There were several large sections of Morningside and Virginia-Highland where multiple homes were demolished in anticipation of I-485. Some of these have been transformed into popular community parks. Exploring the inventive playscapes in these parks was, for my daughter, one of the highlights of every visit to Atlanta when she was growing up.
The most extensive of these once-vacant areas is on Virginia Avenue, across from Inman School (formerly Elementary, now Middle), where eleven houses were torn down to make way for a highway interchange. The land remained scrubby and untended for many years. In 1988 it became John Howell Memorial Park, named for a Virginia-Highland resident who helped lead the fight against I-485 and who died from complications of HIV. Along the Virginia Avenue entrance stand eleven granite piers (modeled on those on St. Louis Place and elsewhere in the neighborhood), each bearing a plaque with an address of one of the lost homes. Appealing landscaping, a children’s playground and a sandy area for volleyball guarantee that the park is always lively.
One section of John Howell Park has become the Cunard Memorial Playground. In the summer of 2003, a sudden blinding thunderstorm stopped evening rush hour traffic throughout the city. A huge oak tree, its roots weakened, fell across North Highland diagonally onto the SUV of a young family, killing Lisa Cunard and her two sons, Max, age three and Owen, just six months old. Her husband, Brad, who had been driving, survived physically unharmed. The parents had just picked up Max from preschool, and Lisa was riding in the back seat, as she usually did, to be closer to her boys. Firefighters from that old Virginia-Highland station rushed across the street, ready to extricate victims and perform CPR, but it was too late.
My daughter and I were in Atlanta during the tragedy. When the storm hit, with violent force, we were stuck in the car with my parents along another tree-lined road not far away. Atlanta’s trees are majestic and many, but they can also be a threat. Our vulnerability, as lightning struck all around us, was imminently clear. The ride home was slow-going and nerve-wracking, but we were lucky; we made it. That night we heard the news about the Cunard family, who had been so terribly, horribly, heart-breakingly unlucky.
D has a particular fondness for the Cunard Playground. Like many Atlantans, we both feel a connection to the family, because we remember that hideous night so well. I knew the tree that fell; I knew the house in front of which it had stood. We had been in that exact spot many times.
The playscapes at the Cunard include easy-going toddler attractions and some especially ingenious contraptions for older kids. I don’t have the words to describe these latter creations; I’ve never encountered such things before. As if to emphasize the need to live this short life to the fullest, they are apparently intended for determined daredevils. D has always referred to this park as the “spinny” park because it’s possible there to spin round and round, at varying speeds, in a crazy variety of ways. When she urges me to have a go on one of these whirling oddities, I know I’m a real grown-up, because I’m sure that immediate nausea would follow. I also know I would have loved all these inventively twirling things, just as D does, when I was a kid. My husband has tried them, and even he must admit that he also is an adult.
The Cunard Playground was, like the defeat of I-485, a remarkable community effort. The grieving friends, family and neighbors of the Cunard family joined together to ensure that this loving mother and her two boys, so very young, will be remembered in a vital and meaningful way. The playground is a unique and fitting memorial, an exultant space that Max and Owen would, no doubt, have cherished.
D and her friend who introduced us to the Cunard Memorial Playground.
A quiet, briefly non-spinning moment.I used to enjoy cutting and pasting so my one daughter would become two. Every day when she was young, though, I was thankful that she was not twins. Here, she attempts the spinning circle, twice.
Our most recent Atlanta visit, of course, included a visit to the spinny park.
This thing is one of D’s favorites. I don’t really get it.
St. Louis Place, a typical street in Virginia-Higland
Virginia-Highland took a bit longer than Morningside to get back on its feet after our neighborhoods succeeded in stopping the superhighway. A substantial section of Virginia Avenue had been decimated to make way for a highway interchange. The destruction had taken its toll on the surrounding homes that survived, many just barely.
In my early teen years, Virginia-Highland was old-school, no-frills and decidedly untrendy. When we filmed a Super-8 movie for a school project, the neighborhood stood in for a sleepy fictitious Kansas town, quaint but down on its luck. There were vintage barbershops and gas stations, untouched since the 40s, family-owned grocery, drug and hardware stores, and the city’s oldest operational fire station, built in 1925 in the bungalow style like many of the homes around it. Some of the proprietors wore overalls and spoke with accents now associated only with deepest South Georgia. The two burger and beer taverns, Moe’s and Joe’s and George’s, which opened respectively in 1947 and 1961, were not yet hip. (My father appreciated both places when he first arrived in town and rented a room on Ponce de Leon. Mama and I spent that summer with my grandparents in Kentucky while Daddy looked for more permanent digs). I didn’t enter either bar until I was in college, but the predominantly elderly good old boys inside could be seen in the neon gleam of the Pabst Blue Ribbon signs.
The revitalization of Virginia-Highland (according to my, perhaps flawed recollection), began with the opening of Taco Mac at the intersection of Virginia and Highland in 1979. It started as a cheap spot for beer and Buffalo wings. In its first incarnation, its décor recalled a fraternity house rec room, all plywood and bad lighting. But for the first time in years, a younger crowd began pouring into the area. College kids from Emory and Georgia Tech found Taco Mac and then discovered the dingy ironic charm of Moe’s & Joe’s and George’s. On weekend nights the crowds in Virginia-Highland rivaled those along Peachtree in Buckhead.
My daughter caught her reflection in the door as she took this photo of one of her favorite VA-Highland boutiques.
