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The ADVANCE, December 15, 2021/Page 5A
OPINIONS
“I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his repute for the freedom to think,
And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak.”
—James Russell Lowell
editorials
Christmas Decorations
As I placed the
plastic pine-like gar
land on our mantle
last week, embel
lishing it with wood
en Santa figurines
and nutcrackers, my
mind floated back
in time to my child
hood — to a time when we decorated our
home with simplicity and pride. It was a
time of love and traditions that I will always
treasure.
THE SILVER TREE WITH
THE BLUE SPOTLIGHT
I still remember it nearly five decades
later, turning slowly in the middle archway
of our Spanish, ranch-style house’s front
porch. Illuminated with a bright blue spot
light, I thought the silver Christmas tree
was the most magnificent Christmas deco
ration I had ever seen. It shined and
shimmered with grand opulence like
something out of the future, made
from the same aluminum material
that manufacturers used to make
tinsel icicles. While other neigh
bors hung strands of flashing
Christmas lights along the
eaves of their homes, around
the windows, and in the tree
branches of their yards, the
6-foot silver Christmas
tree with the blue spot
light was our only exteri
or decoration for several
years, and I loved it.
PLASTIC NATIVITY
SCENE
Then one year, Mom or
dered a plastic nativity scene for the front
yard. The pieces were large and colorful in
the shapes of Mary, Joseph, a lamb, a camel,
three wise men bearing gifts (gold, frank
incense and myrrh), and of course, a tiny
plastic replica of the baby Jesus. A single
electric light bulb was fed into the back side
of each plastic figure to illuminate them in
the moonlight. Each year, we turned a red
wood picnic table on its side and draped the
top with pine limbs to construct a makeshift
manger scene. We placed Jesus, along with
kneeling Mary and Joseph, at the center
underneath the pine boughs. We scattered
hay all around the front yard to give it an
authentic barn feel. Last but not least, we
hung a big, bright star over the manger to
simulate the Star of Bethlehem cited in the
Book of Matthew.
Back then, we had a medium-sized Old
English Sheepdog mix named “Boaz.” One
year, Boaz nestled himself in the hay and
slept beside the baby Jesus on several cool
December nights. He became part of the na
tivity scene, and we laughed every time we
saw him sleeping there.
OLD TIMEY GUMDROP TREE
My Grandmother Jarriel always had a
gumdrop tree in her house outside of Col
lins during the holidays, and at some point,
my sister and I started constructing gum
drop trees of our own. My father (an avid
outdoorsman) was always charged with
finding a sturdy branch with lots of thorns
to bring home to us (I can’t remember what
kind of bush the thorny branches came
from — maybe Hawthorne). Anyway, my
sister and I anchored the branch in a pot
of sand or dirt, then stuck the multi
colored gumdrops on each and every
thorn, being careful not to pierce our
fingertips with its sharp spikes. Ouch!
When we finished, we placed
our work of art on the center
of the kitchen table. The sugar
crystals on each gumdrop glis
tened in the morning sunlight
that streamed in through the
kitchen window.
We couldn’t resist
eating the gumdrops as
we passed by it every
day, and so most eve
nings, we had to put
more gumdrops on its
prickly branches. It was
delicious as it was lovely.
CERAMIC CHRISTMAS
TREE
One November, Mom brought home
a 15-inch clay Christmas tree figure from
Brown’s Ceramic Shop. She sanded it and
removed the mold lines with her sharp tool,
then rubbed it lightly with a wet sponge. Af
ter it was fired, Mom painted it. After it was
fired again, it finally took on the appearance
of a Christmas tree with its glossy evergreen
finish.
She popped in dozens of multicolored
plastic pieces into the holes on each ce-
Please see Amber page 8A
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle
Uncle Pray's Hat
By Joe Phillips
Dear Me
Just once!
I attended the
wedding of an Eng
lish woman in one of
our northern colo
nies and was flipped
over by the sea of
hats. The gal wedded
a boy from New Eng
land and imported all her school chums.
Men love a woman in a hat, and con
temporary women have not caught on to
what their grandmothers knew. It is the
quickest way to be noticed
and appreciated.
A man wearing a dress
hat will draw attention
also, but there is magic in
it. Add to that the eventual
disappearance of the ar
cana of hat-wearing, such
as knowing when to re
move it and how to care
for it.
Born in 1897, Ephraim
Pray “Pray” Phillips was a pre-teen when
my father was bom. The two of them were
alike in appearance and demeanor. The
other two siblings favored their mother's
Milam line.
By his mid-twenties Pray had enough
of farm life and looked eastward to Atlanta
for opportunity and found it at the post of
fice.
Pray and another letter carrier were
tasked with a single customer, the seven-
teen-story Candler Building. While Pray,
the senior of the two, handled the lower
floors, his partner serviced the upper
floors.
In August of 1949 Uncle Pray suffered
a stroke at his home at 400 Mathewson
Place near Westview Cemetery.
I recall his wife, Aunt Lavada, said that
she was puzzled by the commotion in the
hospital. The hallways were full of newspa
per reporters and photographers.
