Life Makes Leadership

Sometimes, when spring and summer storms roll through my neck of the woods, a beam of light will shine through and onto me even though it’s still raining… when these momentary breaks in the storm occur I think of my grandmother, Agnes Born.

My grandmother, on my mama’s side of the family, was an exceptional woman. She was the person who would say, out loud, what everybody else was thinking… because of her joyous personality this outspokenness usually produced looks of shock and horror… and then laughter.

Born in the first decade of the 20^th Century, she lived into the 21^st. I often think of the things that in her youth would have seemed almost beyond imagination that came to be, and be seen, over the course of her lifetime. I suppose the same can be said for anyone who lives beyond 90 years.

I am a part of her story and she most certainly is a part of mine.

Granny was a tall woman with charmingly expressive blue eyes that always seemed to have a shimmer of delight in them when she told us stories of her youthful mischievousness. According to her at some point in her life she had a perm put in her hair that went awry and fried her hair and scalp in the process, so she always complained about her hair. Her hair always looked just fine to me.

If you watch movies that depict southern women with a heavy accent you can get an idea of what she sounded like. The truth is though, I’ve never seen an actress speak “southern woman” that quite captured all of the many nuances of my Granny’s spoken words.

She was always happy when she had occasion to get dressed up and leave the house. She called this “goin’ gallivanting”. She would put on a nice dress and fix her hair and the little make-up she wore just so. The earrings and rings she wore were always brilliant and big. She would top all of this off with a hat. Her appearance defined Southern Grace.

She would always ask if her jewelry was “too gaudy” and always got the same answer… “No”.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll share a story to be filed away under the heading of “You can’t pick your family”.

In Georgia, there is an annual ritual that many families have… driving up into the north Georgia Mountains to see the leaves as they change colors in the autumn of the year. In the fall of my junior year of high school my parents took Granny to do this. Roundtrip, it was probably a 4-5 hour ride.

An important note about going anywhere with my father, when he said, “you better go to the bathroom before we leave because we aren’t stopping” … he meant it.

A few hours after they left I went and picked up my girlfriend and brought her back to our house so she could meet my parents and grandmother for the first time.

My girlfriend and I were sitting on the front porch swing as the car pulled into the driveway… in a hurry.

My dad came out of the car walking in a kinda funny way. I refer to this as the “I gotta go trot”.  As he went past us I tried to introduce him, he said “not now son” and kept moving; his butt-cheeks clamped down tighter than Mr. Brown’s hat band.

My mother and Granny by this time were standing next to the car laughing their damn fool heads off at him.

Not to be outdone in the “embarrassing your son department” my mother laughed so hard that she peed on herself… Granny, always one to enjoy a good laugh really howled at this.

Not to be outdone in the “embarrassing your grandson department” Granny peed on herself also.

All my imagined hopes for the first meeting between my girlfriend and family now dashed, I stood… in agony… on the porch not knowing exactly what to do.

Granny saw me standing there with a look of shock on my face. She re-gained her composure… sort of, and gracefully walked over to the porch and up the stairs.

I introduced her and, in a way that only she could, smiled her mischievous smile and said “don’t pay no never mind to us dahlin’… we are all jus’ this side of idiots”.

With that Granny kissed her on the cheek and walked into the house.

A story teller of larger-than-life proportions, what I know of her young life came to me by way of these stories. When I started writing this I jotted down a few quick blurbs to remind myself of the many stories she told me. When I was done I’d filled six pages from top to bottom. Rather than share them all, I’ll share the one she seemed to take the most amusement in recounting.

Her daddy would always put out his clothes for the next day, hanging them from the footboard of the bed. This was so that he could get dressed in the darkness of the early morning hours without disturbing his wife’s sleep.

The young and rascally Agnes would crawl up to the bed in the middle of the night, retrieve her daddy’s pants, and then retreat back to her room. She then proceeded to sew closed the bottom of the pants legs, giggling all the while.

Once the seamstress was done, she would then sneak the pants back to their place on the footboard.

