A Slice of American Pie: Part 8
Magnolia Memories

The magnolia tree stands outside the empty white farm house. They’ve lived side by side for a long time, perhaps since the house first sheltered the family in 1913. Slaves lived in the tenant house across the field and the now crumbling grain house burst with the harvests year after year. A piece of rope dangles from a rafter, the morning breeze nudging it gently.

I look again. It’s a snake skin about a metre and a half long. “Virginia is for Lovers” may be the state’s slogan, but a lot of other things thrive here as well like poisonous snakes. Paul is now sequestered indoors away from bugs and other living things. Our host found a big black snake in a neighbour’s wood pile and carried it home to their back yard “because it eats mice.” He assures me it’s harmless. Paul may never leave the sanctuary of our four room bed-and-breakfast suite built in their basement. It comes complete with a four poster bed. We do have some very good friends and the Dawson’s are well versed in Southern Hospitality.

I step warily on through the 206 acres that have been part of Margaret Dawson’s family for 250 years with an eye out for a meter and a half snake without its skin. These are the hills where Margaret played as a child. “I used to carry two five gallon buckets to water the chickens before school.” Her descriptive stories have been full of history and tradition. “We used to hit the old cast-iron fry pan when it was time for lunch.” She remembers the two black people who helped on the farm - no longer slaves, but still far from free. “They were a particular help during harvest and hog killing time. Mama would just call across the fields” at meal times. Part of their payment was dresses made from colourful flour sacks. A spring under the house cooled the milk and butter. Meat hooks still hang in the meat house. The rickety stairs lead down to perfect conditions for today’s wine cellar. Farmers-turned-soldiers during the Civil War fought under the branches of the 400 year old boundary tree. Those are deep roots.

I step onto the wide welcoming porch and peer into the house that has been empty since her mother died. One of the sons is planning on bringing a bride to this farm house and introducing another generation to the land. Canning jars still hold peaches from the last summer. Tales swirl as I move from room to room, largely untouched by time. Photos still line the walls.

The wooden banister guides me up the stairs to the bedrooms. “We used to carry the feather mattresses outside onto the roof through that door in the heat of the summer. One day my mother had plumped up three or four feather mattresses on the bed for the minister. My sister and I played angel – falling off the footboard onto the bed over and over. I never saw my mama so mad.”

As I walk, I think of the world racing with the times that is just a few miles away down one of these country roads. It was in this town that we first used our wireless gadget for the laptop due to the lack of internet café’s. We maneuveured our way through a computerized self-ordering system for fast foods at Sheetz. Some very smart person figured out that all they had to do was turn the computers around to the customer and let them punch in “hamburg-pickles-hold-the-lettuce”. Heavily garnished with photos, it was quite easy to key in our order which appeared in a few minutes with no human communication. We found the demise of service in other areas as well. We traipsed through the mile long Potomac Mills Mall near Washington, D.C that is full of outlet stores. The abundance is overwhelming and gluttonous, even to this seasoned shopper and I willingly retreated back to the quiet of the country.

It takes personal fortitude to gear up to a life that requires confrontations with six and eight lane roads. My status is elevated when navigating the motorcycle through mazes of exits, entrances, overpasses and underpasses. The maps are secured in a plastic folder that lives on my lap with a protective hand usually clamped onto them. I cannot imagine enough turbulence between us to snatch it but I’m not finding out. However, it is no small feat to pull it out of this shelter and try to read it as we careen along at 110 kph. I have to get my head, helmet, hands, bifocal contacts and map vibrating at the same time to be of any significant help. It’s one of the more active times of participation from the back seat. One friend suggested stepping on Paul’s glasses to gain the captain’s seat but I doubt I could keep the hulking monster upright. This is a beast of burden fully loaded weighing in at 800 kg. My debut will wait.

The barking of the neighbour’s hound dogs focuses me back to the rows of corn I’m wandering through on my way back to the home. That same sound would have struck deathly fear into a runaway slave. Virginia lay tantalisingly close to the free state of Pennsylvania and many were the slaves that chose this slim hope of escape over the living hell they endured.

Travelling by night and following the Northern Star, they moved north on the Underground Railroad. This was a series of sympathetic “safe” houses that sheltered and fed them, sending them on the next night. The same hound dogs were used to track them when discovered missing. There were few success stories.

I reached the safety of the driveway having suffered no more than heart palpitations when an animal would rustle the undergrowth. A magnolia blossom sits in the hallway. Margaret paused before we left on another visit to snip a late beauty from the tree outside the farm house. I hope there will be other daughters to do this some year. A family homestead is a rare these days in any country, and should be treasured.