“Raise the Glasses, Look Back, and Smile”

…thoughts from the past.

I wrote this for the “Harris County Journal” January, 10 years ago. So you have to add a decade to every number.

My dad passed away almost three years ago. But I continue to hear his strong, steady voice telling a good story — always with a hefty dose of humor.

Ten years have passed. But I still raise a glass, look back and smile. 

************

Birthdays.

Amazing how the word changes with time.

Remember when you couldn’t wait for them to roll around?

“I’m almost 13…can’t wait until I’m 16…finally — 18…ah-h-h, sweet 21.”

Remember?

And then it changes.

One day you’re 21, and before you know it, your youngest kid is going to New Orleans to celebrate the milestone.

And that was almost five years ago. Next month, my son will be 26.

Incredible.

But my Dad is the one who defies the calendar.

Last weekend he turned 87, but he is far from old. In fact, he sets a very high standard. He’s like that battery bunny that just doesn’t stop.

“You got one coming up yourself in a week, don’t you?” he asked me as he looked across the supper table Saturday night. “How old will you be?”

“I’ll be 58,” I answered slowly…my voice sounding like fingernails on a blackboard.

“Never thought I’d have chillun’ that old,” he replied. “Seems like yesterday I was a chap myself.”

“Where were you born?” asked my sister-in-law.

“Down there in that white house next to the church. Mother always said the icicles were a foot long that morning. Uncle Marvin and Aunt Eunice delivered me. They lived on this corner where your house is, Pam. He practiced medicine here before they moved to LaGrange.”

Dad talked about the changes and the things and people he missed. He had lived at Jones Crossroads his entire life and knew the surrounding area’s history well.

During the first decades of the 20th century, he said that Harris County was extremely rural and remote. Automobiles, of which there were very few, did not make the scene until the 20’s. The only paved road was U.S. 27, and the main mode of transportation was the mule-drawn wagon or horse and buggy.

“People didn’t go to town back then. There were little country stores everywhere that sold they needed – mainly coffee, sugar, overalls, and work shoes.

“Folks raised hogs for meat, grew all their vegetables, and canned or dried enough produce to carry them through until the next growing season.

“In fact, y’alls great grandfather, Uncle Rob, had a community preserving plant at one time – I guess you could call it a co-op – where the folks in the Hopewell and surrounding communities could bring their produce to be canned.

“But the biggest difference in the Harris County then and the Harris County today is what our claim to fame was.

“During the 20’s and 30’s, we were famous, or should I say infamous, for being the best place around to buy corn liquor – white lightning,” he said with a grin.

We raised our champagne glasses in a toast, saluting the fact we were together and that our kids appeared to be doing well.

After everyone left, I thought about the changes in my life…about the number of years that have passed since I moved back to Harris County – ‘twill be 30 this fall.

Amazing.

I sat down and opened the photo album I started for my Dad a few months ago. I added the prints I made for his birthday – photos of Hal and me when we were wee ones, a picture of our family in Boston in 1958 when my Dad was named “Master Farmer of the Year,” and my brother and I posing on the seawall at Panama City when we were tweens.

The joys and sorrows started flooding back…the memories of my youth, the dreams I had, the nightmares that haunted me, and the blessings my children have always been to me.

I started to feel that familiar wave of tearful loneliness.

“No,” I said aloud. “Don’t look at the scrapbook any longer.”

I closed the cover and stood up.

Memories are just that – memories. You can’t go back.

When ghosts emerge from old photos, it’s time to put them away.

I felt the tears subside.

Yep…I’m a year older and I’ll never be 21 again.

But at least I’m here.

And I hope to toast my silver-haired chillun’ when I’m 87, tease them unmercifully…

…raise my glass, look back and smile.

When I Was Seventeen…

…I left Jones Crossroads for the University of Georgia,  “with my feet ten feet off” the ground.

It was 1968 — the year Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered.

Vietnam raged while innocence bloomed. Peaceful protests worked miracles. But violence and injustice found safe havens in hate and bigotry.

