It was a surreal sight, those first images I saw of the neighborhood in Blakely, down in the heart of Southwest Georgia where I grew up. It looked like a bomb had gone off. It didn’t look real. But it was.
Hundreds of trees were uprooted by winds a Dothan TV station said topped 115 mph. Some of those trees fell on houses where I played as a child. Power went out hours before the worst of the storm hit, and, as I write this, it will be a while before the lights are back on. It seems every power line and transformer in the neighborhood has come crashing to earth.
I’ve never made a secret of my belief that the Lakewood Drive neighborhood where I grew up was a unique place. We were a tight-knit neighborhood. I have an amazing mother, but there are a half dozen other women who can lay claim to raising me. The other kids in the neighborhood were like brothers and sisters.
When we weren’t in school, we rode our bikes, or built forts in the nearby woods or caught turtles in the lake behind our house. My friend Andy and I often rode our bikes to the Suwannee Swifty convenience store to buy drinks and candy.
On warm nights, the adults often gathered on Granny Martin’s front porch and did whatever it was adults did while the kids played in the front yard.
I get nostalgic occasionally about my hometown. I feel sorry for kids today who don’t get to have the kind of childhood we had. And I sometimes wonder if that kind of neighborhood has gone the way of the nickel Coke and the corded telephone.
Then Hurricane Michael happened, and I realized my neighborhood – in fact, all of Southwest Georgia – hasn’t changed a lot in all the years I’ve been gone from there.
Just before the worst of the storm hit, I talked to my mother. We had tried to convince her to leave, to go somewhere safe.
“If I’m going to blow away, I’ve going to do it in my own house,” was the response we got.
It was a sleepless night, wondering what was happening in Southwest Georgia. But the next morning, my mother assured me she was fine. Some shingles and siding had blown off the house, and some venerable old pine trees were lost. Others in the neighborhood weren’t so lucky. But, praise the Lord, no one was hurt.
Battered and shaken, that neighborhood immediately began picking up the pieces, and that spirit of family I loved soon emerged.
One neighbor fired up his generator to power his Keurig so that people could have a hot cup of coffee. That night, another neighbor cooked a turkey and the entire neighborhood showed up for sandwiches. Another night, someone cooked burgers for all. Some kind folks helped put a tarp on my mom’s roof and cut up the trees in her yard.
The resiliency of the neighborhood is a source of pride today. Neighbor has always helped neighbor there. But to see how people step up in a time of crisis is heartwarming. As much as I wanted my mother somewhere safe, I also knew that they were all taking care of each other.
“What will we do when we have power?” one neighbor asked on Facebook. “We must continue the fellowship. Life is too short.”
Indeed. The next time I’m home, I’m sure the old neighborhood won’t look the same, what with all the trees that will be gone. But it’s good to know the important things — the spirit, the kinship, the love — can’t be brought down by a storm.
