O-mama - Opinionated Moms

• Rick Bragg • 10 Comments
• Tagged in: For Moms

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Most of my friends are long time friends—20-30 years or so.  I have a few newish friendships—formed post kids—consequently, with some of these friends, I don’t know their histories yet; I don’t know their “people.”

A while back, I was sitting at my daughter’s soccer game with one of these newer friends and her mother.  The grandma was drinking a Coke out of a can and it sounded like a rattle to me. 

I said, “Hey, Patti, why does your mom’s Coke sound like a rattle?”  She said, “It’s got peanuts in it.  She won’t drink it any other way.  It’s a Southern thing.”  “Gross, “ I thought.  But hey…a Southern thing…that sounds interesting…since then, I’ve gotten herto dish quite a bit about her southern roots. ( I grew up about 10 miles from where I live now and have never lived outside the state of California, so I have very few culturally funky stories—I did, however, major in English/ Creative Writing, so have read lots of Flannery O’Connor and Faulkner, etc. so, I do have a little taste for that rough stuff—the gallows humor and phrase turning of the South.)

I even had visions of being a writer myself at one point—that’s another story, but I’ll tell you what, a writer like Rick Bragg can make you want to throw your pencil, pen, typewriter, computer—whatever—away forever.  The man makes it look and sound easy—when any writer worth his salt will tell you it just ain’t.  He makes you feel like you’re sittin’ with him on the porch sippin’ sweet tea and he’s just talkin’ and talkin’ –story after story as the sun goes down.  It’s like the stories are just in him—burning through him—like they’re there waiting and existing and he’s just the medium—like a song through Muddy Waters’ guitar.  So, that’s what my friend, Patti, meant when she said, “You read Rick Bragg’s books.  Then, you’ll know everything you need to know about the South and about my people.” 

God, talk about a wealth of material.  When my writing instructors said “Write what you know!” I stared at them and wondered where the hell to start—with my wildly insulated, sheltered Newport Beach suburban upbringing?  With our comfortable, well-off, Republican existence?  I mean, come on?  But, Rick Bragg?  Forget about it…crazy alcoholic father, fascinating supporting cast of extended family, long suffering and deeply loved mother, share croppin’, real hard work. Lightnin’ bugs. Racism. Poor guy pulls himself by his bootstraps (when they had money for shoes) and then eventually wins the Pulitzer Prize. I have to think that for people that come from the South, they have stories similar to Bragg’s--this book must just sing for them.  Bragg is a man deeply emotional about his roots, about the South—in all its glory and dignity.  The book itself is truly a love letter to his mother who gave up everything to love and protect her children—who finally rid herself of her alcoholic husband and did it all by herself.  Bragg is a man’s man surrounded by hard drinking and hard fighting men, raised by a mother who did what needed to be done to hold her family together and take care of her children.

Bragg is a man full of both shame and pride—full of contradictions and memories—full of the fear that he may turn out to be a father like his own—but luckily for us he’s an author who is able to create a vivid and extraordinary picture of the South—a place that in a way represents the roots of our country, but in other ways seems like an entirely different and wildly foreign country unto itself.  Bragg writes: “This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven.  This is place where the song ‘Jesus Loves Me’ has rocked generations to sleep and heaven is not a concept, but a destination.”

Just read the book.  Bragg is too good not to and too tough to describe.  Read it this November and be grateful for the food on your table and the shoes on your feet—for the love of your family and take honor and pride in your role as somebody’s mother.