These days, the area is healthier and busier than ever, at all hours. The cost of gentrification, of course, was the loss of many of the old mom-and pop stores that had served the area during the decades when it limped along. Still, the neighborhood remains a mix of the affordable and the aspirational. Highland Hardware, which began as a hardware store with a great woodworking section, evolved into Highland Woodworking, a specialized mecca for expert woodworkers. Jimmy Carter has been a regular patron of both. Now, if you’re not an expert of any kind, and you simply need a hammer, the nearby Intown Ace Hardware will happily sell you one.
In the clothing, accessory and home goods stores, my daughter and I enjoy browsing the interesting array of items, and occasionally she finds a great little something she can afford with her own money. But we are not really big shoppers, and when we do shop, we like bargains. Virginia-Highland isn’t the place for bargains. It’s not the actual merchandise that draws us. What we particularly appreciate in these boutiques is their fanciful atmosphere and their imaginative decoration of unique old architectural spaces. Owners tend to be fun, funky and welcoming, to humans and their dogs. There’s usually a furry friend snoozing peacefully beneath a sales table or behind the counter. It’s good to know Kiko would be welcome, should we ever get him to Atlanta.
D and I were sad to see that Mooncake had closed when we returned this year. An especially charming shop, it was mentioned in one of D’s favorite books, Peace, Love and Baby Ducks, by the Atlanta author Lauren Myracle. Mama bought me a pair of my favorite earrings here, silver disks resembling manhole covers, stamped NYC Sewer.
Virginia-Highland is known for its wide variety of restaurant choices. Atkins Park (which dates from 1922 and is Atlanta’s oldest operating tavern) caters to a diverse crowd by managing to be simultaneously up-and downscale. A boisterous crowd enjoys the front bar area, while elegant comfort food is served in a quieter, classic restaurant setting in the back. Highland Tap, a fixture since the 80s, follows suit. Depending upon the mood of the patrons and the hour of the evening, the subterranean space may feel like a loud college bar or an urbane steak eatery. At Blind Willie’s, it’s possible to get basic food and listen to world-class blues and folk music. And for traditionalists and hipsters alike, Moe’s & Joe’s and George’s remain vital. These two spots have changed very little in appearance, other than the addition of flat-screen TVs (and a much younger wait-staff). My parents join my daughter and me for lunch at George’s each year after our boutique walk. I find it reassuring that there are some things in my fast-moving hometown that don’t change, at least for a few decades.
This original Morningside home was never in jeopardy. While larger than most of the 1930s-era houses, its Tudor style is typical.
Morningside recovered quickly after the defeat of I-485. Homes that had languished unoccupied for seven years sold at relatively high prices. Construction soon began on new, bigger houses on the vacant lots we had come to view as common property. This was the only drawback to the resolution of the conflict. My friends, my dog Popi and I had become accustomed to having the run of these quirky recreational areas during the day. The decaying houses were in a constant state of flux, offering new discoveries with every visit. A steady stream of odd objects and eye-opening reading material was left behind by other visitors. Vagrants obviously used the houses occasionally for drinking and sleeping, but they were almost always gone by daylight.
We loved the chaotic wildness of the overgrown lots, where we picked blackberries and flowers, gathered hickory nuts and cut holly in the winter for Christmas wreaths. We appreciated the accelerated pace with which Nature was reclaiming its space—the sturdy oak saplings that forced their way up through cracks in concrete patios, the ivy that pushed through crevices around windows to flourish in drafty old bedrooms. We roamed so freely among the ruins that we had begun to see it as our right.
Nevertheless we were respectful, not destructive, although we often confronted the appalling vandalism of others. Sometimes we found charred floorboards where fires had been set. Mantelpieces and chandeliers were ripped out and stolen. Windows and bathroom fixtures were smashed, purely for fun. We had known many of the former residents; we had been guests in these homes. A cloud of memories swirled around me each time we set foot in the house where my friend Deborah had lived. We had played together there before the road became a threat. I remembered the kitchen, where we shared after-school snacks, as cozy and inviting. It was now ill-used and desolate, its remaining appliances wrenched from the walls. Graffiti streaked across the ceiling of her former bedroom. Her family had been forced out early in the fight. I wondered where they had gone. How bitter was it for them to know that they had been uprooted for no reason?
On our street, where no houses had been condemned or torn down for the highway, many owners began renovations that they had put on hold. Building permit signs were hammered into front yards and the first of a long parade of Porta-Potties appeared (the ultimate in-town status symbol). Our family embarked in earnest on removing the applied veneer of the early 1960s (linoleum tile, gold carpets, faux wood-grain wallpaper) that masked classic elements of our house. Morningside, its future at last assured, was on the up and up.
Another of Morningside’s grander original homes, built in the Spanish Colonial style. While it dates from the 1930s, it has had several successive renovations.
The sun hits the eaves of one of Morningside’s smaller, more-typically sized homes.
During our time in Atlanta, my daughter and I usually spend part of one day browsing the eclectic shops of the Virginia-Highland neighborhood. Developed in the early 1900s as a “streetcar suburb,” with trolley lines to downtown, Virginia-Highland is now one of the city’s most inviting and vibrant sections. It wasn’t always this way.
When we moved to Atlanta in the late-60s, many such in-town neighborhoods were, to varying degrees, down at the heels. We found an affordable house in Morningside, which adjoins Virginia-Highland. Most Morningside homes dated from the 1930s. Small but well-built, many resembled English cottages. It was a neighborhood with great bones, but a bit tired and frayed. It had the look of a place whose heyday had passed. Most of our neighbors were elderly; Mama and Daddy were among the few young kids. Many homes were behind on routine maintenance. As anyone with a renovator’s soul and an affinity for hard work recognizes, this is the time to buy. Things will get better, my parents reasoned, and they would be instrumental in the upswing.
The original marker denoting the boundary of the Lenox Park section of Morningside.
