Jenny Walty

Columbia, SC is a sleepy little city where people drive slow and are constantly yawning. Upon entering the capital of the Palmetto state, the beautifully manicured and landscaped Airport Blvd. creates a bit of a false impression; it is as beautifully false as any other Airport Blvd. in America.

I wanted to go to Lizard Thicket (Nonna Anna calls it Licket) but Patrick said it was a chain restaurant. Instead we went to other chain restuarants, I saw only one independent Italian restaurant and a couple of taco joints the entire trip. We went to an Italian chain called Carraba's to celebrate Anna and Jimmy's 55th anniversary on Saturday, but sadly the Manicotti was full of mozzarella and not on par with Anna's Napolinese expectations.

I spent a lot of time sitting around the kitchen table drinking tea and listening to stories, as I like to do when in adult company. Patrick's Grandpa Jimmy is from South Carolina, and so is his father and his father's father, and his father's father's father, etc. The family is from a little town called Graniteville and all the generatons going way back are still there in the cemetary. I would have really liked to go an see that, I love cemetaries, but this trip was so short. He told me about it as the afternoon sun slid through the kitchen blinds behind him.

His Aunt and Uncle owned a farm outside of town and every summer when school let out his father (who was a fireman) would put him on a train and the conductor would let him out at Graniteville. All summer he and his cousin would work the farm with Uncle Bee, "an old colored man" who managed the farm while his Aunt and Uncle worked at the mill. He told me how Uncle Bee would find bee hives in old trees and then come back at night and cut the tree down, burning old rags to make the smoke while he removed the honeycomb. Jimmy said he went with him some times and saw how he would be covered with bees with no other protection than the burning rags but wouldn't get stung.

He said every fall when the rains came and the southern heat cooled he started to feel blue because he knew he would have to go back to school and leave the farm he loved. After the war his Aunt sold the farm without telling him and my heart broke a little bit when he was telling me how upset he was; he had enough money and he would've bought it if he knew what was happening. They split up the property once bordered by a lake on one side and a creek on the other, and now it's a housing development.

As we chased the moons reflection accross lake after lake through the night flight home I thought about the country, most of our families once farmed the land for what they needed, wheat to make bread, beans and vegetables that get dried and canned to last through the winter, hogs for slaughter, cows for milk and chickens to lay the eggs. Who is doing this essential work now? Are we satisfied with Dole's factory farms? Is it okay that migrants come to pick the fruits on less than minimum wage? Are we happier to have left the golden light on the land?