Chapter 52

2/27/2005 

Ch 52 RAY                                                                     Tobacco Road                                 

The first time I was paid as a professional driver was to pilot a 2 1/2 ton truck full of soldiers in the Army. Perhaps it was that experience that led me to my present career. During those 2 years in Georgia ('69-'71), I also bought the only new car I ever owned, a 1970 Fiat 850 Spyder. I did the break-in run from my base in Augusta to Albany, Georgia which by coincidence turns out to be the cities where Ray Charles took his stand on segregation and was born in http://www.raycharles.com/ .

The movie "Ray" is one of the best pictures ever made, but I might be prejudiced. Sensing that the Academy Awards will not give it the full credit (in a few hours hence) it deserves for the art of cinematography I had to put together some of the images captured along the cotton fields and peanut plantations of Tobacco Road during my soldier phase.

The center sharecropper duplex might seem like an abandoned shack, were it not for the smoke coming out of the far chimney. Some shacks were abandoned but I'll bet there still are families living in most of them.

Had a paupers or slave gravesite on base. Mostly marked with rocks or a wooden cross, but this one had a recent concrete slab with hand written "Mattie Lou Hatcher 1897-1933".

Chain gang like the prisoners I guarded, were mostly black- wonder if it had anything to do with the environment they grew up in?

Had a penchant for green cars for a while. Bought the '55 Chev for $200 some lifer Sergeant had, then after discharge I picked up a green '69 Chevelle.