Virginia-Highland was shabbier at the time than Morningside; it was older and had had more time to slide into dishevelment. Both neighborhoods were haunted, now and then, by the ghost of a rumor that a highway was being considered in the area. My parents, and others new to the area, decided to regard it as neither likely nor imminent. But in the years to follow, the threat became all too vivid.
The temper of the times was changing. Fear of inner city crime was mounting. The conflicts over school desegregation never turned violent in Atlanta as they did in some cities, but they prompted more homeowners to sell and flee to the suburbs. Older neighborhoods like ours were increasingly branded by state officials as futureless pockets of urban decay. What Progress required, according to the Georgia Highway Department, was a multi-lane freeway to whisk city workers safely home in the evenings to suburban promised lands. The highway, named I-485, would cut a frighteningly large swath through the hearts of Morningside and Virginia-Highland. The ghost was real, and it meant business.
Almost immediately, the state began a fierce program of land reclamation to prepare for the road. Many elderly owners were frightened into accepting low offers for their properties, which were quickly razed or left to deteriorate, unprotected from nature and vandals. It was heart-renching when the moving vans arrived and the slow exodus of boxed-up belongings began. It was heartbreaking when the “Condemned” signs were posted. There were a few brave owners, however, who refused to leave, even under threat of legal action. Some of these determined residents remained in the homes they had built, even as they seemed poised to tumble down around them.
A Morningside garden angel, in prayer.
I-485 appeared unstoppable once the demolition machines were roaring. It could easily have been declared a lost cause. But a coalition to oppose the road had taken root, and like those who refused to move, this group wasn’t afraid to persevere. Several young Morningside mothers, including Mary Davis and Barbara Ray, who were parents of my friends, played a crucial role in countering the conflict. Energetic and zealous, they rallied their friends and neighbors. They formed the Morningside-Lenox Park Association specifically to fight the road. They explored various legal angles and kept working even as other groups lost hope. There were several points when it looked as though the fight was unwinnable. But each time they persisted; these women did not give up. After a while, some of the most pessimistic among us began to glimpse the possibility that together, perhaps, we might triumph. And if we didn’t, it was certainly worth our best effort. As the coalition gained in strength and numbers, the tide gradually began to turn. After several years of closely fought legal battles and imaginative grass-roots efforts, the freeway was stopped.
At first it was hard to believe that we had won. We had lived with the fight, and with uncertainty, for so long, but now it was history. The reality of relief set in. Thanks to five fiercely determined young mothers, our homes and neighborhoods were safe. Now it was time to start the clean-up. We would be here for a while.
A late-June visit to Atlanta has kept me from writing for nearly two weeks. I’m still attempting to swim against the strong current that is the accumulation of life’s daily minutiae after a vacation. I’m distracted by tasks I can’t quite seem to finish—laundry, bill-paying, preparation for Vacation Bible School at our church, the ongoing need to assemble yet another meal. Can it really be time to start dinner again? How is that possible? The dog fluff is collecting like tumbleweed under all the chairs, even though Kiko was at the kennel (Puppy Camp, we like to say) for the week. For now I will ignore the dust and debris, the disordered jumble of papers on my desk. I have a free hour or two while D is at a tennis lesson, so I will try to turn my thoughts to Wild Trumpet Vine.
Every year, shortly after school is out, D and I allot a week for visiting my parents. In past summers, our travels South have been marked by excruciatingly long airport delays: at the gate, on board, then back in the airport after deboarding due to sustained bad weather or mechanical problems. At this point we have lost all hope of ever flying anywhere. (See Fun with Air Travel, October 2011.) Planning for the usual unpleasant eventualities, we left early in the day, to allow a big buffer zone.
On this trip, astoundingly, all went exactly as it should have. If we had spent any more time leisurely munching our breakfast sandwiches in the tranquility of Dulles Airport, we would have missed our flight. When we made our way to the gate, nearly all our fellow passengers had vanished. It was beyond our wildest dreams that boarding would begin on time, as it was that the plane would take off immediately, as it did. We rejoiced in our good fortune, and in a perfectly uneventful flight.
In an earlier post (Fun with Ground Transportation, October 2011) I noted the difficulties that typically arise when my parents pick us up at the airport. There is the conundrum of locating the car in the ever-expanding parking areas of Hartsfield-Jackson, followed by stressful negotiating of the ticket booths, capped off by an alarmingly speedy drive home through Atlanta traffic. I also said that on my next visit I would opt for MARTA, the city’s rapid transit system. And so, this time, we did.
Another midtown view from the Park.
The day of our arrival marked the beginning of another heat wave, with the temperature in Atlanta on track to reach 105. Thankfully, the train station adjoins the airport, so we were able to postpone our foray into the oppressive heat. I am befuddled by ticket machines at transit stations; they always seem to be unnecessarily complicated. If I could confront those many buttons and questions in the privacy of my home, I would surely figure it all out, but in the hubbub of the station, I have some trouble. Fortunately D, like her father, excels at such puzzles, and with her expert guidance we quickly purchased two reusable Breeze cards. The train was cool and not especially crowded. The stops clicked by at a brisk pace: East Point, Lakewood, West End, etc. Mama and Daddy picked us up at the Arts Center, just a few miles from their house. The quick ride back was notable for its lack of cringe-inducing near brushes with death. MARTA is definitely the way to go.
H usually joins us for one weekend during our trip. To avoid taking a day off work, he generally schedules an evening flight. We have been picking him up at the Arts Center now for many years. He has finally learned to avoid provoking the ire of occasionally testy and sometimes drunken late-night MARTA passengers by not sitting, transfixed by his Blackberry, with his legs perhaps too outstretched or suitcase a tad too much in the aisle. His flight and train ride, like ours, were easy, on time and without incident.
