To kill a reenactment

 To kill a mockingbird

I do not relish dwelling upon the down sides as there is so much of the up side worth celebrating. I have been attending the annual Battle of Olustee re-enactment in Baker County since the inception and long before the Blue-Grey Army got in on the Olustee BATTLE festival began by Vernon Douglas and the Lake City Runners Club, piggy backing generously off the events in Olustee 16 miles to the east. 

This year, with the too easy covid precautions to blame, the Blue-Grey Army put on a festival with as little connection to the Re-enactment as possible, cancelling the parade that was once full of marching confederates and union, ladies in hoop skirts and such, cancelling the skirmish around the lake, no Monitor or Merrimack, not participating in the Oak Lawn Cemetery Memorial, no Running Rebel Fun Run, moving the event away from Marion Street and Olustee Park to the crowded, I guess Covid doesn’t care if it’s a food or craft venue off Lake DeSoto. Except for the historical museum which still offered period demonstrations, the festival was little more than a food, craft and music gathering with no tie to the reason it got its name or history. 

To most, fine. What more is there than food and music?

And now to my frustration with the battle. Once you could park along 90 and walk to the event. Those who arrived early, as I often did, could park by the entrance and carry your wagon with chairs and blankets and stake out a good viewing spot. It was deemed a few years ago by FHP too dangerous to park along US90 after many years, so you now must park in Olustee and at the prison a mile east and catch a bus to the park, wearing a mask of course, due to that pesky Covid again. No room for carrying chairs and such. And following the battle, which you’d be advised to leave in the third quarter as on the commercial of being just like your parents, if you stuck around for the volley, you’d still be standing in line to catch the bus. Things that cause people to say, not again, and thus little by little it dwindles down.

But maybe that is fine. I remember when we’d gather by the monument and the ranger would walk the gathered group out to the field to watch the re-enactment.

Olustee in Lake City is dead and I’d recommend the Blue-Grey Army die as well and sink your efforts into the Pioneer Festival Chris Esing put on with such success earlier in the year.

Tears of gray

In 2013 James Rourks, Attendandt to the late Col.Bowman of the Department of the Gulf, was in tears as he visited his grandfathers grave at Olustee for the first time. Jump to 2023 and the tears for another Cason at Olustee.

Whispers

 I hear in the morning reveille

The sweet whispers from Auralea  

And in my arms will she ever be 

 As today we face the Union at Olustee

Upon the wings

 Upon the wings

Of what do you dream?

The flight of wing?

The missing themes 

never seeming returning?

The moon knows

The Ibis know

One sets quietly

The others fly gently 

away

Was it you Nathaniel?

 Clairvoyant Child

john clare stokes

There we sat in Huddle House

Booth three next to the register

Since it was busy and the waitress 

Named Betty had just taken

Our order for our MVP's

When to my left side

In booth four the little

Girl in Exorcist way

Turned her head

And with a voice

Unmistakable from

Far away slowly

Said pappa and in 

The moment our

Eyes connected

Her mother scolded

And she turned and

Cried then returned

To her exuberance

Saying uh oh at the

Fallen glass 

Forgetting the stranger

In booth three

As Betty filled 

Everyone's coffee.

My grandmother

 Ethel Marie Wike Stokes was born to Jacob and Esther Wike on January 28, 1899 in Lexington County, SC. She met Earnest William Stokes of Homewood, Scott County, Mississippi and they married Dec 18, 1914. They had five children, Earnest Curtis, James Marzelle, Hazel Marie Wolf, Luther Ray “Lute”(my father)and Esther Irene Bradford plus three premature infants. Ethel died Aug 1, 1937.  Earnest remarried to my second grandmother, Bernice Beatrice Boykin Feb 17, 1939. From her came William Clark, Jimmy Boykin, Billy Ferrell and Mary Carol Watkins.

Hissing toward Eden

Hissing toward eden

by john clare stokes

Eve was told to leave it

but she did not believe it

and in the beaming face

the long remembered sweet taste

of the first deed.

Oh we marry and bear seed

we live to ripe old ages

but as the favorite book

of the dog eared pages

we return again to the beginning

as if by some distant imprinting

we long for the taste

before the years laid waste.

The face loses the beam

our glory covering

tempted we long to close the book

and to the secret garden look

walking a hundred miles perchance

where awaits the old romance

Serpents lying along the way

hissing us toward the sweet memory.

Homespun

The homespun dress is plain, I know, My hat's palmetto , too; But  then it shows what Southern girls for Southern rights will do. Photo of Anna Hackel at Olustee.2012 

Oil boy

 Oil boy

John Clare Stokes

It’s the little boy yet dwelling

Wanting so badly to tell anyone

come and see what he has done

Proud in the creating of a painting

though crude and elementary 

a masterpiece to the little boy

and to hear that word of praise

the smile of satisfaction 

sends the little boy down to 

the store for more oils and canvas.

Art teachers dog

Monticello

1964

Stay Home

 Stay Home

I will wait here in the fields

to see how well the rain

brings on the grass.

In the labor of the fields

longer than a man’s life

I am at home. Don’t come with me.

You stay home too.

I will be standing in the woods

where the old trees

move only with the wind

and then with gravity. 

In the stillness of the trees

I am at home. Don’t come with me.

You stay home too.

Wendell Berry

Homestead near Dowling Park

Suwannee County

He said

 He said

He said it was a pretty scene

Looking up from his fishing

The calm water

The white egret in flight

The evening clouds reflecting

And so I agreed

Lifting the camera

What voice

What voice was it within the wind

that told you now is the time to begin?

Were they whispers ever so near

or shouts that rang within your ears?

And as you circled and stalled,

were you counting the number called,

looking upon me longing below,

waiting for me with you to go?