The events described in this post happened weeks months ago, at a family reunion in Deepest Darkest Mississippi. I've been working off-and-on since then, trying to capture the whole thing to the best of my abilities, but there are still things I've just been unable to articulate to my satisfaction so far, mostly about what it was like to interact with my cousins again (short version: great), and to talk family lore and gain some new insights into how the different pieces of my family fit together and what an odd tapestry it is.
At this point I'm going to quit trying to include my complete thoughts on those subjects in this post, and instead get at least this the main part of the writeup out, lest it languish in LJ's memory for another two months. Pictures and recollections follow.
See, my family is From The South. Like, very From The South.
I was born in Texas, my mom is from Alabama, and my dad is from Mississippi; specifically a place called Yazoo City. The paternal side of my family has been in southern Mississippi for generations, at least back to the early 1800s. To illustrate this, my dad once drove me way down a country road; and by "way down" I mean long and winding, deep into the woodlands, what seemed like miles from the nearest house, let alone anything else. We got out of the car and he led me into a small field, where he showed me an old, worn tombstone, all grown over with grass. Whatever writing had once been there had long since worn away, but he told me "were it not for that, you would not exist". The family legend (and given my parents' love of genealogy and history I've no reason to believe it's not true) is that our ancestors were headed west when an infant, the one buried beneath that stone, died during the trek. Its mother was so stricken with grief that she refused to leave the place where the child was buried, and so there the family settled, and there they've stayed for generations.
The family currently owns about 300 acres, managed jointly by my dad, my uncle Jerry, and Denise, my uncle Mark's widow. The land includes beautiful woodlands (sustainable timber farming being the land's primary use), the farm where my dad and his brothers grew up, and a 200ish year old farmhouse I like to call the Smith Ancestral Home, but which the family simply refers to as "The Place".
Behold The Place:
...and it is at The Place that M and I spent a very unusual (for us) weekend.The Place wasn't always this fixed up. From about 1950 to some time in the mid-00s, though family members lived and still live elsewhere on the property, it was deserted and had fallen into disrepair. To get a sense for the state it was in, one need only look at the old barn behind it:
I believe M's comment upon seeing this was "we... don't have things like this where my family takes vacations...".
Indeed, I think the main thing I took away from the weekend was a sense of the ways in which my family is very special; and I don't mean "special" in that condescending way (well, maybe a little bit that too, but even then it's with love), but really genuinely unusual in an endearing way.
Uncle Jerry, who splits his professional time between managing grocery stores and being a Southern Baptist minister, decided that he wanted everyone in the family to have a sanctuary, a place to call a common home, wherever their individual homes may be. Toward that end he began getting the local family together to spend weekends restoring The Place, and after years of work it now has all the comforts of modern life, by which I mean electricity and running water. It's an odd mix, because aside from the appliances and whatnot, it is still a 200ish year old farmhouse. You can see daylight between the boards of the walls, and I'm told that when it rains, the sound of it hitting the tin roof is deafening.
I feel silly saying it, but it really is a different world. My dad was the oddball who defected to life in the suburbs and the big city, eventually ending up in the San Francisco area, where I was raised; about the least country place there is, culturally speaking. The Place and environs, on the other hand, are... well, they're very, very country. Some of the stereotypes about country life are true, a lot of them aren't, but any way you slice it, rural Mississippi is kind of a different world from Boston or San Francisco. My coastal hippie brethren and I talk about ecology and nature, but they live in it. Nature isn't something you take a day trip to see at The Place, it's what you're in the middle of. ...and yet, I'm the only one who is squicked by hunting. I'm still not really sure how to process that. Similar things could be said of racial diversity, as I saw more non-white people during my trip there than I would in any average month in my little Camberville enclave, but really talking about that and all its implications warrants a whole other post, and probably not one I'm qualified to write.
Suffice it to say most of my family is from that world, and I'm... not. As we grow older, the addition of kids and jobs give the other members of my generation and I even more places to differ, which we do, and yet the nicest thing about the reunion was the reminder it provided that past the surface level, none of that really matters. As corny as it sounds, we're all family, all Smiths, which, weirdly, means there are these core personality traits that most of us share in different combinations, like meals all made in the same kitchen. If I put someone who knew me in a room with my cousins and 20 other people, I'm pretty confident they would be able to figure out who my cousins were, and not just by the accents; they're the ones that are each like me with one element or another of my personality turned up to 11 (think about that for a moment, and be afraid).
