Homonyms with the Duchess & friends

The world is full of contentious and controversial news right now. There's plenty to write about but more than enough people writing about it. We need something to pick us up and lighten things up a bit.

And we're in luck. Because I was sitting in a local chicken establishment enjoying the final few bites of a country ham biscuit, and catching up on Twitter (@BiscuitsGA), when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Her royal highness, the Duchess of Paddlefoot, Janeal Picklesimer along with her sidekick, Loucilla Pickens and their husbands, Carl and Buck, respectively.

The quartet ordered their breakfast and found their seats, luckily close enough for me to overhear the conversation. 

"I tell you what", Loucilla started, "this Common Cord stuff at Junior's school is 'bout outta hand. He done come home tellin' me that they's learnin' bout homonyms. I'm gonna go up to that school today and tell 'em that I think they need to work on readin' and math and leave them homosectionals in the movies. It's like they're takin over the world. We don't need them in our schools."

Carl looked up for a second but then went back to his breakfast. Buck didn't even pause. No time for frivolous talking. They needed to eat and get to work. You know how you pass the work crews on the roadside and there's about eight people watching that one guy in the hole working his can off? Yeah. These two aren't part of the eight. They're the ones welding, wrenching, hammering. They're best friends and can communicate effectively with facial expressions, gestures and the occasional grunt. The pair once built a fishing dock in three hours with two hammers, a circular saw, a box of nails, and only 4 audible words, one of which was "beer". 

"Homonyms ain't got nothin to do with that, Loucilla. They's words that sound like other words." My ears really perked up. Janeal has some education! Then she continued, "Think about rainch. Buck used a rainch to fix your plummin when the toilet backed up into your kitchen sank. And then all that nasty stuff drained back down the pipes. Then you had to rainch out all that gross stuff that was left sticking to the sides of it. And then you got this here rainch dressin that I'm dippin my fries in. And then there's that rainch where we rode horses in Mawn-tana."

I was almost in tears. Then Lucilla grasped the concept.

"Oh, like how we're sittin in these cheers eatin breakfast and we used to be cheerleaders in school."

"Yep. And how the water level in the sank sank when Buck fixed it."

Lucilla laughed "Ooh, and tar! Like the tars on the car and the road is made of tar too. And those two go together! What do you call it when somethin like that happens? It's umm, umm, oh yeah, moronic!"

"No, not moronic, Ironic. Moronic is those people from Utah on the bicycles that run from my dog when they come to my door."

That was all I could do. If I stayed any longer, I was going to bust out laughing and then Carl and Buck would feel compelled to beat me with a rainch...er...wrench.

Until next time...

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.

For Grandpa

I've spent the last few days sitting with my grandfather while he experiences the end of his time on this Earth. 

Rather than air out all the details of a very private and dignified ending to a natural life, I'd rather share a bit of my thought processes over the past week or so. Because this life was too well lived to give death any glory in this moment. 

He taught me that family is important, not because he sat with me often and talked about it. He taught me because he showed me. There has never been a time in my memory that I was not important to him. Over a distance of 2000 miles he maintained contact better than anyone could have expected. And he encouraged and inspired all those he loved. As diverse as our family is, he loved us all and we were all better for having known him. 

He taught me that heritage is important. It wasn't just because he shared family history with me but because he showed such interest in the family's future, showing true concern the interests and personalities of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He showed me by the way he shared with us the family trade, with a running history almost a century old.

He showed me that faith is important, not because he had some flashy, overdone religious performance, but because he lived a true life of faith that reflected in the way he approached the world and all things in it. 

This list could continue. But I can shorten it by saying he taught me "do". With his enormous personality and sense of humor he could have been about a great show. But the things I've learned from him weren't from speeches or soliloquies. They were actions.

And so the blessing I have gotten this week has been to do. It has come from made opportunities to do things for Grandpa that were important to him. They have been things that I have taken joy from knowing they are for a man that did so very much for me. 

And now there are lessons for my sons and their children. The message of do, not just say, that will put Grandpa in the same position as Abel in Hebrews 11:4 in that a testimony of action means though he'll be dead, he'll still speak messages of family, heritage, faith, and more.

I'm humbled by the grief and goodness of this experience. I'm sad that I'm losing him, thankful to have had him, and confident that his legacy will far outlive him because of the actions of those who loved him and learned from his example.