Tales of a Georgia Boy
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:54 pm
Even now the smell of peanuts takes me back to my childhood. Every three years, I'd be on my Grampa Kenny's farm, digging up the harvest from their underground home, the soil rich and dark under my feet. He always leaned against the fence, chewing his tobacco and overseeing my work. "Some folks try to plant them every year, Kenneth," he told me, "They don't understand patience and everything in its season." The intervening two years he planted corn, the ears pale yellow and noticeable to the touch as my girl Sally Jo's hair. Grampa Kenny did this to prevent disease among the peanuts. More memories. When he grew old and the farm too much to manage, he sold it and bought a small house in our quiet town in north-central Georgia. Daddy (Ken, always Ken) had no interest in the homestead and hated it growing up. He was at home with the cold, detached world of numbers, and owned an accounting business that wasn't as successful as it could have been because of how distant he was with everyone.
Not like Grampa Kenny, always warm and full of laughter. After he moved, he grew peach trees in his backyard. After another three years, they fruited. I remember the peaches with their soft pastel orange glow reminding me faintly of the basketball I carried everywhere since I was four years old, their fuzzy skin reminiscent of the beard I tried so desperately to grow but never could. I've never enjoyed large cities - they've always struck me as noisy, soulless, and dirty; dead places where you can't even hear yourself think. Not like the country. In those open spaces and among the trees, you can feel God like nowhere else.
In our tiny high school, I was a star guard. We won the state title for our level my senior year, and I received a full scholarship to play down at Valdosta State. Sally Jo broke up with me midway through my first semester for some engineering dweeb at Georgia Tech, which made me a Georgia Bulldog fan for life. The rarefied air I knew in high school disappeared in college. I did manage to be a two year starter, but was unremarkable. Grampa Kelly died of mouth cancer my junior year, a month after the first time he saw me as a starter. We lost to Shorter, but he hugged me after the game, said that he loved me and was proud of me. You see, I was the first one in my family to go to four year college. Half the town turned out for his funeral, because he had that way with people. He also told me every time I saw him, "It's not the smartest or the prettiest people who make it in life. It's not the nicest or the kindest, either. It's the folks who know how to talk folks." That advice is permanently burned in my brain - especially after seeing Daddy's bitterness at not being all he could be.
So I've been an outgoing person my whole life. After I graduated, I stayed in Valdosta as an assistant for a couple years, where my reputation as a recruiter spread almost immediately after we landed players nobody thought we could - guys who might have been fringe players at a minor D-I school were sold on the idea of becoming starters, if not superstars, for us. And so, at just 26 years old, I found myself contacted by a small college in South Carolina that'd heard of my exploits and felt I was the right one to lead their fledgling program. It didn't take me long at all to accept, because this was what I wanted - the chance to call the shots as a head coach. That it was in a town was so much the better. Mama was beside herself for days that I was leaving the state, but eventually resigned herself with a sigh and, "At least you're not going up north." Daddy, true to form, said nothing.
Not like Grampa Kenny, always warm and full of laughter. After he moved, he grew peach trees in his backyard. After another three years, they fruited. I remember the peaches with their soft pastel orange glow reminding me faintly of the basketball I carried everywhere since I was four years old, their fuzzy skin reminiscent of the beard I tried so desperately to grow but never could. I've never enjoyed large cities - they've always struck me as noisy, soulless, and dirty; dead places where you can't even hear yourself think. Not like the country. In those open spaces and among the trees, you can feel God like nowhere else.
In our tiny high school, I was a star guard. We won the state title for our level my senior year, and I received a full scholarship to play down at Valdosta State. Sally Jo broke up with me midway through my first semester for some engineering dweeb at Georgia Tech, which made me a Georgia Bulldog fan for life. The rarefied air I knew in high school disappeared in college. I did manage to be a two year starter, but was unremarkable. Grampa Kelly died of mouth cancer my junior year, a month after the first time he saw me as a starter. We lost to Shorter, but he hugged me after the game, said that he loved me and was proud of me. You see, I was the first one in my family to go to four year college. Half the town turned out for his funeral, because he had that way with people. He also told me every time I saw him, "It's not the smartest or the prettiest people who make it in life. It's not the nicest or the kindest, either. It's the folks who know how to talk folks." That advice is permanently burned in my brain - especially after seeing Daddy's bitterness at not being all he could be.
So I've been an outgoing person my whole life. After I graduated, I stayed in Valdosta as an assistant for a couple years, where my reputation as a recruiter spread almost immediately after we landed players nobody thought we could - guys who might have been fringe players at a minor D-I school were sold on the idea of becoming starters, if not superstars, for us. And so, at just 26 years old, I found myself contacted by a small college in South Carolina that'd heard of my exploits and felt I was the right one to lead their fledgling program. It didn't take me long at all to accept, because this was what I wanted - the chance to call the shots as a head coach. That it was in a town was so much the better. Mama was beside herself for days that I was leaving the state, but eventually resigned herself with a sigh and, "At least you're not going up north." Daddy, true to form, said nothing.