Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Ray grows up on a junkyard on the outskirts of Baxley, Georgia. Baxley is a small, rural town, with a population of 3,500 people. Though larger cities (Savannah, Jacksonville) are located several hours away, Ray never visits these cities, and they remain “foreign” to her. Ray is told by her parents that they discovered her crying underneath a “clump of palmettos” (6) in the forest by the junkyard. Ray’s parents tell similar stories about Ray’s sister and two brothers.

Ray frequently wanders and explores the junkyard surrounding her family home. On these walks, Ray often hides from her mother (referred to as Mama), leading Mama to tie bells on Ray’s shoes and tell Ray that she’s “half wild” (8). The junkyard is full of sharp and rusty objects that make it a dangerous place for a child. One night, Ray hears a stranger outside shaking the screen door, seemingly trying to break into the house. The incident leads Ray to have a nightmare, and she begins to frequently wet the bed. Ray’s father (referred to as Daddy) signs her up for piano lessons, but Ray refuses to attend: She would rather be outside playing in “this certain pine tree [she] loved” (11). During summer thunderstorms, Ray climbs up this pine tree to experience the intense winds. 

Ray describes the environment of her native southern Georgia. She grows up south of the so-called “fall line,” a small indentation in the land that divides Georgia between mountains in the north and a “wide flat plateau of pinewoods” (13) in the south. According to Ray, the southern Georgia landscape is generally considered to be unnoteworthy. However, the landscape used to be covered by more beautiful longleaf pine forests. Though these forests once covered most of the southern United States, only 0.001% of virgin longleaf forests remain standing due to logging and construction. Ray describes feeling a sense of grief when she imagines the forests that used to exist in Georgia. 

Ray’s family junkyard is composed of dozens of old, broken-down cars, as well as a variety of other appliances, including “bathtubs, motors, an airplane wing, the bucket to a crane […]” (22). Ray and her siblings are born close together, and frequently play games amidst the junk, such as pretending to teach each other school, or pretending to baptize each other. One of the cars formerly belonged to an FBI “Top Ten Most Wanted” criminal, and Ray and her siblings sit in the car and pretend to be gangsters on the run from the police. Ray and her siblings form the “Thingfinders Club,” devoted to “ransack[ing] cars for whatever valuables we could find under seats” (24).

When Ray’s family ventures into Baxley to purchase their weekly groceries, Ray and her siblings dress up for the eagerly anticipated trips. Daddy haggles with the grocery owner to purchase bulk items for cheap, while Mama purchases necessities. Ray’s brothers, Steve, and Dell, begin fixing cars on the junkyard from a young age. As young teens, Steve and Dell accidentally burn themselves while working on a car. Though the burns are severe, Steve and Dell do not receive medical attention, as Daddy believes that “God healed the sick and the afflicted” (28).

Ray describes feeling ashamed about her life on the junkyard when interacting with other residents from Baxley. Ray never brings home friends from school, and she has little social life with other Baxley children outside of school. Later, as a college student, Ray brings her first boyfriend home, a PhD student who comes from a more affluent family than hers. Though Ray warns her boyfriend about the junkyard, he is shocked by the amount of junk strewn around her family home, and breaks up with Ray shortly after the visit. 

Ray narrates how the longleaf pine forests evolved in southern Georgia. Ray imagines a single pine tree seed being carried by wind “a couple of million years ago” (35) to the south Georgia landscape, which she describes as “belong[ing] to lightning” (35). Ray imagines that the growing pine tree and the lightning are characters, each voicing their desire to reign over the land. Though the lightning frequently strikes, the pine tree continues to grow. One day, the lightning strikes hard enough to kill the pine tree, which causes the tree to spread dozens of seeds across the land. These pine trees adapt to grow amidst the hostile environment created by the lightning. The trees will often “lay low” for several years at a time, growing deep roots and absorbing energy, before quickly sprouting during the springtime when there are fewer thunderstorms. The trees also develop thick bark that is capable of resisting flames from the lightning. These evolutionary adaptations allow longleaf forests to survive and thrive in the southern Georgia environment, and the trees are often known as “the pine that fire built” (38).  

Ray details the life of her grandfather, Charlie Ray. Charlie is the son of Joe Alexander, an amateur wrestler who died during a fight. Charlie’s mother also passed away shortly after Joe’s death, leaving Charlie “orphaned, thrown unwanted into a bastard world” (40). Though Charlie initially lived with his uncle, he ran away from home at 14 and lived by himself in the Georgia forests. Though Charlie loved being in the forest, his independent and self-sufficient lifestyle led him to develop a difficult personality, “prone to violent and unmerited punishment that caught you unawares” (40). Charlie became known as a folk hero throughout Baxley from his hunting feats, which included catching fish with his bare hands. Charlie made money by expertly hunting raccoons and selling their hides to clothing companies. On his hunts, he was accompanied by a hunting dog, Old Mack, who Charlie believed to be expertly skilled at killing raccoons.

