Sometimes I Hallucinate

By Tom Poland

 

Fate lays its hand on me. While driving the Fall Lines Freeway to Dry Branch, Georgia, the time to medicate arrived, 9 a.m. I had a white speck in my jean’s watch pocket, so I looked for a spot to pull over. Between Wrens and Sandersville, Georgia, I found it. A right turn onto Highway 171 and its narrow shoulders near the Grange Community, a spot so forgotten you get LaGrange if you google it. “They gotta lotta nice girls.” No, not that LaGrange.

Turning right I saw a patch of trees on the left. I parked dead square in front of it. Hallelujah, thank you, Fate. There stood a handsome old home. I went into hallucinations, not from the pill, but the house. Like a special effects scene in a grainy old B&W movie, wind fanned a wall calendar back through decades. Suddenly, the house stood new again. No trees obscuring it. Instead a swept front yard of white sand, paled by kaolin dust which gave it a sheen like snow, but it wasn’t winter. The nine-on-nine windows were open to let in spring’s sweet breath. A row of daffodils told me it was March. A few snowdrops lingered.

Old homes give me visions of two homes burnt to the ground, my grandparents’ homes. I spy a handsome old well to the side. I see a smokehouse out back. A henhouse too. It’s spring and a stack of firewood awaits the final cold snap. My grandmother would say, “Be ready for one more cold snap,” and she was always right. “Don’t plant until after Easter.” She said that too.

Inside white enameled pots with red-rimmed lids hide beneath four-post beds. Out back stands the privy. In a bedroom is a fireplace the children whitewashed with kaolin. I see more than swept yards, kaolin, henhouses, and daffodils. I see family. My mother’s mother takes a dip of her Old Navy snuff. (I took a whiff … it was sweet, musky, and spicy—all at once.) From around the house comes my father’s father wearing a worn leather jacket and a felt hat as men did in the old days. He’s holding a hatchet. Why? I have no notion.

In a kitchen corner stands my grandmother’s wooden butter churn. When molding butter into mounds, her wooden paddle left polygon-like facets—geodesic domes of pure pleasure. She’d place slices of butter on “white bread” as granddad called it and slather it over with strawberry jam.

An enameled sink is bolted to a wall. A pie safe stands empty. Its legs rot as they stand in saucers of water … to keep the ants out. On a table next to an old pump organ sits a Bible open to Proverbs 24:3-4. “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures”. A kerosene lamp is close by, its lamp chimney blackened by soot.

There comes to me now a song I heard as a child, an accompaniment to my hallucinations. You know the melody … All together now—“This ole house was home and comfort As they fought the storms of life This ole house once rang with laughter This ole house heard many shouts Now she trembles in the darkness When the lightning walks about.”

An 18-wheeler and log truck gave me reason to move on down the Falls Line Freeway. Looking back at the old house I saw it as it is. Ancient and abandoned.

The Fall Lines Highway runs 215 miles entire across Georgia. The Fall Line itself runs 215 miles from Augusta to Columbus, Georgia—the Fall Lines Freeway indeed, my portal to a Tuesday morning hallucination. On the way back I wanted to visit the old house again, but time was short—it’s always short for man but longer for old homes, a lot longer.

 

Photo by Tom Poland.

Georgia native Tom Poland writes a weekly column about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and culture and speaks frequently to groups in the South. Governor Henry McMaster conferred the Order of the Palmetto upon Tom, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor, stating, “His work is exceptional to the state.” Poland’s work appears in books, magazines, journals, and newspapers throughout the South.

Visit Tom’s website at www.tompoland.net

Email him at [email protected]