The next morning, H’s parents called to check on us, their voices worried: Were we OK? Did we get held up by the storms? Did any trees fall on our house? We hadn’t watched the news or glanced at the newspaper, and so we knew nothing about the sudden monster winds that blew down trees and power lines across the mid-Atlantic. Incredibly, we had managed to get out of town before the storm hit. Our Virginia neighborhood, we soon learned, had been without electricity at that point for about 15 hours. Power in our area would be restored after almost three days, but many others suffered far longer. Lots of trees fell nearby, but none hit our house or did major damage in our neighborhood.
We experienced the suffocating heat in Atlanta, but only in short, bearable blasts as we hurried from car to house or other chilled interior. The parking garage at the Lindbergh Target, for example (where we went to buy my parents yet another DVD player—they are serial killers of these gadgets) felt like a furnace, but we had no need to linger there. Mama and Daddy, having spent the first portion of their lives without AC, now enthusiastically embrace a cool home environment. D and I typically have to forage in the attic for old sweaters and winter housecoats in order to be comfortable.
A week later, when I returned home to the task of discarding every last item in our refrigerator, it bordered on the enjoyable, so thankful was I that we had not been in Virginia to melt slowly along with our food. For those of you who were, I’m sorry for your misery.
My husband’s grandfather was “Grandpa,” so his father became “Grandpa” to our daughter. H’s mother was happy to be “Grandma.” For four years D was the only grandchild on H’s side of the family, so she received especially big doses of love and attention from Grandpa and Grandma.
Both sets of grandparents visited regularly during our daughter’s early years. She excitedly awaited their arrival each time, and no matter how long they stayed, she was sad to see them go. Here she gets a hug from Grandpa before they drive back to Rochester.
Grandpa might well have an advanced degree in Absurdist Theatre. He gladly goes to great lengths for a laugh, and his antics earned him the nickname “Crazy Grandpa” from D. As is evident here, he never minded being decked out for comic effect. The scattered toys are evidence of a full day of play.
One spring Grandpa and Grandma arrived with a toy cash register as a gift for D. It had a scanner and a microphone for price checks. All day long, Grandpa and D priced items and conferred via microphone: Price check on kumquats. Is that kumquats with wings or without? With fur or without? D never tired of Grandpa’s nonsensical questions and replies. When D outgrew the cash register, we passed it on to her younger cousins so Grandpa could continue to enjoy it.
An exercise that never failed to produce smiles was Grandpa’s comic mis-reading of D’s storybooks.
Crazy Grandpa, appropriately, is a master of crazy faces. This talent is much esteemed by our daughter, although one time he went too far. He began with a mildly crazy face, but he allowed it to morph into a truly demented face, so much so that D burst into tears and ran from the room. That taught Grandpa where to draw the line, and he never made her cry with his craziness again.
Grandpa abandons his crazy persona when necessary. Here, he is a proud grandfather as well as father of the bride at his daughter’s wedding rehearsal. D was overjoyed to be the flower girl in her aunt’s wedding, and her little cousin was an adroit ring bearer.
Dominos with Grandma and Grandpa, on our old back porch.
Grandpa and Grandma are always up for a board game. When I very much needed to catch up with laundry or some other daily chore, they graciously filled my daughter’s days with Hi Ho! Cheerio, Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, checkers, Chinese checkers and Jenga. There were card games, too. Grandpa’s banter is hilarious during Uno. He constantly accuses Grandma of cheating, and of course Grandma would never cheat, not in any game. Uno remains a rainy-day staple when we’re together at Cape Cod. Grandma, according to Grandpa, is still up to her nefarious schemes.
D is clearly hatching her plan to imprison Grandpa in her playhouse, visible in the background.
Every once in a while, even Grandpa and Grandma suffered game fatigue. When this happened, Grandpa might dip further into his store of craziness. D, of course, never flagged when she was face-to-face with a fellow playmate who possessed a flair for the ridiculous. One afternoon following many games, D lured Grandpa into her brightly colored playhouse. I had come to look upon that playhouse with dread, as it was the site of interminable tea parties on the long days when she and I were alone. Tea would end, and I was on the verge of escape, but then it was time for a pretend dinner, and breakfast followed immediately. Suddenly we would be in the midst of reenacting scenes from The Little Mermaid. I got awfully weary of being Ariel’s father, especially in the confines of that playhouse.
Grandpa, however, was unaware that the house was actually a cheerful-looking prison. He never even knew he was a captive. He amused D by surreptitiously tossing stuffed animals on the roof of the house, using a variety of odd voices to exclaim “I think I heard something on the rruff! Did you hear something on the rruff?” As Grandpa understands, sophisticated comedy usually isn’t required to get laughs from a young granddaughter. He also knew, or at least hoped, that he’d get a short nap in before dinner.
D agrees with her Grandpa and her Daddy that the most wonderful place in the world is outside our little rental cottages at Cape Cod. Our annual vacations at the Cape are one of the highlights of summer. When D was young, she looked forward to the nights when H and I would go out to dinner alone, because that meant a full evening with Grandpa and Grandma in their cottage. It meant making unusual creations with the new Play-Doh fun factory that arrived with them each year. It meant games, imaginative drawings, good snacks and Grandpa cooking chicken on the grill. Sometimes it meant looking for shooting stars out at Herring Cove Beach. Needless to say, H and I always enjoyed the free babysitting by such an enthusiastic and experienced duo.
D still treasures her evenings with Grandpa and Grandma in Cape Cod. And every morning upon waking, the first thing she does is look out her window. If Grandpa is there, settled in his beach chair, gazing out at the bay, all is indeed right with the world.
