Crackers

Lately I've noticed that when men are trying to be flattering, they call you a Georgia peach. Naturally, this only works in Georgia, but it goes something like this:

I'm just a southern gentleman, looking for my Georgia peach. Or,

I like ladies to be sweet like a Georgia peach.

I'm going to be honest with you. I know they are trying to be cute with that little come-on line, but lately, whenever someone has said this to me, all I thought was, "I need to get my eyebrows waxed and head to the gym again, this man thinks I'm round and fuzzy."

The truth is, I'm nothing like a Georgia peach. See, I come from Crackers. Oh, I know, a man trying to make an impression would get his face slapped if he called some lady a Cracker, but do you know what the word means, because it really fits. Let me explain.

Georgia Crackers were the original settlers of Georgia, so to call someone that name means their family has been around since Moses was a toddler. And as it happens, that describes much of my family on my mother's side.... Rollins.... Byrd... Tyson... Hodges... In fact, I can ride down the main street of a little town called Guyton, Georgia, and I can see the craftsmanship of my great great uncles in the finish work of many of the old houses still standing there. Beautiful old houses with intricate wooden scrollwork along the roofline.

And in front of those houses, the old railroad bed has been lifted up and planted with trees, standing in a straight row like soldiers. But it used to be the old Central of Georgia railroad company, which called Guyton, Station No. 30. William Perry Rollins used to drive that train from Savannah to Guyton, which is how he met Dora Ellen Tyson, his future wife. She was a school teacher who rode the train to her school. They were my great great grandparents. And my family is one of the few left who could be buried in the Guyton Cemetery just down the street, because we were among the founding members of the place.

The term "cracker" came into fashion during Elizabethan times, to describe braggarts. They got the term from the Middle English word crack, as in to crack a joke. There's an alternate spelling to this, which is craic. This word is still in use in Ireland and Scotland, which is where my people came from. In fact, by the mid 1700's, cracker was applied specifically to the Scotch-Irish settlers (still my folks), who came to this country and settled the remote southern back country. There is a passage from a letter written during that time to the Earl of Dartmouth, which says in part, "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."

So as it turns out, I authentically come from a long line of tough crackers - self-reliant people who settled the American south, people who relished telling a tall tale, and were constantly on the move.

As it happens, I have the talent to accentuate or eliminate my southern accent almost at will, so to some, my tough cracker past might not be obvious. But it's there, in all the stories I tell, in the way I quietly take care of my own business, and in the travels I take. I've got cracker under my skin and in my blood.

So listen, if you want to flirt with me, you're welcome to call me a Georgia peach. But if you really want to win me over, you'll need to call me a Georgia cracker. But say it with spunk, okay? Say it like you mean it.

--Laura