Name Brand

Christmas shopping.

My wife and I have made a tradition of it. Every year we shun all other adult responsibilities and and wander off into retail utopia in search of a completed shopping list, all in the course of one school day. To be honest, we never quite complete it all in that one day but we do get time together, a quiet lunch for two and at least most of our list complete. And no crowds. That's my kind of Christmas shopping.

This year I had a bit of an epiphany. My youngest son, the naturalist, for exclusively academic reasons, has decided that he is a University of Florida Fightin' Gator. He might be the only 10 year old in this town that has not only chosen a school and a field of study, but has also paid a campus visit to the specific department building in which he plans to complete his coursework. Gators or no Gators, I'm going to feed that passion, I'm going to support this dream, just like any sane father would.

So we were looking for Gator gear. A shirt, a bag, pair of socks, disposable Bic lighter, something, anything with the colors and logo. Not easy to come by in Georgia. Sports stores. Four of them. The biggest had up and down escalators as well as an elevator but no men's room and, more importantly, no Gator stuff. But a few things this establishment, and the other three as well, had - Under Armour, Nike, Adidas. Hoodies. Hats. Pants. Shoes. Shirts. Looking over 2/3 of the sales floor it was easy to see that in every color combination imaginable, every active wear garment known to the free world was on display for purchase.

There was obviously Georgia apparel, as there should be, back in the corner. A few Tech items, Falcons, Braves, even a Georgia Southern hoodie. But it was all stuffed in a back corner accessible only by negotiating the trails through the merchandise emblazoned with brand logos.

I thought about what the team logos stand for. Georgia fans know the traditions that go with being a fan. Earning the right to walk through the arch, ringing the victory bell. Auburn fans roll Toomer's Corner. Arkansas fans call the Hawgs. Jax State fans get goosebumps when we hear Salvation and know where the references to troy fit in when the band plays Dixie.

The teams represent ideas, philosophies and for those of us that attended one of the schools, it represents some of the best years of our lives. Jax State Football means something to me because I've got sweat equity in it. It matters because I have hours on the books. It matters because I know my pertinent fields can be found on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Houston Cole Library and my professors were over the hill in Stone Center. It matters because I watched the Olympics on the big screen in The Roost while eating chicken fingers. It matters because I walked to Subway on cold evenings with a friend because that's what irrational college kids do, It's where I learned to drive a manual transmission and what good music was.

That UA or "Swoosh" or whatever means I paid too much to have the same brand as the kid next to me in health class. All I have invested in it is the $60 I gave the cashier. No one puked in a car. No one fell in a camp fire. No one sat in a place called "Restaurant" eating pancake sandwiches at three in the morning or took the Springfield, Missouri city bus for two hours to eat at Steak n Shake. Not one soul hollered "whup troy!"

So my question is, why does it matter to us? What is the magic a disconnected brand name mega company logo holds over us? This isn't capitalism, it isn't conservatism, it's consumerism. We're pushing our identity, our past, our great memories into a back corner of a store so that we can purchase someone else's dream across the front of a sweatshirt.

I'd rather buy my son his own dream on the front of his sweatshirt. Gators or no Gators.

Moose and Moxie and Maine, Oh My!

Maine. It's not Southern. In fact, if you look on the map, it's about as far north as you are allowed to go without a passport.

But wait. There's a story to tell.

I keep this crazy blog going on a few themes. Agrarianism, tradition, history, culture, family. You know, you've read it. It's true conservative, not Republican Party conservative.

So Maine has squeezed its way into my Southern perspective on a little bit of everything.Because by "everything" I mean Maine too.

So I'm sitting on Row 6 of the world's smallest commercial airliner, grimacing as I look out the window trying to tell if we are coming in for a nice soft landing with a safe, gentle coast to a reasonable taxi speed to the arrival gate or if we're going to smash into the rocky Atlantic shore and explode in an seemingly oxymoronic eruption of burning jet fuel and frigid salt water, killed...or worse.

Luckily it was somewhere in between. I hear the wheels go down...we're getting closer...I hear the wheels go up again. We gain altitude and the pilot starts complaining about some cross-wind mumbo jumbo like the other grown man wedged into row six and I  didn't notice that strobe effect of the opening scene of Newhart and the sky flickering in the window while our stomachs cried out for any possible relief. "We're going to loop around and try that again." He tells us. Good. You try that again. I'm going to pray.

We found the ground safely and I found my ride. And they helped me find my first meal of the day, shortly after 3 pm. Which was not that bad, considering that landing thing and all. And long story short, there was peanuts and Coke. Maine and I were off to a good start.

The road to my destination weaved through small towns, communities founded in the late 1700's and the fall colors were gorgeous.

As I've mentioned before, I was going to see my Grandpa. And that is where this whole odyssey took a turn that wound it up on this blog. Grandpa built things. Houses, parts of houses, furniture, cabinets, things of wood, things of brick. He built stuff for rich folks. He built stuff for not-so-rich folks. Big stuff, small stuff. He built all kinds of stuff. If he had a clear spot and the right parts he could build a house from chert to chimney.

