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

A Real Goal Getter: Part V

So why haven't I been living my life right? Where do I start?

Many people graduate from college ready to tackle the world. I was exhausted. Though I had done lots of growing up, I struggled until the last gasp and was so eager to be done with it all that I skipped my own graduation ceremony. I was putting my belongings in a U-Haul truck when the rest in my class were tossing their caps in the air.

I was ready to go home and regroup.

Outwardly, I did regroup. I helped out my family, not always joyfully, but my grandmother was dying of lung cancer and it was a stressful time. When she died, I began looking for work.

That’s when it hit me that I had no idea what I wanted to do. It was terrifying. I swam for the first shore I could find. A job offer came in the town where my aunt and uncle lived, and I took it, despite the fact that it only required a high school diploma. I knew I had to get back out of the house, so I took the first thing offered to me. It was a start, I reasoned, and I could always look for something else once I got my feet under me.

So I swam for the nearest shore.

The shore is the responsible place to be. No one can fault you for going to work, singing in the church choir and paying your bills on time. I wasn't miserable either. I made a home in that North Georgia town. I met people from all walks of life. I became a Catholic, finding a larger family in a community that embraced me. I took on the role of youth minister to the teens I had befriended, and did it as a volunteer because the church was too small to pay me. I shared myself with the family I had created there, and the people shared their lives with me, becoming my friends.

Something was still wrong though. Something was missing.

So when the opportunity came to travel with my company, I took it. I went to Dayton, Ohio. I went to Charlotte. I went to Carol Stream, Illinois. I went to Santa Clara, California. I went to Atlanta.

And something interesting developed on the Atlanta assignment. It was a startup project, and when I arrived I barely had a place to sit, with a computer that wasn’t even networked. I thought they were silly to spend so much money on me when I was able to do so little. But I had seen the extravagant spending that went on with new accounts, so I didn’t give it a lot of thought. The account reps, however, had other things in mind.

Part of the contract specified having a designer on staff. As it turned out, the designer they had selected for the project had just gotten a government job. They were scrambling to find another before they had to tell the customer that he was leaving. One of the customer service reps had transferred from my location a few years earlier, and knew that I was interested in leaving as well. She put my name in the hat, and they asked for my services so I’d travel down there. When I got there, they asked if I wanted the job.

Promises were made to convince me I was making a good move. I’d learn new software. I’d learn web design. I’d take classes. This was the missing piece, I believed. I was taking a new direction in my career. I was moving to Atlanta.

That was June 2000. I commuted for almost 2 months until I found a house to move into. Once relocated, I became absorbed in getting the design area organized, getting designs migrated to our system and adjusting to life with a commute significantly longer than six minutes.

A year later, the twin towers collapsed in New York City, and with them the opportunities that came with working on a highly successful and profitable account. What began as a new path out into open water and new adventures became a stressful package of financial insecurity. I don't intend to distract from the significant tragedy 9-11 was, but its impact was felt all the way down to Atlanta, Georgia.

For me, it was time to swim back to the shore.


--Laura

Summer Swan Song

The summer is coming to a close again and normally I would say not a moment too soon. But this summer has been different for me in a number of ways.

First though, I must tell you of a summer tragedy. The pool at my gym is closing down.

Owing to age, budget cuts and expensive repairs, the owners at our local pool have decided to close it at the end of August. I find it distressing. For some time now I've enjoyed visiting it on Sunday afternoons. I walk the pool's length several times, I do aerobics, I swim, I float -- all in cool comfort. Afterwards, I sit in the whirlpool to relax and then spend a few minutes in the steam room before changing and heading home. For the rest of the day, the scent of chlorine lingers on my skin, and both my body and my brain flounder like wet noodles.

Woe is me. It will all end this month.

But there have been other surprising joys this summer, from a girl who counts spring and fall as her favorite times of the year. I was able to plant a garden this year, and though the results weren't spectacular, it was okay fun to share with my friends.

I went on summer vacation, a miracle in and of itself, and I have a depth of appreciation for my trip to Charleston that I can't really express. It wasn't just a vacation. It was rest. It was recuperation when I particularly needed it. I won't soon forget that lesson: when you really need a rest, don't deny yourself. You short change yourself and you short change others.