Our daughter is extremely fortunate that she has two sets of loving grandparents who are actively involved in her life. H’s parents and mine were already retired when D was born, and while neither pair lives nearby, they have always been eager to step in and help when asked. I sure needed them during that hectic first month of D’s life. My parents took the first two-week shift, assisting with cooking, household chores and baby care. H’s took the second, and I was very grateful.
I got a late start at married life, and my parents had almost given up the hope of cuddling a grandchild. They never nagged or made comments to that effect, but when D was born, they were elated. My father is a big fan of babies, and all babies love him. It’s hard to imagine a happier grandfather. He just couldn’t get enough of his little granddaughter. Couldn’t hold her enough, look at her enough, or compliment her enough. He always made it clear that she was absolutely, hands-down, the prettiest, smartest, most amazing baby ever. Except for me, of course.
One of our first major outings with my parents and D was a trip to Mount Vernon when she was about five months old. My husband and my father each wanted to be the one to carry her, to bask in her sweet baby glory. Here, they pretend briefly, for the photo, that they are willing to share her.
These old blocks were some of D’s favorite early toys. They were mine as a child, so Daddy had many prior years of architectural practice. At this age, D was not much of a builder, but she found pronounced enjoyment in banging one block against another or any hard surface. Soon she discovered that knocking down Papa’s carefully constructed creations brought much satisfaction. He didn’t care, as long as he got to sit with her, hug her and look at her. He has a real talent for simply enjoying his granddaughter in all that she does.
Here, we were in Atlanta to celebrate D’s first birthday. Daddy may have been giving her some sage grandfatherly advice: if you have to fight, always get in the first punch. She appears to be paying close attention. It was about this time that she decided to call my father “Papa.” My parents and I had lobbied for “Grandaddy,” but she would have none of it. During this period she was beginning to say many words, and she tended to speak with an air of surprising gravitas. She fixed my father with a stern look and declared forcefully, “Papa!” Then she turned to my mother, who was dead set on not being “Granny” or “Grandma.” She had hoped to steer D toward saying “Grandmama,” but again, NO. D ordained, with confidence and finality, that she would be “Nana.”
At Bald Head Island in North Carolina, Papa was so excited to be at the ocean for the first time with D that he almost let his shoes float out to sea with the tide. He loved holding her as the sand rushed out from under her feet, a completely novel sensation. One of Papa’s most appealing traits is his joy in seeing the world through the eyes of a child. When he was with his little granddaughter, he seemed to relish the wonders of the everyday as much as she did.
While my parents have minimal interest in board games or cards, they put in many hours of elaborate pretend play with D. She especially enjoyed playing school. My mother was the teacher, D was the ideal pupil, and Daddy channeled a mischevious, smart-mouthed little boy he called “Mean Harold.” Harold had no respect for authority and behaved outlandishly, much to D’s delight. Left alone with his toddler granddaughter, Papa often became a sort of surrogate sibling. They alternated between playing together contentedly and squabbling about some perceived slight. Each took quick offense at an unwelcome tone of voice. They told on each other. And then they were best of friends again. When she occasionally expressed a wish for a brother or sister, I reminded her that she had Papa.
The photo above was taken at Stone Mountain (the world’s largest exposed lump of granite) near Atlanta, on a typically sweltering July day. For their granddaughter’s sake, Papa and Nana endured an especially full day at the park. We all rode the cable car to the top of the mountain, explored the wide, rounded summit, where we discovered pools of brine shrimp (better known to some of us as Sea Monkeys), took a slow, hot ride on the riverboat, and finally, toured the antique car museum. The price of a granddaughter’s giggles may be exhaustion, but Papa and Nana were willing to pay, then, and many times since.
D and Papa in Atlanta at my parents’ church. Papa is never prouder than when his granddaughter is with him at church. For her part, D realizes how blessed she is to call him Papa. And every once in a while, she still calls him Mean Harold.
My husband was a reluctant father. Had it been his choice, he might be childless now. He wasn’t certain that children were a crucial part of marital happiness. I was convinced that they were, and I remained resolute. When he saw that he had no choice except to cut and run, he came around to my way of thinking. He would be the first now to admit that he was wrong. All during my pregnancy, he was an enthusiastic, caring father-to-be. And from the first moment he saw his daughter, he was smitten. At that point he became a vigilant father. He never let our baby out of his sight at the hospital. Two newborns had been switched a month earlier somewhere in Virginia, and he was determined that we get home with our baby. When a nurse wondered if our daughter’s inconsolable wails might be due to hunger pains, H gave her the supplemental bottle in the nursery. He was there at the nurse’s side for the first bath, and he changed the first diaper.
We chose our townhouse because it was affordable and less than a mile from H’s office. For the first few months H came home around mid-day for hands-on time with D. During her first week of life, it appeared that she was intent on blinding herself with her tiny, perfectly formed fingernails. H promptly went to Babys ‘R Us and came back with preemie gowns with fold-over pouches on the sleeves to cover her nails. Unlike many fathers, he almost enjoyed the endless rounds of shopping for baby gear.
When D was about two months old, H began a Saturday-morning tradition that endures to this day. He would pack up our baby in her car carrier, load up the stroller, shoulder the pastel-colored diaper bag and take her out with him for breakfast. It gave me a welcome break. By the weekend, as a new mother, I was often near the end of my rope. (See New Motherhood, An Uphill Climb, January 2012.) My husband got the chance to have his little girl to himself. He loved carrying D through the mall, watching her gaze wide-eyed at all the fascinating sights such as lights and people. He loved being seen with his beautiful baby girl. He thought her especially cute during the time when her fine fluff of blond hair stuck straight up like the crest of a baby bird, just like his did at that age.