In the 1920s, Charlie opened a restaurant in Baxley with his wife, Clyo (referred to by Ray as Granny Ray). On several occasions, Charlie got into altercations with patrons at the restaurant. One fight began when a Baxley resident, Isom Copeland, accused Charlie of stealing his whiskey. The fight became physically violent, with Charlie permanently damaging Copeland’s neck. Ray writes that Charlie likely had an undiagnosed mental illness, a trait which she believes runs in her family. Granny Ray attempted to have Charlie committed to a mental hospital after Charlie became delusional and accused Granny Ray of cheating on him. However, Charlie escaped from the mental hospital and returned home, where Granny Ray offered him cash to leave her and the rest of the family alone. Charlie left for Florida, though he occasionally returned to Georgia to live in run-down shacks. Charlie maintained a relationship with Ray and his other grandchildren, regaling them with exaggerated stories and teaching them some of his knowledge of the Georgia forests. 

Ray describes the characteristics which make longleaf pine trees unique, which she refers to as the forest’s “secrets.” The trees grow to an old age, during which their inner wood—known as “heartwood”—becomes thick, tough to cut, and full of resin. Often, this heartwood becomes “infected with red heart […] [a] fungus” that attacks the hardness of the wood and makes it “more porous and more flammable” (66). The ground of longleaf pine forests is typically covered with wiregrass, a highly flammable and wiry grass within which grows over 100 different species of “forbs, grasses, and low shrubs” (66). Ray describes her attraction to the beauty of the forests, comparing the sound the wind makes blowing through longleaf trees to music. 

Charlie and Daddy decided to open a junkyard business when Daddy was 18, as Charlie believed the business would be profitable. The focus of their business was to purchase broken-down cars, and then either fix the cars up or sell off the car parts (known as selling the car “for scrap”). Though Charlie and Daddy were initially successful together, they had a disagreement over Daddy’s desire to grow the business, and Daddy bought out Charlie’s share of the junkyard. Ray describes how Daddy’s success in the junkyard business came from his ability to buy cars from people “for next to nothing” (72). After purchasing the car, Ray would help her father drive the car back to the junkyard, being careful not to accidentally hit her father’s car as she drove behind it. Daddy saw the junkyard as “more than a business” (74), as the work appealed to the thrifty side of his personality.

Though Daddy is uneducated, he obsessed with bettering himself, and frequently read encyclopedias and sought out methods for improving his knowledge. Daddy struck up a close friendship with Curtis Hamilton, a fellow inventor, and the owner of the town’s cotton gin. Hamilton and Daddy became friends after Hamilton gave Daddy a difficult mathematic problem that Hamilton claimed to have only been solved by three people. Daddy solved the problem after five days, allowing him entry into Hamilton’s informal club. Around this time, Daddy was struck by mental illness. Ray returned home from school one day to discover Daddy speaking to God and then walking through a window. Ray notes how her father’s mental illness terrified her as she has “no language” to understand it. For many years, Ray lived in fear that the same mental illness might drive her insane as it did her father and grandfather. 

Ray describes the history of her family, and how they first came to live in the longleaf pine forests. Ray’s ancestors were a group of individuals hailing from the border between Scotland and England, known as Borderlanders. These Borderlanders were accustomed to violence and upheaval due to the many conflicts between Scotland and England, and learned to live a migratory lifestyle. Borderlanders eventually emigrated to the United States in the 19th century, where they settled in the Southern United States and began to be called Crackers. In 1818, the Creek Indians were forced to cede an area of land to Georgia following a vicious conflict. This land included the longleaf forests, which the Crackers immediately settled. Ray is able to trace her ancestry back to Wilson Baxley, her town’s namesake, who lived in the longleaf forests from the time it was first ceded to Georgia—meaning her family has lived in the longleaf forests for “a hundred and eighty years” (84). The Crackers maintained much of their cultural customs from their time as Borderlanders. The Crackers were “great hunters and fishers [and] great woodspeople” (85), and began chopping down pine trees to construct log cabins. However, they developed the land so much that within thirty years the Crackers had cut down most of the pine forests. Ray sees this act of “ruination” as her family legacy, a burden that she carries, and informs her life.