Georgia Green Stamper – Georgia On Her Mind

I got caught in the tailwind of my old friend, Birthday, as he raced through another April. I admit that I lost my balance for an hour or two. “You’re old,” Birthday taunted as he flew past me on his way to outrun next year before I can blink.
“That’s not nice,” I shouted after him. “And besides, Old is the new New. Old, now that the Baby Boomers are on Medicare, is IN.”

This is a Christmas story. Sort of. Or maybe it’s about grumpy old men. Maybe it’s about the commercialism that we like to rant against at this time of year. I’m pretty sure, though, that it’s about love.

I’m learning the Morse Code. I got the idea from a movie I saw this summer. In one of those light-bulb-flashing-over-my-head moments, I realized this could bridge the communication gap between my young adult children and me. They only communicate by texting now, and with my clumsy old thumbs and last century spelling, I’m left out of the conversation. Re-invent the telegraph, I say, with its finger friendly dashes and dots in plain old English!

It was one mile short of being a river, folks said when I was a child, and I believed them. Eagle Creek was our Nile, sustaining our livelihood, nurturing our culture. Its winding path had carved out our place on earth a million years before the mighty Ohio was born, mapping where the hearts of my people would rest. Even the edge of the sky stopped at a wall of tall, boney sycamore trees that grew along its banks.