H typically worked (and still works) long hours. For several years when D was young, H spent four days a week in Cleveland. The only “up” side of this was his accumulation of enough airline and hotel miles to get us a nice week each winter at some spot in the Caribbean. Because he was away most of the week, Saturday morning became sacred father-daughter time. D declined Friday-night sleepovers and Saturday playdates because they interfered with her breakfast with Daddy. As she grew older, they added a follow-up activity. They might try a new park or shop for a cool toy or gadget (remote-control car, water-balloon launcher, science kit) they could enjoy together. Occasionally they’d go to Dulles or Reagan Airport to watch the planes take off and land. Sometimes they’d ride Metro and let serendipity be their guide, deciding at the spur of the moment which stops beckoned. Sometimes they simply got out of one train car and jumped back on another before the doors closed. They would return from these trips excited at having discovered a great German pastry shop in Georgetown or a wild, enchanted-looking chasm at the Courthouse station.
Typically, after breakfast these days, H and D go exploring off the beaten track. They might follow new trails through the woods or take their bikes on the train and ride around little-known parts of DC. Just last week they managed to get up to a rooftop restaurant with their bikes in tow. They have been known to hike the overgrown areas under highway overpasses. H enjoys showing our daughter that any place, no matter how seemingly ordinary, becomes interesting upon closer examination. At any random highway exit, wonders worth noting may be revealed if one simply looks.
In our daughter, H got the adventurous, dare-devil child he had hoped for. Several years ago, D was yearning for the thrills of a roller coaster, so they went to Six Flags and rode all the biggest rides. When she wanted to try Go-Karts, he gladly took her, even though it meant driving to Maryland. On the rare times when I’m away for the weekend, H plans a Saturday chock-full of action. One such day began at IHOP and concluded ten hours later at the Manassas Speedway. My father was sufficiently impressed with the number of activities they tackled that he wrote them all down.
Before the roller coasters, there were lots of merry-go-rounds.
My husband’s favorite outdoor activity, by far, is windsurfing. He has been passionate about the sport since he first tried it as a teenager at a Cape Cod pond. But because we don’t live in a prime windsurfing spot, his actual time out on the water is usually limited to vacations. He has high hopes for D to become his windsurfing buddy, and she may not disappoint him. Our Caribbean trips have allowed her to try it under idyllic conditions. She is certainly her Daddy’s buddy when it comes to other water adventures. At Cape Cod, they may rise at dawn and head to the icy water of the ocean to ride the waves on boogie boards. They share a fierce love of water parks, and the steeper the slide, the higher the drop, the better.
H windsurfing at Cape Cod.
D’s first time up on the board.
H and D both love going fast over water, whether it’s flowing or frozen. Having grown up in Rochester, H is an expert on snow and snow-related activities. He finds the ideal sledding spots, and he makes sure we are equipped at all times with a variety of sleds. Much to D’s delight, her father is a skilled builder of intricately tunneled snow forts and gargantuan snowmen. My appreciation of snow is more aesthetic, and I quickly got my fill of playing in it with D when she was young and H was away. To me, the ordeal of getting her into her snowsuit was mentally and physically exhausting. To H, it was simply the necessary groundwork, paving the way for fun.
Lucky for me, H was home on this snowy day.
Snow-tubing with Daddy. I went on this excursion, and it proved to be exhilarating. Growing up in Atlanta, I didn’t know the thrill of good sledding.
Skiing, of course, is another of H’s favorite activities. He started D on the slopes when she was in preschool, and now she’s an accomplished skiier. Once or twice a year, they head out while it’s still dark in order to arrive at a ski resort in Pennsylvania just as it opens. As is the case with the water parks, if at all possible, I remain home with Kiko.
Our daughter is lucky that she has one parent who is still willing to go to great lengths for fun and adventure. The older I get, the more I can relate to my grandfather’s desire to hide away somewhere quiet and read. I was not always this way. I’ve gone to water parks and skiied with H. I briefly considered trying windsurfing, many years ago, in an effort to impress him. As a teenager I was a capable water-skiier, and I still love roller coasters, particularly the tall, smooth, steel ones. But now, the pay-off involved in most of these activities just isn’t worth the preparatory effort, the travel time, or the risk of injury. I admire my husband for many reasons, not the least of which is his continuing faith that a memorable day with his daughter is worth any amount of struggle and strife.
Sightseeing at Cape Cod, near the Highland Light. This is the kind of peaceful outdoor activity in which I like to be included.
My mother’s older brother Bill was very much like my grandfather in physical appearance, temperament and attitude. If our family life is a play, Uncle Bill was the understudy who took over when my grandfather was no longer available. At least that’s the way it seemed to me. My uncle provided a tangible, very real link to Grandaddy.
Uncle Bill, Mama and me at my grandparents’ house in the mid-60s.
By all accounts, my uncle was so like my grandfather that they were often at loggerheads during Bill’s boyhood and teen years. Each was painfully honest in every situation, and this may have proved more of a stumbling block than a stepping stone in their relationship. Bill had little interest in farming. Fortunately for him, his older brother Leland had followed in Grandaddy’s footsteps and taken over the land up by the river. When World War II began, Bill saw it as an opportunity to get off the farm and put a stop to conflict with his father. He enlisted at seventeen, just before Christmas of 1943. We have most of the letters he sent home during his military service. Never overly sentimental, never self-pitying, his early letters border on heartbreaking. They are the writings of a young man who acted too hastily and immediately regretted his decision.
A sad and serious Uncle Bill, age 17, in his first Army photo.
