How we got here, Part I

My grandmother was Addie Lee Robinson, who was born in London, England, on Jan. 2, 1898. Her mother died at a young age, and Addie was raised by her father, Lee Robinson, an Irish fellow who eventually moved his small family to Liverpool. Addie was a hard working woman, who raised four children herself -- three boys and a girl. Her oldest son, William Franklin Ranew Sr., was my father.

Addie lived in Liverpool she was about 15 years old. In the early 1900s, Liverpool was one of the largest shipbuilding ports in the world. More so, it was known for its textile industry, and it was in textiles that Lee Robinson plied his trade, as a mill supervisor. Being Irish and being very big, Lee was fond of his ale, and was known to visit the public house on the way home from work in the evenings. Addie told me the story once of her looking out the window of their flat down the road watching for her father as he returned from work. When she saws him, he was swinging his lunch bucket full of brew, heading home singing Irish tunes.

It was on one of these nights in the hard winter of 1913 that Addie fell asleep in the front parlor waiting on her Da'. He stormed in near midnight, beseeching her to "pack a single bag, Addie Lee, for we're a heading off to America."

Addie wondered aloud as to why this sudden sojourn, but Lee refused to tell her until they were safely on board a freighter heading for Savannah. The journey was rough, with the ship tossed all over creation by the stormy winter seas. But they finally made it to Savannah, and eventually settled on living in a town called Quitman.

Addie once told me that her English accent was lost pretty quickly amongst the Georgia twang of her schoolmates. She has lost any vestige of it by the time I was born.

Lee died not long after Addie was married to my grandfather, John Ranew, a printer who lived in Quitman. They'd been married about 10 years and had all of their four kids by then when a letter arrived from a barrister (attorney) in England. The letter stated that it's intent was of a legal nature and requested that Addie provide, by return mail, proof of her identity as the only child of Mr. Robinson.

"Don't you go doing that, woman," John said. "They're just trying to lure you back to pay for the sins of your father."

With the letter came the story of why Lee and Addie made their way to the U.S. so suddenly. Addie told my father that the night they left Liverpool, Lee had stopped off at his pub for a beer or two with friends. Somehow the conversation with one of them turned nasty and led to a fight. Lee apparently took the better of the fellow, pounding him to a pulp, in fact. So bad were the gent's injuries at the hand of Lee Robinson that his death seemed imminent. Lee's friends hurried him from the pub and told him to get out of town to avoid what was sure to be a murder prosecution.

And so, the Robinsons came to the U.S.

Addie never answered the lawyer's letter. But years later, it was learned that the barrister was seeking her information as part of the execution of her uncle's will. He had owned a small department store chain in Western England and died, leaving each of his children, nieces and nephews a small inheritance.

Addie grew up and raised her kids, and eventually took a job as a projectionist at the Ilex theatre in Quitman. She saw every movie many times, and became quite a movie buff. Her favorite movies were "Gone with the Wind," "Peyton Place" and "The Three Faces of Eve."

She also attended the First Baptist Church in Quitman and always sat on the last pew.

She lived with her oldest son in her last years of life, even though she had maintained her own house for 50 years. Not too long before leaving her house, she mowed her lawn one last time on a hot August afternoon, with a push mower.

She was a strong willed lady and strong of body and spirit. She was very opinionated and had a quick and, at times, sharp wit. She loved her grandchildren, and I was lucky to have spent so much time with her. Addie Lee died in January 1989, not long after her 91st birthday. She is buried in Quitman.

On the other side of our family, we were Rich in love, if nothing else. The Riches came over from England in the late 1700s and farmed for generations in Southwest Georgia, near Donalsonville and Bainbridge. They eventually found they way into the sawmill business in a small town called Climax. And with that, the story only begins... (Watch for more)

Dylan The Great

People talk about Bob Dylan in varying superlatives or degrading terms, depending on their inclination toward him and his music. But the longer he keeps writing songs and performing, the more the voices of naysayers become dimly heard in the fog surrounding their confusion.

There is not doubt many great things about Bob Dylan and his poetry and music. They are difficult to measure at times, that is true, and I agree that album sales and even tour receipts cannot tell the story of how greatness is defined. Here are some things to consider...
One thread to Bob Dylan's remaining so popular for more than 40 years is that he transcends current trends and sets his own pace about musical creativity, sound, lyrics and poetry. He did this in the 1960s, defining the turbulent social times then moving on to inventing "folk-rock" with an electric sound that moved him well beyond his acoustic Martin guitar music to that point. He faced a major obstacle here, for by "abandoning' his folk music roots he turned off a lot of his fan base. At least for a moment. He stuck to his electric creative urges and immediately knocked out "Highway 61 Revisited," "which introduced the immortal "Like a Rolling Stone" (Rolling Stone magazine dubbed it the best rock song of all time a few years ago).

While he turned on the beat generation and turned off their parents, today he crosses all generations. You find measures of this at his concerts, where you will see old and new hippies, executives, good ol' boys and their gals, and others from a cross-section of America. I met a guy at a Winston-Salem, NC, concert last year -- put on at a local ball park -- who wasn't yet 30 but had been to 18 Dylan shows since he was 16. He was an engineer at a local manufacturing company. And, he tours Europe every year, performing before a similar fan base there.
Along the way, Dylan also spawned, inspired and influenced other rock greats, such as Bruce Springsteen, The Band, The Grateful Dead and Elvis Costello, who opens for him in Atlanta this September.

