Butler, Georgia

I’m writing this blog in Microsoft Word in the hopes that I’ll one day be able to post when I’m gloriously reunited with a wireless high speed internet connection. Actually, I’d likely settle for a dial up connection at this point. This “trial” is small price I pay for time spent with my extended family in the rural Georgia town of Butler. If you’ve never heard me speak of this town, one of my favorite places on earth, let me describe it for you a bit. Butler is the quintessential small town. Both my grandparents were born and grew up within a few miles of this town. In fact, all four of their parents (my great-grandparents) lived their entire lives in this county. When I was 13, my family lived here for a year and I came to a very sudden realization that I was related to about ¼ of the town, and the other ¾ knew me, my parents, and my grandparents. In fact, everyone in Butler, pretty much knows everyone. It is a place that makes it difficult to hide. I found the one year my family lived in the house across the dirt road (which is now paved) from my grandparents as wonderful as springtime is after a long winter. However, springtime comes with pollen, and I’m often thankful that we moved before I became the preachers kid living in that glass bowl in a town where it felt that literally everyone knew me.

Still the draw backs of this small town, and the lack of constant connection with those outside it, are actually part of the reason I love being here so much. Since my family moved a lot as I grew up (we had made 8 major moves by the time I was in high school), Butler and more specifically my Nana’s house became the one constant in my life. I could always count on it to be pretty much the same no matter what. The furniture stays in pretty much the same place, though a couple pieces have been replaced or reupholstered during my lifetime. My Papa’s old pick up still sits in the same spot under the carport, though the shinny green paint of my memories now has larger portions of rust specks than green. While the table that used to be the “kids” table now holds grown up kids, everything else pretty much remains the same.

I think that is part of the allure of a small town like Butler and perhaps part of the reason I chose it as the “last stop” before heading across the country for a new adventure. It is here where everything else stays so status quo that I realize my life has not been. On the last couple trips, I’ve found myself telling my niece stories of how my brother (their dad) got me and my cousins into trouble on a fairly regularly basis, or how we couldn’t wait for my cousins to arrive so we could play on their Nintendo, or who those people in the rust colored pictures from the 70’s and 80’s were. It is then, I realize I must look a lot like my dad and uncle did telling me stories from their childhood, and somehow this makes me feel old. I don’t often feel old, but here in Butler, Georgia where time seems to stand still, it becomes obvious to me that it is passing all too quickly.