It is raining this morning. As indicated in my last post, that’s a rare blessing for which I am grateful. The gray clouds hanging over the city are no more palpable than the pall cast by the crashing markets that shape virtually all of my conversations these days. Whatever this is, it is the end of something.
Now that I’ve been blogging for awhile, I see almost all of my experiences as potential subjects for blog posts. While that perspective has the beneficial effect of prodding me toward a more interesting and intentional life, I often find myself trying to artificially link my various experiences together with a profound theme concluded with a clever closing phrase. Sometimes life doesn’t quite lay out that way. The past few days have been over-full with events ranging from the amusing to the tragic, and I don’t know if there’s a bow to tie them together.
On Thursday morning I left the office to participate in a “sporting clay” tournament. I was grateful for the invitation, but given my complete lack of experience with the sport, I initially planned to decline. But when I learned that some of my clients were attending the two day event, along with a lot of potential clients, I changed my mind. Given current market conditions for real estate lawyers, it seemed like a good idea for me to go.
I met two of my clients here in the city so that we could share a ride out to the Burge Plantation. The Burge lies about an hour east of Atlanta in the town of Social Circle. As we were driving away from Atlanta on I-20, one of my clients asked where I grew up.
“Here.” I said. “Right here, just off the Panola Road exit.”
“Where is here?” he asked. It’s a fair question, because there’s not a lot of “there” there.
“Lithonia” I explained, which explained little. But driving past the familiar freeway exits always prompts a flood of childhood memories for me, and I was lost in thought for a few miles.
One of my clients recommended that we eat lunch at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle. I wasn’t familiar with the Inn, but I’ve come to learn that it has a significant national reputation for country dining. The reputation is well deserved. The restaurant is located in an old, stately home and features an “all you can eat” buffet. None of that is terribly unusual, but the food itself was a cut above any other country dining establishment I’ve enjoyed during my many years in the south.
The Blue Willow Inn
Back in the early 90’s the Blue Willow Inn’s renown was solidified when the late Lewis Grizzard wrote a nationally syndicated article in which he said of the Blue Willow that he’d finally found the country dining for which he’d been searching all his life. Our waitress, upon learning that we were new to the restaurant, instructed us, “It’s real simple – eat all you can.” We did, and it was phenomenally good, as my waistline proves.
My First Helping. That’s a fried green tomato at 11:00.
After our ample lunch at the Blue Willow, we drove over to The Burge. I wasn’t able to learn a great deal about the history of the place, other than that the main house was one of the few survivors of Sherman’s March to the Sea in the Civil War. It’s a sprawling place with lots of cabins and random outbuildings. At some point in the 1970’s the owners decided to convert the farm to a hunting and sporting clay club, and so it remains.
We were the first to arrive at the rustic “pro shop” where we admired expensive shotguns on display along with catalogues of ridiculously more expensive firearms. Until last Thursday, I was unaware that a person could spend in excess of $300,000 on a shotgun. I can’t imagine that many of those are selling these days.
When our host arrived, he said, “Gentlemen, this event is probably the only positive thing happening in any of our professional lives these days, so let’s enjoy it.” We would have laughed if his comment weren’t so terribly true.
For those of you who, like me, know nothing about sporting clays, I’ll give a brief primer. The clays themselves are small, Frisbee-like disks that fly through the air while people try to blast them out of the sky with a shotgun. It’s much like what I remember as “trap” or “skeet” shooting. Unlike skeet or trap shooting, sporting clays involves traveling from station to station where the mechanized “throwers” are tucked away in various locations and at different angles so that the clays fly from various angles, distances and speeds. In our case, we drove golf carts, played in foursomes, and called the stations holes. It’s basically golf with guns. We played a 75 clay course with 17 stations. The object is to hit as many clays as possible out of the 75.
You can’t see it, but I hit both of the clays in this picture.