And above all, this summer I found a new direction for myself. I've been talking about it (and will continue to post about it) in the upcoming months in my "Real Goal Getter" posts, but the wonderful Ah-hah! moment came in the summer.

And by God, it's rare for me to think during the hottest time of the year. Surely that's a sign that things are stirring.

I hope you all had a wonderful summer as well. Now stand back people, here's hoping for a truly amazing fall...

--Laura

Pampering

It was tax free weekend in Georgia recently, when many items deemed necessary to begin the school year are sold to weary parents. This means one thing to people without kids: unless it’s necessary to sustain life, you don’t need it. Saturday morning, people were waiting outside in a line for Target to open.

But I did need a pedicure.

Pedicures are not deemed necessary to begin the school year, so they don’t fall into the tax free category. Nevertheless, the place was packed when I arrived. At the door I was greeted as I always am. Tina, a slim Asian woman asked, “Can I help you?”

I haven’t decided if the owners are Korean or Vietnamese. I’ve even googled words I’ve remembered from some of the plaques I’ve seen hanging in the store. That leans toward Vietnam. However, someone I know who also gets her nails done there says they are Korean. One day I will just ask, but it’s kind of an odd thing to bring up in the limited conversation I typically have with them. “Yes, spa pedicure… Yes, manicure. No eyebrow wax today. French on the toes, American on the hands.” It doesn’t seem graceful to then ask, “Are you Korean?”

For those unfamiliar with the jargon, a French manicure is a purely American invention. It means that you apply white varnish at the tip of the nail and a natural colored varnish over the rest. The American version is the same, except the shade of the white varnish is softer, which looks more natural. I like putting the American shade on my hands and the French on my toes.

A spa pedicure entitles you to step into the magical world of “The Swan,” a massage chair with a whirlpool basin at the bottom. Tina dumps a scoop of blue powder in it, fills it with water and sets the jets in motion as you ease back in the chair and dial it to “ecstacy.” The Swan is more relaxing than my last few dates were and demands no small talk. I think at twenty five bucks, it’s a bargain.

A delicate balance is required however, because to speed customers through the experience, often two people work you over at one time. And when two people are attacking your body at one time, with lotions, oils or sharp utensils, keeping up with them takes practice. Tina taps your leg when she wants your foot out of the water. Steven taps your arm when you need to hold your hands up. Then your nails will be shaped, the cuticles pushed back and snipped. Envision a puppet on strings -- left arm up, right arm down, left foot down, right foot up! One hand at a time, please!

A young girl, no more than ten years old, sat in the Swan next to me. Two other teens, clearly her sisters, were also getting their nails done, but she was getting a pedicure. I watched as a first layer of juicy jungle green outlined the tip of her nails, followed by neon pink fill. The result was unmistakable, though probably unintended.

She had watermelon slices on her toes. “They look really great,” I told her with as much admiration as I could muster. Her face lit up. To my right, a younger girl had climbed into the empty swan next to her grandmother, who was getting her own pedicure. Someone had painted her toes in a pink with sparkles, and she was being careful not to touch it while it dried. But she sat in the Swan cross-legged, with the poise of a miniature Indian maiden. “That is such a pretty pink,” I told her. She smiled happily, but she did not need my assurances. Every muscle in her body said she knew she was gorgeous.

But the real beauty of the day was Mama Rose. She had heard all she could handle of our trips to Super Nails. She wanted to find out firsthand what it was like to be pampered. I believe her first encounter with the massage chair hooked her. The first time I looked over, her face was scrunched up tightly as the magic fingers “worked out a kink.” The next time I looked over, she was slumped in her chair.

Asleep. Dead to the world.

You may be a guy reading this right now, wondering why you should care. You know, I’m not the poster child for pampering. I only discovered the spa pedicure a few years ago. But it taught me something. There’s nothing selfish about taking care of yourself. When you feel good, you project your best self. When you’re not lost in your own insecurities, you’re present for others, and your thoughts are more positive. Besides, if you’re hung up on the idea of doing for others, how about having some pretty feet when you slip on those ugly old flip flops for the family pool party, guys? When you’re at your best, it tells your partner that you think they’re worth a little effort on your part, and that’s not selfish at all.

Think about it, gentlemen. The Swan is calling you.

--Laura