Now Yer Messin With A …

Amazing how music finds memories in the very back recesses of your brain.

It happened to me just today.

I left the office today and marched across the parking lot to my little Sebring. It was a beautiful afternoon of full sun, so I rolled down all the windows and opened the moon roof all the way for that convertible effect.

Detroit has a great radio station, 94.7 that plays classic rock just like the play list that my favorite station in Atlanta, 96 Rock, used to play when I was a teenager in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

It was one of the best things about moving to Windsor from London. A 94.7 made me feel like a kid back in Atlanta again. To me, it's a great radio station.

As I pulled on to the expressway, an old song came on that brought back memories like only music can do.

Even songs you don't like, but still remember, will bring back great memories.

This was an old song by a band called Nazareth. In all it's crudity. The song is called "Sum ub ah Bich" (or something that might sound like that anyway…).

So at the now graying age of forty six, I turned it up real loud, put on my sunglasses and reclined the seat of the car back a bit.

"Now yer messin' with a … son of a …"

And my mind went back to when my family first moved to Georgia in 1975.

At that time we were living in Apple Valley Minnesota. South of Saint Paul – Minneapolis – just outside another small town called Rosemount.

Minnesota was – at least to me as a boy of twelve or thirteen – a very sterile and clean environment. Everyplace was well groomed. Gardens and the greenest of grass. And the people in Minnesota were very … well .. I guess "proper" is the best term that comes to mind. Boring – but sterile and proper.

My Dad received notice in the summer of 1974 that he could choose the transfer of his choice to become a regional manager for 3M company's business products division. The choices were San Diego California, and Atlanta Georgia.

Dad chose Atlanta.

Mom and Dad took a trip together to go look for our new house. And they found one in a little town I have written here about before, Lawrenceville. It was a nice subdivision, with a community co-op style club around the corner called Plantation Swim and Racket Club – or PSRC for short.

When we arrived, the culture shock was immense.

We were Canadians living in the United States as green-card-carrying landed immigrants. And in Michigan, where we lived when I was a little boy in elementary school, and then Minnesota, where we lived when I was in middle school (grades seven and eight), we fit right in. Minnesotans could easily be confused for Canadians – at least I think so.

But Georgia – well that's a whole different bowl of peach cobbler. A completely new slice of pecan pie.

The food was different. The attitudes were different. The rules were a lot more relaxed. And well, the pattern of speech was different.

I remember sitting in my very first class in the eighth grade – a trailer – a busted down trailer – with graffiti on the desks and walls – dirty and smelly – waiting amongst this strange trailer full of southern kids – all talking like a completely different language. It was English – but damned if I knew what they were saying.

"That thar's the new kid, I dun wonder where he come from?" said a pretty little girl a couple of seats ahead of me.

"Don't know, but he's kind-a funny lookin."

I guess I was pretty funny looking to them. I had a short haircut my Mom would approve of, I was short, and pudgy. I was also very pale in comparison to southerners. I was just new from Minnesota – and Minnesota wasn't really a sun tanning paradise.

"Hey kid, where y'all from?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I replied.

I thought I had landed in Mayberry. I thought "all these kids couldn't really talk this way, could they?"

In came the teacher. Mrs Blylock.

"Thank God", I thought. "She'll tell these kids to stop faking their Gomer Pyle accents."

"Mornin' y'all", said Mrs. Blylock. "How was y'alls summer?"

"Oh my God", I thought, "This is real. Holy cow these people really are serious".

Every single syllable word was spread out to become two or three syllables. The pitch of their voices went up and down in a sing song manner as they practically sang their words. I wish I could write music to express it to you more effectively.

But as time went on, I adapted.

I learned that y'all meant you. And all y'all meant everyone present. I learned that yonder meant someplace over there – or thar . And dun (done) didn't mean something you completed, but just simply added action to the sentence. You didn't just do something. You dun did it.

Then I was assimilated.

And that year of eighth grade at Lilburn Middle School went along quite nice. There were big kids in my class that I looked up to, like Kirk Ewing and Damon Huston. On our street it was Bill Huseby and Mike Lefevbre. The cool guys. The big guys. The guys who weren't scared to fight. Not bully's. They were all pretty damned good guys.

After eighth grade was over, and summer was kicking in, I started playing baseball in Lawrenceville's little league and swimming for the local club PSRC. I was pretty good at both. And I also hit a growth spurt. I grew somewhere between six inches and a foot in a single month.

And now I was as big as the guys I looked up to.

And I learned what confidence felt like.

But now to get back to the point about a song bringing back memories … It was the first day of high school at Berkmar High. Waiting for the bus with my now neighborhood buddies. And the bus pulled up to let us on.

As I got on the bus, an old dilapidated version of a bus with those big green seats with the springs shot out and rips bandaged up with silver duct tape, there was something weird. The driver was a hippy looking girl probably in her early twenties. And she had … an eight track tape player … in the bus? And it was playing Rock music. Pretty heavy music.