These first letters, sent from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, tell of receiving vaccinations, shoveling snow in blizzard-like conditions, and hoping to join the Air Corps but being eight pounds underweight. Bill lists the various articles of clothing he has been issued, remarking with wonder that it’s more than he’s ever seen before. He asks his family to send some shoe polish, because his boots have stiffened uncomfortably from daily wear in the snow and slush. He also asks for a pencil and a few wire coat hangers. The talk in the barracks, morning and night, was that of homesick young men pining for their loved ones and the lives they had left behind. Most, like Uncle Bill, were from rural areas. They had realized, too late, the simple glory of farm life. In Bill’s words, he “never realized how swell home was, but he sure would like to see it now.” His father, he admits, knew more about the Army than he did. His letters are always signed “Love, Billy.”
He was soon transferred to Fort Gordon-Johnston in Florida for basic training to enter an amphibious brigade. At the end of January 1944, he reports getting $39.55 for his first month of duty. Nearly every letter begins with an apology for not writing sooner, but he seems to have written every few days. He often asks about my mother’s asthma, the progress of the tobacco stripping, and he offers hopes that the crop will bring a good price. A high point about army life, he notes, is access to new movies. He mentions seeing Jack London,Swing Fever and later, Double Indemnity. In one letter he writes that he was “feeling fine, and at times, almost happy, but not quite.”
Bill, a year or so later, looking a bit more upbeat.
As the months ticked by, Bill wrote from increasingly exotic places, although his exact location could not be divulged. From Florida, he went to New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, many small islands in the Phillipines, and then on to Hawaii for training in Underwater Demolition. After his return, he talked of being dropped in the ocean, no land in sight, and no special equipment but a pair of flippers. He and his fellow Frogmen were expected to tread water for six to eight hours as they awaited the ship’s return. The Frogmen were the precursors to the Navy SEALs, and I can only imagine the intensity of other training exercises and actual duties. Bill didn’t talk much about any of that.
The tone of homesick regret is gradually replaced by a sense of wonder at the strange beauty of places he could never have imagined. In the Philippines, he buys a handmade mattress from a local woman, tours a ruined city in a horse-drawn buggy-taxi, attends Saturday night dances on base where the “fine-looking” Spanish and Filippino girls “can jitterbug to put the girls back home to shame.” He discovers an injured cockatoo in the jungle and nurses it back to health. He revels in the abundance of tropical fruit and notes that there is no cigarette shortage in the army, unlike in the States. He is surprised by his ability to work all day, on a ship in the equatorial zone, in temperatures up to 115 degrees, with hardly any ill effects. The miserable poverty of some of the native villages affects him deeply. Hospitalized for a while with “yellow jaundice,” he enjoys the rest, as well as the fluffy pillows. When a fellow patient has a break-down and runs screaming in the halls, he remarks that the jungles will do that to you, after two or three years. He laments not being able to write about the most interesting parts of his days, because such information would be censored. Despite his discretion, in several of his letters a line or two has been neatly cut away.
Some of Uncle Bill’s letters home during his time in the Army.Bill’s Army knife, useful for cutting jungle foliage.
In Bill’s letter of August 16, 1945, news has just broken of Japan’s surrender. The war is officially over. He begins to believe he will return home soon, to the farm he so wanted to leave. After several months in the U.S. occupational forces in Japan, he arrived stateside in the winter of 1946. Like his fellow soldiers lucky enough to return, he was older and wiser, and had a new appreciation for home.
Uncle Bill in the mid-60s with his beagle Ginger, the first of his dogs that I remember.
Bill went to the University of Kentucky on the G. I. bill. His dark hair turned completely silver when he was still in his late 20s, giving him an air of elegant sophistication. My father, seeing Mama with her brother on campus, assumed she was with a handsome professor. Bill was in his 30s when he married a divorced woman with two sons. Margaret was the sister of one of my mother’s childhood friends. Bill never had any biological children, but he was a supportive and caring stepfather.
Mama and Bill were close, and they were alike in many ways. As long as I can remember, Uncle Bill was a big part of my life. He often traveled to Atlanta on business. When it was still a rather grand hotel and hadn’t slipped into seediness, he stayed downtown at the old Henry Grady Hotel. He often had a free evening, and he’d treat my parents and me to a festive dinner, somewhere we wouldn’t ordinarily go. I always looked forward to Uncle Bill’s visits. I loved his dry wit, which was sarcastic and sometimes biting, but never mean-spirited. As a connoisseur of life’s ironic absurdities, he was highly amusing company.
Uncle Bill was empathetic and attuned to the plight of the down-trodden. He was especially soft-hearted when it came to animals. Bill always had a dog, or he cared for someone else’s dog, typically one that would prefer to be Bill’s. When a neighbor’s three-legged lab mix made it clear that he would much rather live with my uncle, his owners passed him on. With Bill, Colonel got several walks each day, plus a long car ride. Colonel loved a ride, so Bill made it part of their routine. During a visit after Colonel’s death and not long before Bill’s own, I went with him on his nightly duty to walk a neighbor’s dog. Bill had noticed that the dog’s owner worked long hours, and he offered to provide an afternoon walk. Before long, this had turned into three daily walks. Bill was retired and dogless at the time, so he was happy to oblige. On the night I went with him, he put his raincoat over his pajamas and we walked down the street to the neighbor’s home. He let us in with his own key, and the woman rose to greet us warmly, from what appeared to be a late-night dinner party. No doubt her guests thought it odd that her dog-walker was a dashing silver-haired seventy-year old in PJs. No doubt they also thought she had lucked into a great deal. Bill never cared if people considered him somewhat eccentric.
Uncle Bill and me at Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire in the 80s.