The next day she learned the celebrity
patient was Margaret Mitchell, who was
struck by a car while crossing Peachtree
street. She died a few days later.
Uncle Pray never fully recovered. He
tried to find something within his reach at
the post office, but he eventually took a
disability retirement un
til July 1955 when he
suffered a fatal stroke.
Without children
of their own, I was their
favorite nephew by de
fault. I inherited Uncle
Pray's personal things,
such as his straight razor,
which I tried once, and
his hat.
The tan felt hat
has a wider brim than I like but it fits the
times. It is a “Royal Stetson DeLuxe” and
“Alford Bros Lawrenceville, GA” is em
bossed on the sweat band. The brothers
owned stores in nine towns.
The felt hat is in good condition for its
age, which is close to eighty years. It has a
short, flat brim that can be snapped down,
but most men wore the brim flat: Think of
President Lyndon Johnson in a hat.
Men often kept a calling card or a dol
lar bill on the inner sweat band. I checked.
Nope. Just the hat. I had to look.
joenphillips@yahoo.com
St. Simon’s preservation
important to all Georgians
When I go
to my Great
Reward
(hoping it is
not before I
finish this
column), if I
don’t qualify
for the
Gates, I will
take St. Simons
Island as my
backup choice. It is, after all, heaven on
earth. And, thankfully, there are people
trying to keep it that way.
Emily Ellison, executive director
of the St. Simons Land Trust, tells me
her organization is in the middle of a
campaign to raise $5.5 million to
preserve the few undeveloped acres
still available on the island. Called The
Canopy Campaign, the group has a
goal of raising $5.5 million and is off to
a good start. A small group of
conservation-minded supporters have
pledged another $3 million to
jumpstart the effort.
Ellison says, “We are using these
gifts and pledges as a challenge. Every
contribution made to the campaign
will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to
the $3 million.”
Contributions can be mailed to
P.O. Box 24615, St. Simons Island, GA
31522, or made online at sslt.org.
If you don’t live on St. Simons,
why should you care about the
campaign? Well, for one thing, every
inch of the Great State of Georgia is
sacred soil to me and none more so
than our coastline. To quote Woody
Guthrie, this land is our land, and we
are blessed that a part of our land is the
Golden Isles.
“The Georgia coast has become
the most popular vacation destination
not only for people living in the state
but also in the region,” Ellison says.
“Surveys show that one of the top
reasons people visit St. Simons is
because of its natural beauty, the live
oaks, the moss-shrouded maritime
forests, the marshes, the streams and
beaches.” Amen to that.
Ellison adds, “The properties that
the Land Trust has conserved over the
past 20 years, and the ones that we are
continuing to acquire, provide the
greenspaces, the hiking trails, the
environmental features that mean so
much to people throughout the state.”
In 2018, the Land Trust launched
Phase I of The Canopy Campaign.
With a $4 million challenge grant from
The Anschutz Foundation, more than
$8 million was raised in less than three
months. That successful campaign
resulted in the protection of nearly 200
acres of environmentally and culturally
significant undeveloped land and two
important mid-island properties.
This time, the campaign is focused
on three properties on the north end
of St. Simons, contiguous with 608-
acre Cannon’s Point Preserve, creating
nearly 730 acres that will be protected
in perpetuity. Another nearly 40-acre
tract is between Cannon’s Point and
the 258-acre Guale Preserve that the
Land Trust completed purchasing in
2018.
The three parcels closest to
By Dick Yarbrough
Cannon’s Point have been in the same
family for a number of years and were
once part of the Oatland Plantation.
Most recently the nearly 120 acres
were privately owned. “It is from the
heirs that we are buying the properties,”
Ellison says. “Another nearly 38-acre
tract has been owned by a Texas
company. Their intent was to sell to a
developer. More than 100 homes
could have been built on this tract.”
Just what we need. More traffic.
Ellison says, “One of our goals in
this campaign is to provide funds for
the long-term management of the
more than 1,100 acres in our trust.
This is one of our most important
strategic priorities.”
As for the future, Ellison says there
is still some undeveloped land left on
St. Simons Island, “but there isn’t
much of it.” The only other large
parcels of undeveloped land on the
north end of the island are owned by a
family whose members reside on the
property. They have a 10-year
conservation easement on their land,
which provides at least temporary
assurance it will not be developed.
Georgia is one of the fastest-
growing states in the country. The
current population stands at some 10
million and people keep coming.
According to the state’s own
projections, that number could rise to
almost 15 million by the end of this
decade. I guess that’s because it doesn’t
snow ten months a year here and all
our buildings aren’t rusted.
Whatever the reason, it is
important that while we deal with
matters of quantity, we not forget the
quality of life that makes our state so
special. That includes preserving the
natural beauty and the fragile
ecosystem of St. Simons Island. My
thanks to the St. Simons Land Trust
for their unstinting efforts to protect
and to keep holy my heaven on earth.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@
dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, At
lanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.
facebook.com/dickyarb.
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