Circles

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Growing up in the 50's and 60's was a unique time, now that I think back on it.
The agricultural past of this country and especially the South was fast changing. I feel fortunate to have grown up on a small family farm, part of a tradition that stretched back to the early 1900's when my Great Grandpa moved his family out of the hills around Gainesville, GA (a place then known as New Holland) to a new farm in the center of Gwinnett County along the Alcovy river.

Dairy farming could be profitable there. Close enough to make daily deliveries of milk, cream, chocolate milk and even at times orange juice to the door steps of families on the eastern part of Atlanta. Decatur, Stone Mountain and other small towns that provided growing room for what became quite a bustling town rising out of the ashes of the War between the States.

Then a Farmer could pretty easily count the number of families he could feed. Now 1 farm can produce more that they ever thought possible.

Families provided the basis of your whole life then.

The small church we went to had a cemetery full of dead relatives that we never knew and the pews full of family with ties going back 3 even 4 generations, although as kids we didn't know that. Names like Buffingtons, Pratts, Dewberries, Dunagans, MaHaffee's, Hinton's all tied into a circle the that just kept growing.

The circle today is large enough that we have a hard time seeing from one minute of arc to any of the other 360 degrees. It both saddens and gladdens me to think of how it's grown. Sad to think of all those I've never known and never will, and glad to be a part of those I do.

It's kinda like life it's self. With no beginning and no end in sight, we just keep on marching around on the path before us, whether it's fated to us or just happenstance, I can't tell, and feel no real need to know at this point. I'm just glad to be a part of it.

There was a PBS documentary on The Carter Family on the tube tonight. I suppose that's what started me thinking along these lines.

They started a tradition that shaped the music world of their day and to great extent still does today. I wish I could have found the following song on YouTube by the original 3 Carter family members, A.B., Sarah and Maybelle, but 1 and 2 generations later they still kept the traditions alive.



May the Circle be unbroken.

I can get all misty eyed just hearing it again. I think of the almost 60 years behind me and the 135 years yet to go to reach my goal.

Maybe later I can find something by Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers.