Another too-short visit, another bittersweet goodbye, and several more ahead. When I arrived at Ward and Lisa’s I had admired the roses that were blooming in their yard, still amazed at how warm December could be down here. Now, as I drove away in the cool of the early morning, I smiled, noticing that one of those roses had been placed in my car’s air vents. I pulled out of their driveway ready for Georgia, my car now packed with bowls and mugs from Ward’s studio and other gifts for me and Joanna.
Before the day was over I would have two more lightning visits with old friends.
I met Guilmo Barrio in the 1980s when I lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I was working on a community economic development project in the city. Lawrence is an old, impoverished, down-at-the heels New England mill town and Guilmo was an organizer, leader, and activist in the Hispanic community. At the time it was deeply divided by race, ethnicity, and language, culminating in violence that the press described as “race riots” in 1984. Along with a few of my other close friends, we came up with a quixotic idea to help heal some of those wounds and bring the city together.
In 1912 textile workers in Lawrence had gone on strike to protest a pay reduction. It was a spontaneous walkout. The strikers were mostly women. All were immigrants. Almost none spoke English. Few observers thought the action had any chance of success. But the motley band held fast through a hunger, threats of violence, and a brutally cold winter. Eventually they won pay increases, and a congressional investigation into the horrific conditions at the mills.
(Public Domain image via WIkimedia Cimmons)
A story was told that the striking women marched behind a banner reading “We Want Bread, and Roses Too!” It was a line from a poem that expressed one of their demands. They wanted a ten-hour day, allowing mill workers a little free time for learning and creative pursuits. The strike became known as “The Bread and Roses Strike.”
Along with a small group of other friends 1, we decided to launch a festival on Labor Day to celebrate the city’s labor history. The success of the 1912 strikers was to us a model of multicultural cooperation and a potential source of pride for Lawrence. We founded the Bread and Roses Heritage Festival, which continues to run every Labor Day. It’s now in its 38th year.
Creating and running the festival was an intense, exciting, challenging experience that drew us together, but over the last few decades I’d lost touch with Guilmo and his wife. When I learned that he had moved to the tiny town of Temple, Georgia (population 5,000), not far from my route between Montgomery and Atlanta, I decided I had to visit.
I pulled into a small, suburban, cul-de-sac development to the south of town and eagerly skipped up the steps to their home. The day was bright and warm, but not as warm as the welcome I received from Guilmo and his wife Ana Maria. The moment I arrived we began reminiscing and catching up. Guilmo brought out faded newspaper clippings from the Festival, and we had a video call with our fellow festival organizer John Corliss.
I asked Guilmo and Ana Maria how they wound up in the tiny rural town of Temple, Georgia. The story they told was that decades ago someone had dropped by their Massachusetts home to have a document notarized (one Guilmo’s many roles). As Guilmo read the document Ana Maria overheard him remark “$100,000 to buy a house!” They had just spent more than that to have a garage built in their Massachusetts home. Ana Maria rushed into the room to ask the man where this house was; It was in Georgia, and over the next few years the two made frequent road trips to the state. One day they saw a sign for a new development. It was still in the early stages of construction; Many of the streets hadn’t been paved. The cul-du-sac where they eventually built their home didn’t exist yet. They built a lovely and comfortable home to their specifications. They loved their new place, and several of their children and grandchildren have relocated nearby.
We had three decades of our lives to catch up, and we lost track of time almost immediately. My plan had been to go for take-out food and have lunch with Guilmo and Ana Maria, but by the time I looked at a clock it was not only far too late for lunch, but past the time when I needed to leave. I was headed to Tucker that evening, a town on the other side of Atlanta where my high school friend Chris Lutz lived. Previous visits had made me all too familiar with the city’s notorious traffic, and wanted to get beyond the city center before rush hour.
I made a quick stop for a pulled-pork sandwich at (no town in the South is too small to have a decent barbecue joint) and then spent a few hours gritting my teeth as I weaved between trucks and aggressive commuters. Blindly following Google’s directions, I heaved a sigh of relief when I pulled off the interstate near Tucker, the peaceful, bosky neighborhood where Chris and her husband Joe live. Chris is retired from her job as a history professor at Fort Valley State, a historically Black University a few hours to the South. Her husband Joe owns and publishes a community newspaper called Up Close and Personal in Tucker and Lilburn.