A few hours later her still half asleep father would get up in the dark, grab his pants and stick his leg into one of the pants legs expecting to put his foot back on the ground, he instead would lose his balance and fall to the floor.

She told us she could her him holler out “Mamie, Agnes has done it again”.

I imagine her father, with time to heal his bumps and bruises, probably got a kick out of his daughter’s foolishness. I know I would have.

Granny used to tell me that she wanted to be a nurse when she was a young girl, but her parents didn’t approve of the idea. Apparently the thought of their daughter seeing people in a state of nakedness affronted their senses. In those days when your parents said no to something you didn’t question it.

Life would, in its own way, give her an opportunity to take care of others in ways that even the most steadfast of nurses doesn’t get.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agnes Jeanette Viola Harris married Claude Stinson Born in 1928, together they had five children; Marianne, Shirley, Claude Jr. (Bubba), Eleanor (my mother) and June.

My grandfather worked as a supervisor at the King Plow Company in Atlanta and was also a Minister… his nickname was “Buck”.

Granny was a stay at home mother and wife. I do not believe that at any point in her life she was ever wealthy, well-to-do or perhaps even comfortable. She was however almost always happy. No matter what trials life gave her she always seemed able to muster a mischievous smile.

I only have one very faint memory of my mama’s father; he died just before my third birthday.

After my grandfather passed away, my Granny moved into a house on Kelly Lake Road. She lived there with her son Claude Jr. for many years.

My Granny’s next store neighbor, and best friend, was my father’s Aunt Madeline. She lived there with her husband Jake. Jake was a large man who always seemed to be in a bad mood. I asked my father once why he was always so grumpy; my dad explained “it was the result of having half his stomach torn out by exploding shrapnel on December 7^th, 1941”. I generally avoided Uncle Jake… in hind sight I wish I hadn’t.

During the day, while Uncle Jake was at work, Aunt Madeline would visit with Granny. The two of them took turns telling each other funny stories; they always seemed to be laughing.

Neither of them had been treated kindly by fate. Granny was a widow at an early age…  Aunt Madeline loved a man who suffered terrible physical pain all the remaining days of his life… after surviving a day he never spoke of.

One thing is for certain, Granny loved people… especially family, to come over and visit. In the south this is known as “having company over”.

When you walked into her home there were certain things you could count on. Laughter would fill the place and the smell of wonderful food was always present.

On the wall, across from the settee (southern for couch), two pictures and two paintings would be present. I do not remember the exact order of them, but my grandfather’s picture was there, a picture of my Uncle Claude Jr., a painting of Jesus and last but certainly not least was a painting, on black velvet of course, of Elvis Pressley.

Down south we just say Elvis, there is no need to say the last name; everybody down here knows there is only one of him.

The radio was almost always on, tuned into some good ol’ timey Gospel… the T.V., competing with the radio, was almost always on too and tuned to some good ol’ timey preachin’. When mixed with the talking and laughter, you had to pay close attention to keep things straight.

My mama’s brother would be in his rocking chair, moving back and forth usually in rhythm with the music.

I imagine you all may be thinking it was chaotic, but trust me, it was a wonderful home.

My parents sold our house when I was in first grade, but hadn’t found a new one yet, so during my second grade year we all crammed into Granny’s house.

Each night when it was time for bed, she would go from the front of the house to the back and turn off lights, radios and the T.V.

Then you’d hear her tell my Uncle “10 o’clock, close eyes, shut mouth, go to sleep, Jesus loves you and so does your mama”… and with that the house grew quiet.

When I was young Granny used to ask me if I had any candy to give her… when I said no she would wrap my face up in her hands and say “I’ll get me somethin’ jus’ as sweet” and proceed to plant a big ol’ kiss right square on my lips.

As you might expect, as a little boy, I wasn’t too thrilled by all of that and would wipe away her kisses from my mouth using the next best thing to a napkin, my forearm.

Granny got a kick outta that and would let out a big and loud laugh. She never seemed to tire of the ritual.

When we were little she called ALL of her grandkids “Bunny Squirrel”.

