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Hello World - Here I Am…

Hi, readers! This is my first post with WMBB and I’m really excited and really stumped. Frankly my feelings about beginning this blog mirror some of the challenges I’ve faced in my work life- so many interests-so little focus -so many distractions!

A fellow WMBB blogger said that the first post would be the hardest, so I’m going to go ahead and jump in feet first-an appropriate metaphor for today’s illustration!  If you’d like musical accompaniment, click here.

pic

The back of this photo reads, “Poe Springs- Mother-Aunt Maggie the Helchers” I guesstimate the photo was taken c. 1915. I believe it is my great grandmother Janie Suggs Underwood (my mother’s grandmother) with some neighbors on the Santa Fe River in Alachua County. My grandmother’s peeps came over on galleons and I was muy shocked when my children and I saw a marker on a vacation trip with a family name on it! Of course some where in there someone got bored because my grandmother always said she was a quarter indian. Quote. Who knows. That branch of the family has a fantastic streak of malicious high spirits.  That branch.  Anyway, Grandmother supposedly wanted to stay at the Female college in Tallahassee and become a missionary (?) and her daddy said !NO! so Grandmother ran away with the railroad to Atlanta (Grandfather was working on the train in some capacity; he was an engineer later in life, but not that kind.) After raising a family with the love of her life, and interesting work with the Highway Department (practically my family’s personal Welfare Office- around 1970 my dad, my stepfather, Grandmother, my uncle, as well as his first wife, all worked there), she spent her sad old age wishing to get back home to Florida in the warm, warm sun, but it was not to be.

So here I have ended up, rather the wrong end of the state, but Panama City has “been very good to me” as the phrase goes, and really a good place to raise girls. Our neighborhood has sidewalks and a school and bay beaches and a mix of people that would make any new urbanist green with envy.  We love that the Downtown Library, the Marina, the Civic Center, and the Martin Theatre are all within walking distance! I don’t mind driving to Atlanta but I hate driving on 23rd Street!

When I was looking for an image for this page, I found Great grandmother Janie’s little self published book of poetry (typed and neatly bound with cloth library tape in a pasteboard folder.) I’ll include her introductory note and the first poem as my sign off. I may have even found a theme.

Bits of verse,
All bad, some worse-

Nothing New

There is nothing new
Under the sun,
Only a difference
In the way it is done.
Words are as old
As Father Time
There’s just a knack
In making them rhyme.

I hope this will be an entertaining way to do some old things. I probably won’t rhyme.  JWC.

Comments (4)


Posted on Aug 06, 2007 - 10:34 AM by Jeannie Weller
Page 1 of 1 pages

 

About Me

I was born into the middle of The Strip in 1960s Atlanta, Georgia. I was educated in Fayetteville, Georgia and at Georgia Southern College (now University) in Statesboro. I moved with my family to Panama City, Florida in 1999. My two daughters and I have enjoyed exploring the beaches, the Downtown Library, and all of our neighbors' attics and cupboards. I think writing is like pulling teeth but I can't do anything else, and that... not too well. I love looking at pictures and especially old ones, so if you have any, send me a COPY and tell me about it and I'll share it with my readers. Tell everyone you know about this blog, and ya'll come back now, hear?

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