The (S)Low Country

Savannah is known as "The Coastal Empire." Just across the river, coastal Carolina is known as the "Low Country." Its nickname: The Slow Country.

When the marketing folks were picking out labels, you just have to wonder, "Did they mean to?"

My mother's family is gathering this week in south Georgia for a reunion, my grandfather's family name is Rollins. That side of the family is more shadowy to me than my grandmother's side of the family, dominated by close knit sisters. Two of those sisters married three of the Rollins brothers; my grandmother married one (Ralph) and my great-aunt Helen married two. Bennie died before his first son was born, and his younger brother Walter felt it was his duty to provide for the widow of his brother. This is a picture of their family in 1963.

So in a true southern cliche, our family contains double first cousins, or "kissing cousins" as some call it.

So this weekend I will drive mom down to see everyone. I will try to take lots of pictures, I will help my mom get the fruit tray which will be her contribution to the reunion potluck, and people familiar and unfamiliar will sit around a table at some random gathering hall to share stories I've heard in one form or another most of my life. They'll talk about Minnie Jean. They'll talk about Freddie. They'll talk about Harold, Walter, Austin and Ralph.

I've been to Savannah several times since I left home in 1988. This weekend it will be a distinctly different perspective, punctuated with family stories and connections. We will all pause from our usual weekend activities for a day to recall where we came from.

It will give Slow Country a whole new meaning.

--Laura