I have met very few people in my life who have been as stubborn as me. I may have inherited this quality from my mama’s brother. If they gave awards for such things I am pretty sure he would have been crowned the Champion of Stubborn for Georgia and at least three other southern states. I would have been a distant second, at best.

My Uncle Claude Jr. was called by three names, Bubba Born, Bubba, or Bub. I am guessing he stood about 6’3” and weighed in at about 250 pounds or so.

I mentioned earlier that my Granny wanted to be a nurse, but her parents wouldn’t let her. Life gave Granny a son who would depend on her for everything, all day and every day for his entire life.

Bubba had the mental capacity of perhaps a two or three year old child.

She constantly fawned over him, making sure first and foremost that he was taken care of; everything else came second to that one thing. When she was away from him she always seemed uncomfortable until she got back home to him.

She talked and sang to Bubba all the time. I have always thought that she was trying to find the right words to release the chains that bound his mind. Bubba only spoke a few words, so the conversations they had were one-sided.

The words I remember Bubba saying were: Mama, Home, Ice cream, Pookie (a little girl who gave him a Valentine’s Day Card when he was young) Power, Blood (from the gospel song Power in the Blood) and “Chicken Butt”.

My Uncle Bubba always has his eyes on his mama, when she would tell one of her stories and laugh, he would laugh too. His smile encompassed his whole face; his eyes would get the same glint that his mama’s had.

In those few brief moments when Bubba laughed I think my Granny got the same feeling I do when the sun breaks through the clouds of a storm. For her, those few seconds of connection must have made all of the sacrifice worth it.

Once, I got a frantic call from my mother… it seems that she had driven to pick up Granny and Bubba to take them to my oldest brothers house.

All was well until they got to Randall’s house where everybody tried for 20 minutes to get Bubba out of the car. He had planted himself in the middle of the backseat and wouldn’t budge. All of their pleas were met with a single word… “Home”.

I told my mom to just leave him alone and I would be on my way in a few minutes. When I got there, they were all still standing around the car, heads stuck into the doors, pleading with Bubba to come inside.

I walked up and could see the frustration on everybody’s face. I asked them to all go inside and leave me and Bubba alone.

I climbed into the back seat with Bubba and sat there. I didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then I started to get out of the car and said “Bubba, you wanna go in the house and get some ice cream?” … he nearly knocked me over getting through the door into my brother’s house.

When Bubba was around you had to guard your tea glass (sweet tea of course). If he caught you unaware he would walk over and grab it … once the drink reached his lips, three grown men couldn’t have gotten it away from him with a pry bar; when I tell you he drank every last drop without stopping, I mean every last drop.

He once got a hold of a two liter bottle of Sprite. Now, I don’t know if you have ever tried to drink a 12 ounce can of cold Sprite all at once… I have and couldn’t do it. Bubba drank two liters of the stuff without stopping to breathe.

Bubba died of a massive brain stem stroke in 1997; He was 63 years old, Granny was 88.

I had always thought that she lived… and derived her strength to live on… because he did and that when Bubba died she would soon follow him. I was wrong.

All of my life I’d never heard her lament about anything but, after Bubba died, when she thought of him she would say “Poor ol’ Bubba Born”.

The once bright light that emanated from her eyes was forever diminished, but, for the rest of her life she still mustered those mischievous smiles when she heard something funny.

Just imagine what it must have been like on that November day in 2001 when Granny and Bubba met again, both freed of their earthly bonds, sound of both body and mind.

I wonder what they must talk about… My guess is they laugh a lot.

I miss her candy kisses. If she were still here I wouldn’t wipe away her “sugga”.

Granny’s example of finding those moments of sunshine, even when the clouds of life are heaviest with rain, have often acted as a compass that guided me when storms gathered.

The next time a rain storm gives way to the sunshine I hope you’ll think of her… or someone in your life… and smile a mischievous smile… and then… get on with it.

