Town Mountain

As a young person, I wouldn't eat eggplant. For some reason or another, I had decided that I didn't like it, although Heaven Forbid that I actually try it.

Tonight Jimmy and I went to Lakeland, twenty miles from Valdosta, to hear Fann and Billy Greer's middle son Robert play with his bluegrass band, Town Mountain. I'd never cared much for bluegrass music, but I love Fann and Billy and wanted to see Robert and hear him play. I would have gone even if he'd been playing rap or hip-hop, which I don't love.

About ten minutes into the concert I was clapping my hands and tapping my feet, thinking," This is REALLY good!" and fifteen minutes after that I was a fan. A devotee. An adoring groupie. At intermission, I went into the lobby and bought their latest CD, "Heroes and Heretics" which is now #35 on the charts. It's wonderful.

Eggplant has long been one of my favorite foods, and after tonight, bluegrass and Town Mountain are at the top of MY chart.

They just don't make 'em like they used to

My favorite article of clothing is a navy blue v-neck cashmere sweater that Jimmy bought in 1962 at Uly Gunn's in Athens. It cost him a whopping $35, but he'd worked all summer and saved for it. (He remembers that a Gant shirt was $5.) He wore a medium way back then, but has been a size large for many decades since, so The Sweater now belongs to me.

It's thick, and as soft as butter, without snags or pulls or moth holes; it has retained its shape and color, and after infrequent dry cleanings, looks as fresh and new as it did the day Jimmy carried it out of the store. He wore it all through college and beyond, and now it's indispensable for me to lounge around in, with blue jeans, on a cold winter day.

Another good report

We got the results for the tests done earlier this month at Emory, and everything looks good. Jimmy's still in remission. He's caught another cold, but he's doing okay.

We've been spending a lot of time at the farm, curled up in front of a crackling fire, reading. The only drawbacks have been the absence of an internet connection and very limited cell phone service: a primitive existence indeed.

A snowy day in Georgia

The only significant snow that I can remember in Valdosta occurred in the late fifties and again around 1989 or 1990, and both times it was quite an event. That rare and magical precipitation is foreign to our little ones today, unless they travel north.

This afternoon a lot (ten tons, reportedly) of man made snow was dumped on the ground at the library, and the local children loved it. The temperature today was in the seventies, so the soft snow rapidly turned into hard ice chunks, and snowball fights became treacherous, but it was fun while it lasted.

(Note: That's our Jake in the striped shirt and my friend Mary Young Manning's grandson, Converse Boatenreiter, in the light green.)

A good son

After the funeral Wednesday, a longtime friend of Mrs. Dewar's came up to Jimmy and me and said, "I was telling someone this morning that when I get to the point where I can't look after myself any more, I want Jimmy Dewar to take care of me." Amen to that.

Joyful, Joyful

Mrs. Dewar loved occasions: Jimmy says that she anticipated birthdays and holidays and celebrations with all the eagerness and excitement of a child. Funerals went against the grain of her happy nature, but one has to think that she would have been very pleased with her service today. It was lovely.

To know her was to love her

Jimmy's mother died this afternoon. She was ninety-two years old, and had suffered an incapacitating stroke last August.

Jimmy and I had been at the beach for the past week. Jamey called this morning to tell us that his grandmother wasn't doing well, and that he was headed down from Atlanta, and we came on home, too.

She died about forty-five minutes after we arrived, and I'm convinced that she was hanging on, waiting for Jimmy and Jamey to get there. Jimmy held her hand and told her, "We're all here, Mama, and it's okay to let go," and she went peacefully, surrounded by the people she loved.

And so: onward. *

*Appropriated from today's Peggy Noonan editorial in the WSJ. The photograph I took myself.