I'm not sure how I can convey exactly what the whole trip was like except in vignettes, little snapshot moments that will probably still fail to capture it...
We go to visit some extended relatives of the family. They are an older couple; she is small and seems very practical and down to earth without coming across as cold. He seems jovial and a bit self-deprecating, but I can't tell much more about him because his accent is... strong.
In centuries past, our ancestors had used part of what is now the afore-mentioned relatives' land as a family cemetery. It's about half a mile away, so we prepare to go out and see it. M is offered a seat in the cab of the pickup truck, assumedly in deference to her delicate Yankee nature. My mom, dad and I pile into the bed of the truck. The tiny gray-haired wife, says "I'll take the four-wheeler" as if saying "I think I'll go to the store now", and hops on an ATV, zipping off ahead of us.
We reach the cemetery, a stand of trees with seven or eight 100+ year old tombstones in it. One reads Infant Son; born Jan 11 1853, died Jan 31 1853. I take pictures with my phone, making sure to encode GPS location info into them for future reference. I wonder what it would be like to explain this to my ancestors.
On the way back (by which point M, to her credit, has joined us in the back of the pickup), the truck gets stuck trying to cross a dry riverbed. Our relative is only slightly put out by this. He takes the ATV back to his home and comes back with, well... (If the video is being flaky, you can also click here to watch)
...like you do.
My cousin Matt has taken charge of keeping M and I entertained and ensuring that we have "the full southern experience". We meet up with his wife, his best friend Timmy, Timmy's wife, and Timmy's brother and, after some discussion of our options end up going into Jackson, the nearest big city. This is an hour's drive away. The evening includes seeing an 80s metal cover band called Hairicane, singing karaoke, and on the way home taking M on her first visits to Wal-Mart and Waffle house, both around 3 am (as such visits should be). A wholly worthwhile evening.
We go walking into the woods around The Place. My dad tells stories about how he used to find arrowheads all over the area, that they'd wash up whenever the rain eroded a layer of soil. We pass camouflaged stands where people hide when hunting deer. We reach "the crick", a peaceful little stream that crosses the trails at several points. Matt tells us about how when he wants to get away from it all (which strikes me as an odd notion, since from my perspective he lives away from it all in the first place) he brings a folding chair out here, sets it up where the water is ankle-deep, and just chills there.
On Saturday we had the reunion, the main reason I'd come down. Thing is, the Smith family tree is a little bit... lopsided. In addition to me, my mom, my dad, and M, Jerry was there with his wife Rhonda, six kids, and twenty-three grandkids. I became keenly aware of the fact that I am the only person in my generation who doesn't have at least one kid. Most of my cousins are within a few years of my age, and many of my nieces and nephews are around 10. My little brother couldn't make it because he and his wife have just had their second. I feel like I should have commentary, or at least feelings, about being the odd man out here, but I like where I'm at and they all seem to like where they're at, so... that's good? I guess?
The preferred mode of transport around The Place and environs is ATVs. There are three or four of them around at any given time. They're very popular with the kids.
...ok, to be fair, the little ones don't actually get to drive, but every now and then one hears a high-pitched squeal and turns around just in time to see a gaggle of them zoom by in the Polaris (kind of a cross between a golf cart and a Humvee), being driven around at top speed by one of their many uncles, and screaming like they're on their favorite roller coaster.
On a barely related note, M and I dubbed the girl on the right L.B. for "Lil' Bjork", 'cause... seriously, amiright?
There is also a dog. His name is Yoda.
Matt is determined to give M, the poor Yankee girl, the most southern experience possible, so he brings his rifle. Like you do. Matt and M go off into the woods, and five minutes later we hear a shot. M has killed her first wild mattress, which had been menacing a trash pile in a clearing further out. Much rejoicing is had over this.
There's a pond in front of The Place, complete with rowboat, and we finish our visit by taking it out. The pond is still and beautiful. We decide not to indulge in what we're told is a popular use for the boat: shooting turtles with a .45.