Thursday was a practice day, and a professional working for The Burge gave me some pointers. After some time on the 5-stand range, we went out on the course. The sport is surprisingly intoxicating and difficult. All of my companions had shot before, and some were quite serious about it. When dealing with guns, I find it best to be paired with serious people. In my first go at the 75 clay course, I hit 38. As it turns out, that’s apparently pretty good for a newbie.
That night we gathered near the main house for a phenomenal meal of quail wings and beef tenderloin.
The House. You know you’re someone in the south if you refer to your ancestral home as “The House.”
After dinner we adjourned to another building where we watched the V.P. debate. Not surprisingly, commercial real estate professionals who like to shoot skew Republican. After the debate was over, we ventured into the cool evening air near the bonfire and told stories about prior hunts and the current market. I got into an interesting conversation with a Jewish lawyer about Jesus.
After a restless sleep made more restless by the bourbon-fueled conversations taking place outside my door, I awoke to a gorgeous morning.
I took this shot just outside of “Dolly’s Cabin” shortly after I woke on Friday morning.
After an ample breakfast, we gathered for the actual tournament. We were organized into pairs designed to balance our disparate skill. I moved from a 20 guage to a 12 and found more success than I had during the previous day’s practice round. At one point during the round a somewhat less serious shooter’s gun failed to fire, then he started to turn toward the group. As he was turning, his gun went off and flew out of his hands. No one was hurt, but the potential consequences reminded me that the sport is very different from golf in some material respects.
I finished with 48 hits, and my partner hit 58. Our combined score won the day, and after a brief awards ceremony my traveling partners and I loaded up and drove to the Blue Willow for our second massive lunch in as many days. I gained 6 pounds over the weekend.
I went straight home after being dropped off at my car, and Toria and I gathered the kids from the school bus and headed out to our friends’ house for dinner. Mark and Sherry have been our friends for many years, and our kids love each other, but we live on opposite sides of town and don’t see each other as often as we would like. The conversation again turned to the bailout, the declining market and the potential implications for our families. In times such as these it’s tempting to become insular, to think of shielding yourself and your family. But in spending time with our friends I was reminded that Christ calls us to a very different pattern of living, of sharing, of generosity and breaking bread together even in the midst of adversity. The evening again ended by the fire as the children made s’mores and played tag in the firelight.
Early the next morning, Toria and I dropped off the kids at her parents house and we met two other couples for a trip up to the Len Foote Inn at Amicalola Falls State Park. The Inn is unique in that it is accessible by the public only via a 5-mile trail. It’s a beautiful, quiet spot that takes all of the hassle out of backpacking. Shelter, beds, linens and food are provided, along with a phenomenal view of the surrounding mountains.
It was great to be truly unplugged for 24 hours. Because the guys were able to carry the essential gear, one of the wives carried a guitar on her back and we spent a few hours passing the guitar around as we sang and played. We stayed up late playing Trivial Pursuit and talking about life in the sunrise room.
I woke in the morning to watch the sky gradually light up with varying shades of red and orange until the sun suddenly popped up from behind a distant ridge and began its daily journey across the sky.
I’m awake for the sunrise almost every day, but I rarely see the sun crest the horizon, and certainly never as dramatically as this.
My trips into the woods serve to remind me that the best things aren’t things at all. They are relationships, experiences, and moments in time that have very little to do with the financial worries so consuming our thoughts in recent months.
After enjoying the sun’s ascent, we packed up, ate a hearty breakfast and made a quick descent to the parking area where we headed home. My mind was already on the somber journey that l’d be taking alone once we got back.
Early Friday morning, just before the sporting clay tournament, I had received an email from my friend Mark informing me that his father had died. Mark’s dad had been sick with cancer for some time, but we all thought he had some time left, so the email was a bit of a surprise. Mark emailed that the visitation and funeral were both in Covington, in the same general direction as The Burge Plantation. So, once I got home from the Len Foote Inn trip, I showered, put on my suit, boarded the Pathfinder, and headed out I-20 east.