He keeps that creative edge, which is a challenge for any songwriter who always has to best his last big hit -- whether that was last year or two decades ago. Clearly, Dylan's productive period for rock hits was in the middle '60s. Some slumps followed here and there. He always found a way to come out of the funk and write more songs, sometimes lovelier and more lyrical than any others. Listen to his "Blonde on Blonde" album, then to last year's CD, "Modern Times."

I think for Dylan the greatest thing is that his music thrives, and he thrives on tour. Now, if he'd only point that tour bus south again. Haven't heard him in over a year.

Hauling it back home

Brittany and I ventured on another trip together, many years ago. Believe she was 3 years old then, and we were on our way to Quitman, Ga., to visit my parents, her grandparents. She was really excited about this trip. We got down the highway and pulled off for some gas. I noticed the oil light blinking so I checked the oil and had the service station guy check out the light and the oil, again. Full of oil. No problem he said.

About 40 miles down the road, the light came on again and stayed on. Luckily we were near an exit ramp, so I pulled into the Brannen Ford dealership in Unadilla, Ga. They took look under the hood and quickly determined the engine had blown. And, of course, they couldn't work on it because the car was a Volvo. So, what to do. I asked to speak to the man in charge, who was Mr. Brannen, the owner of the dealership. He couldn't think of a Volvo dealership other than one up the road in Macon. That was a possibility, but midafternoon, by that time, on a Friday would only have put the car in the shop over the weekend, and we still would be 90 miles from Atlanta.

I had to call my parents and tell them the trip was off, but first had to explain why to a 3-year-old. Brittany's reaction was to look me very seriously, as big tears rolled down both cheeks. She had wanted to see her grandparents and had expected too all week. Now, she couldn't, at least for awhile. Mr. Brannen suggested we haul it back and ride with the wrecker driver and that we did. So, after waiting another hour or so, the tow truck pulled in, hooked up our Volvo and we climbed into the truck's cab for the long ride back home.

Mr. Brannen had just come back from lunch and he approached us to say goodbye. He handed up a big brown bag and wished us a good trip.

"What's this, Mr. Brannen?" I asked. "That, my friend, contains the best ham sandwiches you will ever eat. My wife fixed them for ya'll," he said.

I thanked him for the kindness he'd shown to us. And for the sandwiches. They certainly were good, even the tow truck driver enjoyed one.

But I couldn't get Brittany's tears out of my mind. Years later, they came back again to haunt me, and remind me of that day when Britt's visit to her grandparents was canceled.

It happened on a Monday afternoon in mid-June, and I'd just received a call from the hospital that my father had died. School was out then, and Brittany was at home watching TV. I walked in and put my arm around her, and told her the bad news. She just looked up at, and there were those big, sweet tears again.

An adventurous path

My daughter Brittany just left home for a fantastic adventure in South Korea (branewbusan.blogspot.com). She has met her first dog there, which is nice because Brittany has always liked animals. For a long time, during college, she threatened to take one of the family's pets, a black lab named Buda. Always, however, she generously allowed Buda to remain with us.

Which brings up my primary point here, and that is Brittany goes half-way around the world while Buda stays.

Buda, however, home-loving as she may be, has a reputation for roaming, once venturing off into the woods on a rainy day in the mountains, getting lost, traversing a four-lane highway and several other roads, and managing to wind up inside a fenced yard of a lady who thought she was a bear cub curled up under a holly bush by her front door. We got her back, and today she sticks close at hand wherever we go, usually.

Brittany's SK adventure follows on her many travels throughout the U.S. and other companies with her family. On one of these trips, she survived three weeks in a mini-van with all of us (hey, we survived too, miraculously enough) and, in this endurance contest, she proved that she could handle adversity with aplomb and rancor without imploding, as those around her did just that. I cannot think of a time when she got ruffled on that trip, while everyone else did. If I am wrong, there are four people who can remind me of where my memory is failing here.

I cannot think of a better way to launch your career and adult adult life than venturing off into another country and another culture. You shape yourself in so many ways during those first few months when college life ends and the rest begins. Of course, college itself shapes you, often determining how you will spend the rest of your life and with whom you will share it.

My adventure after college was moving to Augusta, Georgia, and working as a reporter on the daily newspaper there. For me, there were never any thoughts of moving to another country, although later on in my early newspaper years, New York called out to me. But I resisted, and never really went much beyond any of the various newsrooms I worked in. There were moments, of course, of fantasizing about being a foreign correspondent. By the time I became a wire editor, though, that fantasy became somewhat real, if only in a vicarious way, reading and editing stories about international events, rather than being there, seeing what was happening and writing about it.

But life's starts are life's starts. And while you do get second changes at life's starts, if you seize the right ones in the right way, there is nothing quite like being 22 or 23 years old and making you own way, through adventure, out into the world.

I admire Brittany for that, just as I admire Dorothy for her adventure in Taiwan and just as I appreciate Aimee for her well-grounded start with her job -- and career -- in Atlanta.

Adventure is where you find it, and you really do not have to travel half-way around the world to experience everything you want in life. It's OK to do that, seeing other countries and living there. Whatever path you choose, the important thing is to finding it, moving down it and creating your future.

That's what happens, anyway, and it is best to be the conductor of your life, rather than just going along for the train ride. I'm glad my wonderful girls chose to be conductors.

OK, I end my first blog posting with a bit of philosophical meanderings. Such is the roadway of life.