Until next time then,

“Bunny Squirrel”

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Originally posted in 2013

 

 

       

Tormented by grey hair and ever-deepening furrowed lines above our brows as we grow older, my two brothers and I seem to more and more resemble each other; in our days of youthful wonder you may not have believed we were spooned from the same kettle.

Our father was a handsome man, his olive complexion, square jaw, black hair and blue eyes stood in contrast to our mother’s fair skin, softly cleft chin, honey blonde hair and brown eyes so dark her pupils are barely perceivable, she was  a natural-born beauty… together they were an attractive couple. Through some combination or another of our parent’s genetic pools, three sons in four years, all different in physical appearance, came into this world.

My oldest brother Randall’s hair was nearly white and straight as a freshly milled board, black horned-rimmed glasses sat on his fair-skinned nose and starkly framed his sea green eyes. David, fifteen months my elder, had curly and brilliantly auburn hair and blue eyes, freckles the color of his hair scattered across his checks and nose in contrast to his fair skin. I got my mom’s chin, my dad’s darker complexion, my light brown hair, with a prominent cow-lick jutting from the front, was usually streaked by the sun.

Our dad gave us each a nick-name; “Cotton-Top”, “Red”, and me, well I had two… “Stan the Man”, the other… “Shorty”… I don’t know if this was because I was the youngest of the three or if it was because I was as stubborn as my granddaddy’s old mule… his name was “Shorty” too; having spent some time in reflection about this, and considering David and I were pretty much the same size, I believe it was more than likely the latter.

Our mother called us by our names, sorta… Randall was called “Randall”, David was “Randall David” and I was “Randall David Stan”

My cousin Alan, three months younger than me and nearly always with us, rounded out the “Four Musketeers” as we fancied ourselves. Mama called him “Randall David Stan Alan”.

Every three or four weeks, usually before we went to visit somebody, these four heads of hair had to be cut; at some point in time my father decided it was cheaper to buy clippers and borrow mama’s scissors and do the job himself.

A chair was placed in the middle of the living room, its polished hardwood floors were easier to clean up after the carnage I suppose. One by one we waited for the inevitable. Once you agreed that you understood the warning to “sit still or your head will look lopsided”, an old towel was draped over your shoulders and around your neck; this was held tightly in place and closed by a clothes pin… following another reminder of the previously understood warning the hum of the clippers could be heard; all hope of escaping, hair intact, ended when the first swipe was made.

Mama decided who got what hairstyle among her three sons; I guess my Aunt Liz told her brother, the Uncle-slash-barber, what Alan would get. The other three seemed to always get the much preferred “pineapple” (a little longer on the top, crew cut on the side); since I had the clump of hair in the front of my head that jutted straight up and wouldn’t lay down flat, no matter how much “mama spit” was applied to it, got a crew cut.

In the days when America was torn apart over the war in Viet Nam, the division of beliefs was sometimes identified by long or short hair; there was little doubt about where my family stood. Democracy ended at the front door and choices about what was good for us were left to the adults. Pleas to “please, please, please let my hair grow out like the other kids” fell on deaf ears. This was how things were done.

At some point in our young lives we each received a small Basset pocket knife. The small, shiny knife didn’t have a sharp edge on any of its three blades; there was a bottle opener, a nail file and a small cutting blade with a dull rounded edge… We calculated its uses were limited to pulling splinters and such out of your fingers, digging in the dirt or slicing through blades of grass or bugs. This all changed when one of us figured out that if you pulled all three blades out, to various degrees, you could effectively create a 3-pronged treble-hook. A long piece of string tied through the hole in the back-end made for a convenient way to retrieve it after you threw it at something.

In those days we hunted for anything that we supposed could be handled by a bunch of little boys. Ants and little brown wood scorpions were common prey until one day someone had the bright idea to hurl our knives at a wasp’s nests.

The inanimate knife didn’t really get much response from the wasps other than to cause a few to buzz out a foot or so and then return back to the hive; more than a few, of the unfortunate sort, met an untimely and unforeseen death, skewered by our 3-pronged dealers of death.

