Beloved Places, Beloved People

Start singing the old Beatles song that begins..."There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed...."

This is a special place to me...It may not look like much but to me...it's something.


My uncle kept his horses here until last year. How many 90 ish folks do you know that still keep horses? His mind?...clear as a bell.


We played in this barn. It belongs to my Uncle Grady, my mother's brother who lives in Blakely, GA. It's so unlike the big city where I grew up; we looked forward to the freedoms that exploring this haven provided for us as children and even now...my children. Look below:


See this "whirlygig"...it's over 60 years old. Uncle Grady didn't buy this...he made it....now I'm not even saying he was handy at all...he probably wasn't. He made this for his children to play on. The girls are sitting on old bicycle seats. It spins around as you pump the pedals. Just good old fashioned fun.


It's beautiful in Blakely no matter what time of year it is.


Most of the time it looks like this (on a rainy day). Fields every where...it's the peanut capital of the world. Where Jif peanut butter was started. My grandfather (Grady, mom and 5 other sibling's father) acquired land during the depression....you see...he was not a farmer...he was a mule trader.


This is the actual "......Mule Company" building. It's still in our family. If you look closely you can barely see the word "mule". My grand father would "rent" his mules to families who wanted to keep farming but couldn't afford the mules. They would pay him in "land". Those families stayed on that land and worked it indefinitely; he insisted.


This is Baby Girl. She moves a lot. I don't know how to stress that enough. Never still...constantly on the go...busy...born that way and we adore it. However, when she was 8 months old, we were visiting my mother in Blakely and Uncle Grady came over for a visit.

He sat down and without prompt or encouragement, she climbed into his lap and sat still for close to 2 hours, acting as if she moved an inch, her heaven would fall.

This is a child that didn't sit still while being held, .......ever......., not on a hip, not on a lap, stood up in every high chair, rolled over and walked way "too" early ...do you get the picture?

What bonds these two? They "get" each other somehow. I have no idea how it happened but, they love each other to this day. He'll be 93 in February. She's 5. Explain that to me.

Whenever we visit, she runs to his chair and sits in his lap... and stays there as long as the visit lasts. He has been shot many times in WWII, pretended he was dead for three days, lying in a ditch with his slain friends while the enemy rummaged through his pockets, and even fought in Battle of the Bulge. He is still the most decorated war veteran in Georgia. Do you think he minds her bounding into his lap?

He wouldn't trade it for the world. Why?
Well...you know...it's all about the heart.