The Plight of Forgotten Georgia

Daniel Grove is a small church located

on a red clay dirt road near the border of

Johnson and Washington Counties.

This is Daniel Grove Church. It's an old dirt road church in the middle of nowhere. It borders one of our timber tracts and when I pass that way, I stop in to check on it. It's a peaceful place to me. A lady named Silla Mae who worked for my grandparents was a faithful member of Daniel Grove. Silla didn't drive so I would ride with Grandaddy as a child to take her home in the evenings. Sometimes on Wednesday's we would take her to church for revival meetings and she'd catch a ride home after the service with another member of the congregation. Silla was a dear, sweet soul and her memory is a part of why I keep an eye on the church. Yesterday, I walked to the very back of the cemetery and there I saw a small grave marked only with a little wooden cross made of pressure treated pine. A single, artificial tulip flower was the grave's only decoration. Incidentally, the picture was taken in the afternoon and you can see from the shadow cast by the lone tulip that the grave is perfectly oriented to face the rising sun. Briars are starting to grow over the grave now. It's been there long enough to assume that this is not a temporary situation. The size of the small mound of red clay which is now nearly settled level with the ground leads me to believe that this is the grave of a child. This is an image of what gripping poverty looks like.

 

The attention of a nation is focused on which presidential candidate is the bigger liar and an NFL quarterback with a $100+ million dollar contract who refuses to stand for the National Anthem and here, off of a rural Georgia dirt road behind a small country church under the shade of a pine tree, the body of a child lies in a grave with nothing more than two pieces of scrap wood fashioned into a cross and a plastic flower to mark his or her final resting place. This is inherently wrong. And you have to remind yourself that it really is this bad in many parts of the country. While certain areas prosper, others are completely ignored and neglected - maybe because it's just too painful to stare reality in its cold, hollow eyes. So these people and these places are ignored which makes the plight of forgotten Georgia even worse. Every member of Congress should be forced to place the picture of this grave on their desks and ask themselves daily, "what have I done today to ameliorate situations like this?"

The Politics of the Possum

Of all the creatures which live in the wilds of the South, it could be concluded that the possum is the most suited for the modern state of big time American politics.  The possum is a fine and well adapted creature.  He's a passive type primarily but will aggressively bare his teeth when he sees it fitting to do so.  When he does bare that toothy possum grin, he hopes you'll think that he'll back it up but he knows deep down he won't and can't if it comes down to it.  He's a creature which abides amidst the strife and conflict which continually surrounds him and it is there where he thrives.  But the possum doesn't involve himself unless he sees there to be an opportunity.  What the possum mainly does is watch and wait.  His hearing ain't good, his vision is worse and if something with swift and nimble feet gives chase to him on the forest floor, he will lose the race every time.  But still, he watches from on high from dawn until dusk as the sunshine washes across the forest floor.  From his perch, he surveys what goes on below while remaining vigilant about what goes on above for that is the realm in which the hawks and eagles fly and they have the wherewithal to snatch him out of his vantage point.  

The possum, he is an omnivore, which in Southern parlance means that he ain't picky... he'll take a little bit of whatever will get him by whether it be out of the garden or out of the henhouse.  The possum is an opportunist you might say.  Where he makes his living for the most part is after the sun sets and darkness falls.  It is then that he scales down the length of the trunk of his home tree and feasts himself on the bounty of the forest below as if it belonged to just him. 

He is somewhat awkward as he shuffles through the darkness but still very effective at his trade.  The possum is a survivor.  There's things in the darkness that will get after him like the devil himself and they will eat him whole if he's not slick enough to avoid them.  But usually, he is. In the river, there are alligators hoping he will get a little closer to the bank in the pitch black darkness so they might snatch him.  Bobcats watch his clumsy trek through the forest and hope he will meander just a little bit closer so that they can pounce. Owls watch him as he pokes along hoping the sound of his feet shuffling in the leaves will cover the sound of their wings cutting the air as they swoop down to grab him.  Coyote packs trail him hoping that they can bite his bottom legs and rip him apart before he climbs up the trunk of a tree to wait out the night and the dangers below.

One day, they'll get the old possum even though he played the game better than most ever will.  It's inevitable.  He will instinctively bare his teeth as the hounds close in but his fate is sealed. In the end, he will have done little more than to feign aggression while living high off the fat of the land without ever really contributing much to the greater good. And that is the story of how the possum became the President. 

This message was paid for by the Possum SuperPAC in partnership with Brer' Rabbit Holdings LTD. which is a division of Briar Patch Worldwide, LLC.