It’s a unique and remarkable publication. This is an actual a newspaper, printed on actual paper, that, bucking all current trends, seems to have no online presence at all. The words of its stories wind among ads from local dentists, lawn care and upholstery services, restaurants, electricians, lawyers, pet shops, hardware stores and just about every small-town business imaginable. The editorial content consists entirely of profiles of local residents, written either by the subjects of the story or sometimes by close family members.
Flipping through a stack of back issues, I found it hard not to marvel at what a remarkable place these two quiet tree-lined suburbs are.
One story was by Olympic Gold Medalist Tommie C. Smith. He managed to break thirteen world records in track and field but is more well-known for his raised-fist protest at the 1968 Olympics. Another story profiled Frans De Waal, the world-famous primatologist, famous for this groundbreaking work on social behavior of primates, including bonobos and humans. Stan Cotrell is a 78-year-old heading out on a 3,000-mile run from Los Angeles to Washington DC. Hank Thomas, one of the original “freedom riders,” was on the bus that was firebombed in Anniston, Alabama. A few years later he found himself in Vietnam, a medic working to save the life of a wounded white Alabama kid. An article titled “My father the Historic virus Hunter” was about Dr. Terrence Tumpey, A CDC virologist who did pathbreaking research on the genome of the 1912 Flu.
“Up Close and Personal…” doesn’t just cover the more famous residents. Local high school kids contributed a story about their environmental work. Another story was a heart-wrenching memoir of coping with grief and raising a family after the author’s husband died.
Chris insisted on taking me to out to dinner (Joe was a little too COVID-shy to join us). Her first choice, a Thai restaurant, was operating on an takeout-only basis, so we visited the unassuming taco place next door (though a second choice, it was authentic and delicious). Afterwards she drove us by a home in the area that took Christmas lights very seriously. We enjoyed the cheery carpet of light and laughed at the hodgepodge mix-up of pop culture and sacred iconography. Later I sat making friends with Chris and Joe’s dog as she updated me on her family. I’ve only visited Chris a handful of times in the last half century, so I was happy to hear the stories but I’m afraid I did a lot of nodding, smiling, and trying not to look too lost as she navigated a complex web of children, grandchildren, siblings and other relationships I didn’t quite place. I also learned from Chris and Joe a little bit of what it was like for someone with progressive politics to live in a place very different from Vermont.
I realized that the morning would mean another goodby and more missed opportunities. It was odd for me to be in Atlanta, not at all far from the city center, and to see nothing of the city. I wanted to revisit the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and see King’s final resting place again, I’d like to walk or bike on Atlanta’s Beltline. I’ve never seen the Botanical Gardens. I’d even go back to the silly commercial “World of Coca Cola” exhibit, suffering through the corporate propaganda to reach the part where I was able to sample strange and unusual beverages the company sells in other parts of the world.
But there were more friends and to visit and more new experiences to have, and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. Also, I was starting to feel a distant, weak, mysterious force gently tugging me homeward. Strange. I’ve never been much of a “nester” and I thrive on new experiences. Other than Joanna, I couldn’t think of anything I missed about being home. Maybe this was a sign that I was getting old.
Chris fed me a lavish breakfast (including some excellent latkes) and sent me off with a carefully-packed lunch (generous enough that it fed me for several more days) and a tin full of her homemade Christmas cookies that kept me on a sugar high for much of the rest of the trip.
As I crossed into South Carolina, I reflected on the last few weeks. I had been expecting a relaxing trip, and it’s been that, but it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride emotionally. I’m not complaining: I’m having a lot of fun and it’s been about as carefree as travel can be, but I felt an odd whiplash. One day I was a stranger in strange places, the next day I was sitting at a table with family and old friends, frantically catching up on the months, years, or decades since we’d last spent time together. I needed to stop and take some deep breaths. I also needed to catch up on some bureaucratic aspects of of my life like signing up for Social Security and Medicare and paying bills. My trusty blue steed was overdue for an oil change. I also wanted to take a COVID test to be certain I hadn’t infected any of my old friends. I decided on a “downtime” day. I’d check in to a faceless chain motel in Charlotte and spend a day with no sights to see and no adventures planned.