(no, this was not taken in Australia. I don't know why LJ thinks this pic is upside down...)
There's so much more to talk about. I know I could try to cover everything, but I also know I'd forget something. And I'll leave M to tell some of the stories, like how she learned to use my grandmother's traditional anti-snake technique and then single-handedly killed a rattlesnake, though sadly not in time to save our poor cousin Herman from a grisly demise. Lest anyone doubt, she kept the rattle as a trophy. Ask her to tell you the tale some time!
This (oddly) is very much like visiting Jon's family in northern Canada. He refers to Alberta as "the Texas of Canada" because they have beef, oil and a lot of guns and cowboy hats, and it's essentially the most conservative province. Of course, "conservative" there means gay marriage, abortion rights and healthcare, but still, the Texas of the north. They don't do much "city girl" stuff with me, especially not after so many years, but otherwise - the extremely large and reproductive family, the farm equipment and atvs, the interesting buildings, the fishing, the shooting, the people who are very different from me in some ways but not in many of the ways that matter... We're headed up there next month for his reunion, actually; I'll probably be thinking about your experiences a lot!
As having been born and raised in Alabama I totally relate to your story and pictures. My family lived in the "metropolitan" city of Dothan. It was the biggest city for nearly an hour's drive and had its own hospital and penut festival every year, at least 15 churches and a super Walmart. But many of my friends lived way out in the country down the dirt roads that didn't have signs. My dad went deer hunting. (Many of my uncles still do) Many of my friends lived in places that remind me of your pictures. ATVs were common, guns were common. Animal body part decorations were common. Dangers such as aligators and poisonous snakes were common dangers. Playing in the Crik, pond, etc were common. Farm animals as part of everyday life in the front and back yard were common. Trailers were very common. (I lived in one for a number of years, My aunt did... my uncle and his family still do) It is hard to talk about growing up and the south as I just don't want to deal with the usual pejorative response. No... not everything is sunshine and roses and there is an aspect to it that is negative and unpleasant. But... then again... I can find that up in New England as well.
Wait, M had never been to a Walmart before? I gotta say, I'm impressed. And a little jealous.
I haven't shared all these experiences, by any means, but this definitely reminds me of interacting with parts of my husband's extended family, in Iowa and now in Biloxi. Reminds me that it's a great big universe and we are really puny.
I had never been to a Walmart before I went to UIowa. They're just not that common on the East coast -- I mean, I knew that they EXISTED, but confused them with Walgreens on somewhat frequent occasion.
One of the advantages to growing up in a military family is the exposure to a lot of different aspects of culture. People around here don't believe me when I talk about what a Walmart is like in Virginia or Alabama. And we're losing our pancake houses and diners around here, and AFAIK, we never had a strong Waffle House presence. I think it might have something to do with the overabundance of ethnic and exotic cuisines that seem to define a major metropolis... with such variety, some of the deep soul comfort foods can be marginalized, because every option is only a small percentage of the whole.
And on the other hand, two or three Southern comfort food restaurants have opened in the past few years (Hungry Mother, M3 in Davis just a couple weeks ago). Upscale, natch, but present.
Wonderful post! I would have LOVED to see M do all those things, and the mental image makes me squee.
Being as much from Missouri as anywhere, I only started to consider myself "from the south" once I moved to Massachusetts and realized how "southern" Missouri is from the perspective of New England and how much I genuinely valued the perspective living there had given me. It is a whole different world there, and it's many charms are hard to see from all the way up here. You did a beautiful job of showing them to us.
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Date: 2012-07-02 02:08 pm (UTC)I haven't shared all these experiences, by any means, but this definitely reminds me of interacting with parts of my husband's extended family, in Iowa and now in Biloxi. Reminds me that it's a great big universe and we are really puny.
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Date: 2012-07-06 02:45 pm (UTC)Being as much from Missouri as anywhere, I only started to consider myself "from the south" once I moved to Massachusetts and realized how "southern" Missouri is from the perspective of New England and how much I genuinely valued the perspective living there had given me. It is a whole different world there, and it's many charms are hard to see from all the way up here. You did a beautiful job of showing them to us.