Bill’s time in the service may have fostered his love of travel. He and Margaret were always setting off for some legendary spot. During my year in England they popped in on several occasions. They were my first visitors when I lived in Cambridge. We ate at the city’s best restaurants and took day-trips to Eton and Windsor Castle. Later in the year, we rented a car and drove up to York over the course of nearly a week. Bill and Margaret went on to Scotland and I returned to London by train. And when I was in England for a month the next year, they came back, too. I can still see the look on Bill’s face when I showed him my tiny, cell-like room in the London House Annex, a dormitory for visiting students.
Uncle Bill died much too soon, at 71. I guess because he was so like my grandfather, I thought we’d have him around for a few more years. He was there for my wedding, but he never got the chance to see my beautiful baby girl. It’s a great consolation, however, to reflect on the many lives that he touched, with his kindness, generosity and humor. And I know that now, he and Grandaddy, two kindred spirits, are enjoying peaceful yet lively good fellowship.
My mother’s father was the only grandfather I knew. Daddy’s Dad had died young, many years before my birth. Mama was the baby of her family, the youngest of five children, and her parents were in their 70s when I was born. I didn’t have much time with Grandaddy, because he died just before I turned six. But he was a warm, powerful, dignified presence, and he left a strong and lasting impression. My grandmother lived on in good health for nearly another 20 years, and through her shared memories and our own, he was very much with us.
Here, in Grandaddy’s lap, I’m about a year old. We’re in the big creaky rocking chair that was a fixture in the kitchen of my grandparents’ farmhouse. The chair was painted white and had red leather upholstery. It reminded me of Santa’s sleigh and carried with it all such pleasant connotations. When I think of Grandaddy, I usually envision him sitting in his rocking chair, reading The National Geographic or The Saturday Evening Post. He was an avid reader. We have some of the beautifully bound books he read as a boy, such as his beloved James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, inscribed with his name in brown ink in a graceful, elegant script. Stories abounded of my young grandfather’s attempts to carve out undisturbed reading time. Avoiding his younger brother Joe required daring and ingenuity, so Grandaddy read in trees, on roofs, in the recesses of various outbuildings, or far out in the fields. His power of concentration was legendary; when he was reading, he was often oblivious to the goings-on around him.
My grandparents were visiting here at our first house in Lexington on the occasion of my second birthday. (Note the gifts of Tinkertoys and a toy gumball machine.) Grandaddy looks a bit bored; no doubt he would have preferred to be home in his rocking chair, reading. But I didn’t notice at the time. I was always completely certain of Grandaddy’s love, which he demonstrated in quiet, unassuming ways. With a heavy pat on the back, he called me his Little Buddy. I was thrilled to be his Little Buddy.
On the day after my party, in Mama’s arms and pouting, I was sad to see my grandparents leave. Grandaddy is dressed for the drive home, wearing his signature summer straw hat. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, stately man, dapperly dressed at all times.
Grandaddy was a farmer. During the Great Depression he had managed, with grit, thrift, determination and some good luck, to keep his two farms solvent. He owned the land around my grandmother’s birthplace, up in the knobs by the river, as well as a large parcel much closer to town. Tobacco was his primary cash crop. Just as tobacco saved much of the South after the Civil War, it got my mother’s family through the lean years of the 1930s. When I was a child, Grandaddy still went out into the fields nearly every day, at least for a short while. He never wore the overalls favored by many farmers of his generation. His neatly pressed everyday uniform consisted of belted khaki pants and a plaid cotton shirt, always worn with the collar buttoned. Clint Eastwood dressed similarly in his film Unforgiven, and the resemblance he bore to Grandaddy was almost eerie.
In this photo, I’m with Grandaddy and my aunt, just back from church. I felt like a big girl when I accompanied my grandparents to Sunday School at the pretty little Methodist church in town. My parents usually met us later for the worship service. Grandaddy’s trusty old Dodge can be seen in the garage that adjoins the smokehouse at the back left.
My grandfather died after a stroke at the age of 79. I remember the pressing crowds at his funeral, the flowers everywhere, my uncles, aunts and cousins milling around, the abundant snacks served continually in a back room at the funeral home. I wore a pale blue dress and black patent Mary-Janes. As I mentioned in an earlier post (Memory, Persistently Disintegrating and Rebuilding, January 2012), I seem to recollect kissing Grandaddy as he lay, as still as a granite monument, in his coffin. The firm iciness of his cheek was a shock. There were many tears, but the atmosphere was not one of abject sadness. Perhaps because my grandfather was, in all things, a man of honor and integrity, there was the sort of comforting satisfaction that attends the close of a fairly long life, well lived. There was the certainty that through this one life, many others had been enriched. We were better for having known and loved him. We would cherish his memory like a treasure, throughout our lives.
Grandaddy’s death marked the end of an era. The big white frame house and its surrounding farmland were sold. My grandmother moved to the center of town, where she had a spacious apartment at the top of another grand old home. I liked her new place, but I felt the loss of the farmhouse and its land very keenly. For years, my dream was to get rich somehow as an adult, return triumphantly and buy it all back. As smaller houses popped up nearby, I fantasized about buying and demolishing them, so the old house could stand once more as it was intended, alone amidst the broad fields.
One day it hit me that those houses, small 1960s ranches, were the well-loved homes of families, just as my grandparents’ house had been. With this realization, the need to get back “what had been ours” became less acute. But ever since the day of the sale, I’ve grappled with the loss of the house and the land. After all these years, I can say that I’ve almost come to terms with it. I’ve grasped the truth that no property is ever truly owned. If we’re lucky, we have the chance to be a steward of a place worth preserving for the future. Still, change is inevitable, and nothing of this earth lasts forever. What really counts is how well we manage our stewardship, how effectively we deal with the changes to come, for our own sakes and for that of the community around us. My grandfather was a thoughtful and caring steward in all that he was given. I try to be a good steward of his memory.
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