And as I sat down in my seat, the music blared …

"Now yer messin with a … son of a …."

"So this is high school.." I thought as I sat with my buddies. "This is pretty cool".

And when I got to school, my new found height, my athletic build, and the muscles in my arms – not to mention my deep tan, was noticed. The guys I used to look up to came up to me to say "hey" – southern for hi.

And I said "hey, how y'all doin?"

And I was converted.

And on the way home from school, the hippy chick bus driver was playing her eight track tape again. And I remember thinking to myself as I sat next to a pretty neighborhood girl …

"Now yer messin with a son of a …"

The Summers in Lawrenceville Georgia

What a beautiful day it is today.

It is the first day of September, but you would not know it by stepping out on our back deck.

The sky is pure blue. The sun is working its way across the morning sky. Soon it will be above the pool and we can go swimming.

But September is here.

On Tuesday, Alannah will start first grade at her new school. On Wednesday, Ashley-Rae will start Senior Kindergarten.

Both are anxious. Both are excited and apprehensive. Both are absolutely normal.

I remember being a kid, and the last few days of summer were left to those last three days that made up the Labor Day weekend. The fact that it was a three day weekend meant nothing to me as I had just had nearly 3 months off for summer holidays. And I counted down the minutes – those precious final minutes – until school would once again commence.

I didn’t hate school. I just really loved summer.

Baseball, swimming, and gathering up the friends in the neighborhood for pick up games of basketball, football, and baseball.

I really loved summer best when we lived in Georgia. We lived in a suburb of Atlanta between two rural towns of Lilburn and Lawrenceville. Around the corner and down the hill was our community club – Plantation Swim and Racquet club. It had a great pool, and two tennis courts. We would hang out at that pool all day with all our buds in the neighborhood. My brother Paul learned to play tennis there and rose to the top five in the state – on those very courts.

Back then, my best friends were Robby Irby, Steve Stillwell and his brother Ken. John Bartles and the LaFlevbre brothers lived further down on one side. And further down the other side of our house lived Bill Huseby, Stuart Franklin, and Mark Lane.

Directly across from our house was the Tomblins. And next door to them were the Livesays.

On the street behind us – behind my house – lived Donna Rice. A year younger than me – she was the first girl I ever had a crush on.

All the friends we had then seemed to be athletes. Very good athletes. At one time, we had four starting players for our high school basketball team in our neighborhood. And the pick up basketball games were really great.

These are the guys I drank my first beer with. And yes – smoked my first cigarette with – but it didn’t stick back then. It stunk actually. I didn’t start smoking until University.

One of the Livesay’s was Ken. He wound up going to Auburn on a football scholarship in my senior year of high school. He was a legend at our school. And I wish I knew how he made out at Clemson.

Even though Ken never hung out in our little circle of friends, we all looked up to him. His little sister Amy was in our circle of friends. And she was – and most likely still is – one of the nicest human beings you could meet.

Summer was pretty sacred to me. It is funny now to realize those most special summers there with those friends only counted up to five. It seemed like so many more.

I often wonder what happened to some of my friends. Some I have seen on our high school alumni website. Bill Huseby runs a car dealership, Tracey Tomblin has married and raised a nice family. Donna Rice married some very lucky fellow and they own a restaurant somewhere around the Greater Atlanta Area. John Bartles works for one of the school boards in the area.

But I have seen no sign of Robby Irby. And Robby was my best friend of those days.

Last year I downloaded the Google Earth program. I spent many winter weekend mornings using Google Earth to find the homes of all the people that we know and love. If you click on the Satellite view, it actually shows you the satellite photographs from as low as about 500 feet.

View Larger Map

When I found my old neighborhood in Lawrenceville, I zoomed in real close – and I went visiting. I first found our house on Plantation Court. I went around the corner and down the hill to the club. They had added two more tennis courts – and after thirty years – the swimming pool was still there. Nothing had changed – except there were two more tennis courts. I went back up the street and visited the Bartles', the Stillwell's, the Irby’s, and over to the Tomblin's and the Huseby's. Up to the Lanes’s and the Franklin's.

All the while I was looking for any sign that they might still be there. But there was no such sign. “It was 30 years ago you know” I said to myself. “Do you think they will still be there being 13-16 years old still?”

“Maybe some twilight-zone effect? No … don’t be silly”.

I like to call my daughters over to the computer sometimes. And I take them for a walk through my old neighborhood. I show them the house Paul and I lived in. I walk them down to the club to the pool. And I show them all the great driveways where we played basketball, and the backyards we played football in.

And I tell them all about my friends. And they sit in listen. I can see them imagining us playing in those yards. And I tell them some of our funny stories – but only those that you can tell five and six year old girls.

“Do you miss your friends, Daddy?” asked Alannah.

“Yes, I guess I do honey”.

“Why don’t you call them?” asked Ashley-Rae.

I guess we out grew each other I thought to myself without answering. But I sure did love those guys back then.

I think I’ll load up Google Earth and take another walk through the old neighborhood.