This era represents when fighting for equal rights and justice  — regardless of one’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference or cultural origins — became not only part of my DNA but what fuels my spirit to this day.

And, here we are — 50 years later — and my son, Charlie Bailey,  is campaigning all over the state and sharing a message of equal justice and protection under the law for every Georgian.

He energized the audience at the Georgia Democratic State Convention last Saturday and brought the crowd to their feet.

Why? Because he’s authentic and he’s honest.

He means what he says and he’s doing what he’s doing for the right reasons — because he loves his state and the people who live here.

You may think this is suspect — coming from his mom. But I guarantee you, I wouldn’t be putting it in writing if I didn’t mean it.

I don’t believe it has ever been more important than it is now to elect people like Charlie.

Because today, just like 50 years ago, there are forces that threaten “freedom and justice for all.”

We  must demand that statesmanship takes precedence over showmanship.

We must expect truth and honesty to be stronger than lies and deceit.

We must accept nothing less than what is right being more important than what is politically expedient. 

So join me in helping Charlie win this fight. Please.

Order a yard sign. Because  every show of support counts.

Give to the cause. Because every single dollar counts.

Sign up to volunteer. Because every vote counts.

We can do this.

We can actually elect someone who’s in it for the right reason.

We can elect Charlie Bailey to be Georgia’s next Attorney General.

Stand with Charlie — Stand Up for Georgia.

Charlie Bailey has been talking for a long time — about 34 years to be exact — since he was about a year old.

And, as his mama, I’ve heard him do a lot of  that talking.

But now, I’m really listening to what he’s saying about why he is running for attorney general here in his home state.

I hear him tout his qualifications of being a senior gang prosecutor in Fulton County and why that is so important to his ability to fight the war against organized crime in Georgia.

I hear him speak about the opioid epidemic here and how nothing is being done by the current AG to thwart this deadly tsunami. I hear him promise not only to sue the pharmaceutical companies who marketed the poison but also to build addiction treatment centers across the state.

I hear him talk about how over four million Georgians with pre-existing conditions could lose their health insurance because Chris Carr (Georgia’s figurehead top prosecutor now) has joined other AG’s across the nation in bringing suit against the Affordable Care Act.

But most importantly, I hear him tell his listeners that if they are tired of elected officials who care more about their pocketbooks than the welfare of Georgians, they now have a candidate who is an authentic people’s candidate. 

If deep pocket donors control the vote, do you really believe the politician they buy gives a hoot about you?

If a candidate takes large sums of money from cable companies and pharmaceutical companies, do you really believe that politician is going to fight those entities if they take advantage of Georgians?

If a candidate determines his talking points because someone in Washington tells him what to say, is that politician acting on behalf of his constituents?

The answer to all of those questions is unequivocally, “No.”

Charlie’s donor list is made up of people like you.

Over 1,200 folks have dug deep and contributed to the cause, with the average donation being about $300.

This, my friends, is truly a grassroots campaign.

This, my friends, is how we the people take back our government and our state from corruption and greed.

Charlie is in this race because he knows he can make a difference in the lives of everyday Georgians. He is in this race because he knows the attorney general is the one elected official in Georgia who can stand between us and the outside forces who seek to make money at the expense of everyday people.

And I can promise you that Charlie is fiercely independent and will do what is just and legal. He will do what is right — not what is politically expedient.

But he needs your help. It takes $2 million to run a statewide campaign, and by this Saturday, we need to reach the half million mark. And we can do it if you join the team and give what you can. Every single dollar makes a difference and every single donor becomes part of a real effort — not just a corporate-funded exercise to maintain the political status quo.

Many of you have already unselfishly given, but I am asking all of you to pitch in and help us win this race.

Regardless of your party affiliation, if you’re sick and tired of your best interest not being represented, stand with Charlie.

I promise that you’ll never regret it.

#CharlieforGeorgia #GApolitics