I passed the Panola Road exit again, and again experienced a flood of involuntary memories. I hadn’t known Mark’s father terribly well, but he and his wife were my landlords during my first year of law school, and he had shown me the kindness that a student so appreciates in a friend’s parent, often involving picking up the check at a restaurant. He was a kind and dignified man.
Mark’s wife, Amy, embraced me warmly when I walked into the funeral home and I was pleased to bring a smile to Mark’s face upon my entry. I signed the register, looked at the pictures, expressed my condolences to Mark’s stepmother and tried to figure out where to stand. I was one of the very few in a suit, so people kept mistaking me for a funeral home employee. Plus, I wasn’t family, and I didn’t know what else to say or do. Then there’s the fact that standing near a casket is a powerful reminder of my own mortality. I now know why people make food when someone dies. It gives them something to do. After exhausting every protocol I knew to follow, I left, and I felt bad for leaving. I love my friends very much, and I very much wanted to be with them, but I am never more inept than at a funeral.
I hadn’t planned to attend the funeral services on Monday, mostly because I anticipated a busy day following my time away from the office for the sporting clay tournament. But the economy and real estate market being what they are, there was nothing on my desk that couldn’t wait a day. After lunch I drove again out I-20 east, passing near my childhood home. I can go years without driving out that way, but found myself doing it for the third time in four days.
As I walked in the door of the funeral home, Mark asked if I could serve as a pallbearer. I eagerly agreed, pleased to have a role and a place, and someone to tell me where to stand. Mark delivered an eloquent eulogy, demonstrating a dignity and composure that he no doubt learned from his father. This was my third stint as a pallbearer. I have been a groomsman eight times. I am aware that those numbers are likely to draw even in the coming years, and it’s a sobering thought.
It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. As I drove in the funeral procession, I noted that cars passing in the other direction respectfully stopped, pulled to the side of the road and turned on their lights – a tradition almost completely forgotten inside metropolitan Atlanta. At the graveside the pastor said a few more words, and the pallbearers extended condolences to the family members on the front row.
I had resolved to stay this time, awkward or not. I congratulated Mark on the wonderfully delivered eulogy, and asked Amy if they needed help with any out of town guests. They didn’t. Before long, the family piled into the funeral home limo and it was time for me to go.
As I drove back toward Lithonia, I decided to pull off of the interstate and drive down familiar roads to my old house. While some things have changed in Lithonia, a great deal is the same. Some of the once ramshackle houses are 30 years more decrepit, but still occupied. In contrast, a couple of subdivisions of massive, expensive homes have replaced the woods that I used to roam after school. A few minutes after leaving the interstate, I pulled up to our old house.
I remember being proud of that house. I once thought that it was big, but I can’t imagine raising my family in it now. I remember my parents and our neighbors working hard to manicure their yards, building a playground and making a beautiful, kid friendly neighborhood. You can’t really tell from his camera phone picture, but the house crumbles now, embarrassingly neglected and a shadow of the home of my memory.
Citizens of the western world are gripped with the fear that they’re on the cusp of losing it all. I worry too, but I have to remind myself that I’m worried about losing things that I can never truly possess in the first place. I enjoy nice things – whether they be shotguns, trips, meals, or cars, but all of these things will pass away. Among the many things said of Mark’s father, no one mentioned the amount of stuff he left behind. He has experienced the end of things, as in earthly, tangible things. That end awaits us all, and the fact that the enduring things of life do not consist of earthly things should inform the way we live, and the way we treat each other. In all of the moments that I have described in this email, I cherish most those shared with friends engaged in conversation, acts of kindness, and simple activities.
It is evening now, and it’s still raining. I’m comforted that the same God who provides this desperately needed rain has also promised to meet all of our earthly needs if we’ll only seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. I am gratified to know that the fruit of my seeking his kingdom will endure forever.
Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:12, 13)
Things That Remain 
