Welcome to Bowles

Chapter 1

Things in Bowles didn’t really get weird until Grandma died. That was in ’91. Before that, I used to look forward to going down there to get away from the hustle and bustle of Atlanta. It seemed to always be sunny there, it was so green, so clean, and it even smelled good—even if there was cow manure all over the place. It’s where my momma grew up. Sometimes I was jealous that she got to grow up in such an interesting place with her cousins all within walking distance… all eleventy-seven of them. And to have a momma as sweet as my Grandma—there were only 3 people lucky enough for that.

There’s my momma, Delia, Uncle Trip, and Aunt Gee. Uncle Trip’s real name is Walter Bryant Pendleton, III; named after my Pops and his father. Aunt Gee’s real name is Jean Pendleton. No middle name, although I remember when she was younger she liked to say her middle name was Jeanette. I think it was her trying to be all grown up and sophisticated and making up for the middle name that Grandma and Pops didn’t give her.

So my momma is the only one who’s actually called by her name. Wrong. Somehow, they forget all the letters in there that make the name “Delia” and it turns into “Della.” That really doesn’t matter to me though. I just call her momma.

* * *

Bowles is a tiny little town, or rather, establishment in the very far east corner of lower Georgia. It’s about an hour from Savannah and forever from everywhere else. Whenever I tell people I’m going to visit my relatives in Bowles, I usually just say I’m going to Savannah. They all know where that is. When I tell people from Savannah that may actually have a clue as to where Bowles is that I am going there, they tilt their heads back and laugh like someone once told them they may possibly in their lifetime meet someone affiliated with Bowles, but it would probably never happen.

These people have obviously, then, never met any of my family. They all live in Bowles. All of Pops’ people that is. All of Grandma’s people live up the road and on the other side of the marsh in this place called Red’s Cove. When I was little and I used to go there with my Grandma, she used to always say, “We’re goin’ to Rescove.” I never knew that it was actually the cove that belonged to an individual named Red until I was about 13 or 14, when they actually put a sign up on the highway that said, “Red’s Cove.”

This dialect that everyone down in Bowles speaks is known as Gullah. Sometimes it’s hard to understand, but the more and more I am around it, the more and more I can understand it. Actually, hearing it makes me think of good times. It makes me laugh. It makes me tear up. It makes me remember the good times when all the Pendletons in Bowles and the Loops in Red’s Cove used to all be perfect and without blemish. Maybe they are the same they were back then… Maybe I’m the one that changed after Grandma died.

Chapter 2

Down the bumpy dirt driveway and a few steps through the cow manure from my Pops’ house sits a bright blue house. It belongs to my great aunt, Beatrice. This is where things get complicated… Beatrice and my Pops are half brother and sister. Their momma, Linnese Harvey was once married to Walter Bryant Pendleton (the original and Pops’ daddy). When he died, she remarried to Mitchell Harvey, who was called Mr. Sumter by his step-children and other people around Bowles. There’s hardly anyone still alive who remembers the original Walter Pendleton. As far as I know, it’s just Pops. His daddy died even before momma, Uncle Trip, and Aunt Gee were even thought of. So, the defaulted patriarch of the family ended up being a man who I shared no blood with.

Anyway, Aunt Beatrice lives there with her daughter Vanessa (called Vy by most of the Pendletons and Harveys). For the longest time, the two of them cared for her very old and very sick parents. Mr. Sumter died when he was 105. There were tons of deaths in between my Grandma’s and his, but this one proved pretty significant, like my Grandma’s. It was then, in 1998 that Bowles turned into a place that I associated with death.

Not really because it’s a sad place, but I think it’s because everyone there is so old. When you get old, you die. Most of the people there are old. So it makes sense.

Well, from then on, we would go and visit and there were two less people in Bowles than there were when I had become so familiar with it. See, the summer before my Grandma died, I lived in Bowles. It’s hard to believe now, but I stayed there for the entire summer, from June to August. That’s when I came up with my definition of Bowles and what it was to me. That’s when I was part of the Bowles community.

Chapter 3

It’s pretty, but it’s by no means neat. It’s home, but it’s by no means comfortable. It’s Bowles; peaceful, pleasant, overgrown, and unkempt. Everywhere in Bowles except the main road used to be unpaved. But since about the time Mr. Sumter died, they paved more roads. They even named some of the roads. The main road, Klein’s Neck Road was long, paved, and went somewhere… into a part of Bowles that is so far back there, it probably doesn’t really exist. The road that Aunt Beatrice and Pops live off of is Black’s Atoll Road. The Bowles Community Center is across the street from Aunt Beatrice’s little blue house, so they have always seemed to live in the center of the community—even though there is still Klein’s Neck that goes way far out into nothing.

The area around my family’s land is not clean. There was a time when between Pop’s and Aunt Beatrice there were lots of cows and chickens in a pen that sat behind a little old silver trailer. That trailer has always disturbed me. It’s a single family dwelling that is wide open and completely open to just about anyone and anything. I wasn’t really concerned that anyone was going to go inside it. I think Aunt B kept chicken feed in there, or something for the cows. The cows, however, disappeared eventually. I have no clue whether someone actually came and took them, or they all just died out. I just remember coming back and they weren’t there.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they just died out. Like I said, things in the area are pretty unkempt. There didn’t seem to be a purpose for the cows. I don’t think they drank any fresh milk, and I don’t think they ate any fresh beef. They were just there to make the atmosphere of Bowles. What would a walk from Pops to Aunt B’s be without an occasional foot in cow boo boo?

* * *

The most elegant part about driving up to Pops’ house was the canopy of trees that covered the tender dirt driveway to the house. It was seriously like something you’d expect to see driving up to Terra from Gone With the Wind. But it wasn’t Terra. After driving at a snails pace over the dust and rocks, you get to the overgrown shrubs and pieces of machines just lying around. It’s hard to say what they actually are. It’s hard to even describe. All I can say is that there are pieces of plastic and metal, and scraps and pipes.

I do know that there are an abundance of old vehicles all over Bowles. Between my Pops’ house, Aunt B’s house, and uncle Trip’s land beside Pop’s house, there are probably 10 to 15 old vehicles. Buses, trucks, cars, vans, motorcycles… none of them work. The ones over by Uncle Trip’s are truly his. To this day, I don’t know what his purpose was with all of them. I can only remember him actually driving about 2 of them. Once my momma was fussing at him and told him that she would give him $50 for every car he could crank up out there. Uncle Trip walked away from my momma with just as much money as he had started the conversation with.

It’s so nasty, but yet so unique. It’s like a mess that you wouldn’t want to clean up. I guess that is why it’s still there.