We would harass the wasps until we got tired of chucking our knives at them, something else better presented itself or the nest fell to the ground. Happily, none of us ever got stung, our knives with the long string attached, kept us at a safe distance. We had no idea what torments would one day descend upon us.

Every few weeks Mama would call us into formation and perform the “behind the ears cleanliness inspection”… this was followed by orders to go to our rooms and put on clean clothes. Once this was accomplished, we would all pile into my daddy’s two-door, baby blue and white ’57 Chevrolet Belair, and make our way into the country, 35 miles or so, to my Great-Grandmother’s house.

Mama Rawlins, as we called her, lived in a house that was so old it seemed it must have surely been there from the beginning of time. I don’t believe you could have broken into or snuck up on anybody undetected in that house because the floors creaked under the weight of every step. If somebody got up in “the other room” you knew about it before their second foot hit the floor.

The land that surrounded the house had been farmed for generations by the Rawlins family and was divided down the middle by Temple-Johnson Road. Why on earth this dirt and gravel road was named Temple-Johnson I do not know, in those days you couldn’t throw a rock anywhere on it without hitting someone named Rawlins or Cole.

On one side of the road was Mama Rawlins’ house and on the other was a large barn, no longer in use, it sat silent. The barn was surrounded by large open fields. The field’s soil showed signs of the plows; small slopes up and valleys down formed a patchwork pattern that laid out where the different vegetables had once been planted. The rows were all covered by clumps of green and brown grasses, an occasional stump, sticking up a few feet, broke-up the patterns.

I am not certain how old the barn was. I do remember once seeing a picture of a woman, clad in a dress, an apron over the top of it, standing beside an extremely large man with a moustache reminiscent of those sported by men in the age of the Civil War.  The two stood posed like statues in front of a barn; given the size of the men in my family, I have always assumed the man in the picture was somehow related to us. The grainy black and white picture made the barn look like it was already old.

This bottom of the barn had several openings; these were divided by heavy timbers that rose up from the ground vertically to the floor of the hay loft. These vertical timbers were so large that they likely weren’t milled, but rather, hand sewn using a two-handled blade. Heavily knotted pieces of lumber, unsuitable for structural support, were nailed horizontally to the tall timbers to create stalls, storage rooms and also provided a place to hang farming tools. On one side, where I imagined huge plows were once placed, Mama Rawlins parked her seldom driven and dust-covered Ford Falcon.

With no electricity, the only light source in the barn was the sun, shadows slowly making their way across it as the sun made its journey each day from dawn to dusk. It became darker the further you ventured past the openings.

A handmade ladder, its square rungs worn down in the middle by boots covered in muck and then sanded smooth by callused hands, provided the way up and into to the hay loft. The loft had a solid floor and A-framed rafters covered by ancient tin, formed the roof.

The roof, once a protector of all it rose above, having been battered by the wind and hail of countless thunderstorms now surrendered little rays of light. On one end the large door was open, its oversized steel hinges rusted and bent, wouldn’t close. The remnants of old straw, gathered in the corners, gave the loft a memorable sour and musty smell.

This barn held a special fascination for the four of us, there was much to be explored. Antique tools, covered with years of spider webs and dust, were lifted from wooden walls and inspected in an attempt to reason their purpose; in my mind I imagined that the big man with the moustache had used them and was greatly impressed with myself that I could pick them up and wield them around. I also wondered why they now hung from the walls, unmoved and unused for years. Mule collars were tried on for size and plow shares were skimmed along the dirt floor leaving a scratched row with little footprints on either side of it.

Unknown to us, the hour of our reckoning approached as we made our way up the ladder and into the loft. The A-frame cross beams were connected in the middle by a main beam and were low enough that if you jumped you could grab them, the only obvious danger being the rough cut hole in the floor where the ladder breached it.

At the time a little hand-over-hand monkey bars style traversing of the beams seemed a good thing to do, so we all, one by one leaped up and latched a hold of them and moved along. It never occurred to us that the energy from small boys, testing our strength on the heavy timber beams, was transferred down the length of them. It also never occurred to us to check out the beams before we started climbing all over them.

