, this always accompanied by the start of surprise and frantic reeling as i tried with the meager strength of my five or six-year old arms to keep control of the invisible fish. therefore, i have memories of visiting my father after my parents got divorced (where he of course lived way out in the country boonies of south Georgia) and being taken out hunting. i, the now-pacifist, at the age of around nine or so, would go tramping through woods and muddy fields early in the morning, following the camouflaged figure of my father, carrying a 12-gague shotgun. i later carried a rifle. i was a very good shot, although the only things i ever blasted to tiny, unidentifiable pieces were pinecones. for all the times i sat up in a tree, often cold and fairly bored, i never even once shot at anything living. if i saw a squirrel, i would watch it closely, but only observing another living creature- i was completely without the instinct of a true hunter, i suppose. i never got the entire concept of hunting- that we were there to scan the fields (which i did) and kill things (which i knew we were supposed to do, but at the same time, i had no idea).

i have memories of riding around in the back of a pick-up truck with my brothers, while the grown-ups sat in the front, but i cannot remember any specific instances. i have impressions of spanish moss hanging from twisted branches silhouetted at twilight, seen while sitting on a swinging porch chair. impressions of old southern houses, quite huge with peeling white paint and broken floorboards. impressions of muddy gravel roads where the tire ruts are filled with standing water that is completely clouded to resemble an orange-red paint. childhood was a stretch of waiting- for unknown reasons, inexplicable, grown-up things going on, while the kids sat outside or on the porch. all other children were automatic allies, for the simple basis of our similar age. we were thrown together and expected to get along, which we did.

Southern Country is sheds full of half-rusted tools, whose purpose remains forever indiscernible. it is visiting a grandmother who is cooking fried eggplant and pecan pralines with a pasture of cows not too far behind her home. it is wandering along dozens of nameless trails in the woods just because they are there. it is seeing a trailer as the home of a friend. it is playing in a creek and finding minnows amazing. but most of all, it is not noticing any of these things- because they are simply the way things are.