Travel
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Tracing the Dunns
We left Georgia and crossed into South Carolina at the Savannah River, where one finds the boundary line, today. I looked on the Native Lands map and it said we were in Muscogee lands. I imagine it was Muscogee land back in 1830 but at that time, the John Dunn family had a plantation, and under their possession they also had a small group of enslaved persons — a middle-aged woman, a younger man, and four children, whose names have been lost to time. The Dunns gave their name — or took possession of — the local creek that ran through their property. Dunn Creek is findable on Google maps…
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Marching through Georgia
It was a rainy kind of day, starting with light drizzles, turning pretty nasty, dumping buckets of rain, lighting and thunder and a few spinouts (by other cars). Not what we’re used to in dry California. It was lovely and a little alarming, but afterward, the skies broke open and beautiful sun rays flashed across the clouds as the sun set. What a pretty thing to see. We started out from Jasper, Alabama, and went to Birmingham to pick up my sister from the airport, and then headed east to Atlanta. Stopped to pick up coffee and snax from a gas station (gas $3.26/gallon). From the back seat of the…
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Birthrights and Wrongs
I’m heading south and east this week to dig into some family history, the in-person research I can do only in person in Alabama. I’ll be staying in Jasper, with forays into Birmingham and down to Alexander City and Hackneyville. Part of the research will be digging into libraries and part will be driving around to see the environs where my forebears were slaveholders. I’ve found what I could find on Ancestry.com and at my local library; I have looked through old photo albums (hence the photo of Ole Mary washing clothes, from about 1915; it’s very possible she was a former slave). I have purchased deed-mapping software and found information…
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Hitting the Road
- appreciation, authors, Books, family, freelance, random, rants, The Doris Diaries, Travel, Uncategorized, work, writing
How is This Possible? Coincidences and Other Disasters
I spend a lot of my time howling the cosmic yawp into the blue beyond. It looks, to mortal eyes, like I’m making lunch and beating a deadline and running errands and remembering to put out the trash cans. But I assure you, a goodly portion of every day is given over to caterwauling (mostly in my inside voice but not always) on the WHY of everyday living. The WHY of how did we get here? The WHY of how can X be happening? I’m old enough to know better. I am hitting that midpoint in life. I have successfully raised 4.9 kids (just 1 year left on #5). We…
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Writing as Though I Had Wings
I’ve come to that cross-road in a writer’s life where she has to choose between writing what she wants and writing what earns her bread. It might even be one of those modern five-way stoplights where several roads merge and one must decide whether to turn gently to the right, to join the path ahead, or — most alarming of all — veer to the left and go against the traffic, hoping for a break in the rush to slip across. What to do? And I think I might go for the difficult and risky choice. This is absolutely one of those moments where, if speaking to young writers, I…