Eventually, as normally occurred when we were together, a challenge to see who could travel the farthest without letting go was issued. As was also normal for the four of us knot-headed boys, when the gauntlet was thrown, lest you be deemed a coward and undeserving of your mother’s love…you couldn’t back down; this accounted for most of the knots on our heads.

It was all fun and games when we started, but after a few minutes one of us, I blame my brother David for it (you’ll understand why later), got close enough to the end of a beam to disturb what must have been one of the earth’s greatest wonders… the largest wasp’s nest I have ever seen, before or since. I don’t want to exaggerate but saying it was the size of an aircraft carrier seems appropriate.

At once all of these creatures, known in scientific terms as is Polistes Carolina (I refer to them as the orange and black incarnations of the devil himself) swarmed down, around and upon us in such a fashion that I am sure, had it been captured on 16 millimeter film, the great military minds of today could study and learn a thing or two from it.

The offensive began with what felt like a splinter in my finger but quickly turned into a machine gun spray of stingers as the great horde of inhumanity directed its assault to every part of my body.

Alan, who was closest to me and also immersed in this cloud of pain, lost the voluntary control of his body, the manner of his snapping back and forth violently let me know I wasn’t in this battle against nature alone.

Randall, as best as I can remember, was near the ladder and made his way down it, his one or two stinging humiliations at the hands of the throng were a small discomfort when compared to the agony Alan and I were enduring.

Meanwhile, “The instigator” dropped from the beam and stood there in the middle of all of this, screaming his fool head off. This is apparently an effective defensive tactic when overrun by the evil orange and black incarnations of the devil himself.

Alan and I ran the length of the loft and launched ourselves out of it and through the air; I guess we assumed a quick death or broken legs from the fall seemed a better option at that point in time. The wasps, not satisfied that we had suffered enough indignity, gave us each another sting or two for good measure on our way out and down.

“The instigator”, red-faced by now from his apparently effective defensive tactic against the orange and black incarnations of the devil himself, was snatched by the collar of his shirt to safety by my father who had scampered up the ladder. David was the only one of us who escaped the marauding defenders of the nest unscathed.

Alan and I were promptly marshaled to Mama Rawlins’ house where she took charge of our triage and treatment. A bleach, Band-Aids and tobacco cure were ordered up, while awaiting these we were stripped naked.

When the prescribed cure arrived, Mama Rawlins gave orders to “close your eyes and shut your mouth”. Bleach was then doused over our heads and bodies… snuff, taken straight from Mama Rawlins’ mouth, was smeared across the affected areas… and finally, a Band-Aid with a pinch of cigarette tobacco in the gauze part was applied to each sore and still swelling sting.

It was obvious, to all who witnessed it, that Mama Rawlins had dealt with knot-headed little boys and their battles against nature before.

Battered and beaten, swollen from the top of my now bleached blonde head to the tips of my little toes, I would recuperate… we all would… and live to fight another day.

I will state it now for the record, may it find its rightful place in the history books and annals of knot-headed boys everywhere, that from that day until this one, I blame my brother David, “The Instigator”, for what ensued that fateful day.

In my wasp humbled opinion, he should rightfully accept full responsibility and accountability for starting the “Great Wasp Payback Revolution of 1970”.

After that day, I never again entered that wooden and tin gateway to hell… The barn was later torn down, and a good riddance if you ask me… so that my grandparent’s new house could be built on the spot.

(L-R) Stan, The Instigator, Randall, Alan 1981

So what’s the lesson…Be careful of the details… something taken for granted can change your happy day into a bad one you’ll never forget. The biggest lesson I learned from that day, and it’s one of the most important lessons I could have learned being a firefighter and a chief officer, was that you never just charge in, you make a plan of attack after you gather as much information as you can. As a kid I was able to heal from my wounds, if not the embarrassment of being stripped naked in front of Mama Rawlins. But in the fire service leaping before you look can have much graver consequences.

Please folks, share some of your lessons from life in the comments below. I really do want to hear from you.

Until next time,

“Randall David Stan”