He built his house from the ground up with his own hands. He had finished everything but the floors in three rooms when he got sick and couldn't finish. So my uncle stepped in, assured him that he would complete the task and then went out back and felled three white pines, right behind Grandpa's house. They brought the portable sawmill in and started making lumber.

This is where I came in.

My cousin and I finished making the lumber needed to finish Grandpa's floors, right in the back yard. Another cousin and I hauled that last load of lumber to be kilned and milled into flooring.

And Grandpa passed away.

So my uncle, some of my cousins and I took some of his lumber for his floor (because we had plenty) and we built Grandpa a traditional pine coffin, just like he wanted. And his devoted wife made a beautiful fleece lining for the inside of it. And he'll be buried in it in a family cemetery near people he loved.

And somewhere in that it hit me. My Maine experience was a lot more congruent with my theme here than some of my "Southern" experiences. (I'm looking at you, Hartsfield-Jackson Int'l Airport). I thought about Henry Grady bemoaning the post-reconstruction south and the funeral where the South only provided the deceased and the hole. Here Grandpa had provided everything, except the labor for the coffin - and he had helped produce the laborers (his grandchildren). He died in a house he built with his own hands. His widow will walk on solid floors made from wood on their own property. He will be buried in the coffin, made by his family from that same wood, on a beautiful hillside in rural Maine, And part of me wept because such a thing is the exception instead of the rule.

If that wasn't enough, We walked in the woods on his property, scouting beaver and identifying trees and fungi as we talked and laughed and told old stories. We dined on moose and "whoopie pies" and drank Moxie - all of which are local treats (sound familiar?). And the foliage, the population density, the complete absence of almost any hint of urban sprawl...and the lobster roll from Rick's, the local joint down on the corner. Ok, the lobster roll isn't very Southern but if you can't enjoy it, you might not have a soul.

My experience was very agrarian, traditional, local, and family-oriented. It was everything I try to celebrate and support here. If I'm honest, when my new found friends dropped me off at the airport, I went inside and felt a grieving in my gut. Obviously Grandpa being gone played a large role in this feeling. But part of it was sadness that this time was coming to an end. I was anxious to see my family and my Georgia but I also felt like I was leaving something behind. I sat with a few mementos and I wept. A surge of emotion washed over me and I did, I wept.

Finally, the man at the check-in counter at the Portland airport saw my name on my ticket, "Burnham is an old Maine name." "Yes sir" I replied, "I'm an old Maine Burnham from Georgia." He laughed and told me the story of Burnham Hill, "It's the reason Maine doesn't have a death penalty. They hung a man named Burnham and then found out he was innocent. His case overturned the death penalty in the state. They have a monument for him up there.

I decided, if they hang innocent Burnhams up there, that it was high time that I got going.

And so I will...until next time.

One Southerner's Notes on Walt Disney World

So, I'm sitting here at Disney's Art of Animation Resort in Florida. It's arguably the least likely place to inspire me to pen my usual thoughts from a positive point of view. A quote shared by a friend (he was speaking of Atlanta but work with me here) could be applied to this place at first glance "it's what a quarter million Confederate soldiers died to prevent." On face value, there's nothing conservative, traditional, or agrarian about it. Disney's own Melin might describe it as "one big modern mess!"

But I love this place. Let me share just a few reasons why.

Let's start with the obvious. After enjoying many writings ings of late by Russell Kirk, C. S. Lewis, and others on the importance of fairy tales, I now find myself confronted with these stories at every turn. Stories of nobility, courage, good vs. evil, failure and redemption. These are stories that are needed in our society today. Here they are celebrated in grand fashion.

Then there's the arts. The backdrops of the stories Disney tells immerse you in scenery. The music is sometimes faddish but just as often is a mosaic of sound from bygone eras that broods nostalgia or even ushers us to a more civilized age.  Live show performances tell stories that unfold in front of, beside, above, and even behind audiences. The chief of the live shows, Fantasmic, is the tale of imagination, its power to amaze, frighten, struggle, and overcome - all in the same dream.

The architecture. Be it a theme park, a resort, or a shopping area, Disney is always telling a story. Most of the scenery is constructed of facades and clever visual tricks but if you relax your skepticism just a little, you'll find yourself in the story they're telling. On this trip alone, while walking through Main Street, USA, Hollywood Boulevard, and the East African port of Harambe, I expected to see the protagonist of my current long-term writing project step from a storefront , tip his Panama hat to us, and offer a polite "How y'all doin'?" before disappearing into the crowd to scare up a game of billiards or perhaps catch a boat or a train to either of the other two locations. 

So the story they're telling can be what you make it.

Why, right now I'm sitting in my own Cozy Cone just off Route 66 in Radiator Springs looking out at Sarge's Surplus Hut - complete with working neon sign. But it's hot. So I'm off to take a dip in the pool. There's probably more to come on this subject soon.

Until then!