This is by no means a new subject to those around Savannah but it takes me back to a good time in my life. While at the beach today I saw something that brought a flood of memories to me that made me feel warm inside even though the ocean water is getting cold. Being retired and ten minutes from the beach gives me the freedom to just drop in when I feel like it, pun intended. That’s what I did today around high noon. It was going to be 95 degrees today but turning cool during the weekend so I thought this might be my last chance to have a dip in the sea.

I was floating around in the water when a formation of pelicans flew overhead very low. So low that I felt myself  involuntarily sink down a foot or two just to grant the needed clearance. All at once it hit me. I suddenly had these memories of Wilbur the Weather Bird from Captain Sandy’s weather forecast on WSAV in Savannah back in the 70’s. We didn’t live in Savannah but I visited my grandparents farm every summer in Jesup. There were only a few TV stations that we could pick up on the antenna in those days and my grandmother always watched WSAV for the news. In the 70’s I was under 10 and didn’t really care about the news but I did struggle through the endless talk of politics and disaster so I could see that pelican come down out of the sky and hand Captain Sandy the weather for the next day. There were other characters such as Calamity Clam but I really only remember that bird-on-a-wire dropping into the shot with a card in its mouth.

On an earlier trip to the beach I told my wife about Captain Sandy and she quickly loaded a YouTube video of him on her phone. I conveyed to her the memories it brought back to me. Seeing the pelicans today triggered those same thoughts. Although the fond memory of a stuffed bird that was used to make the news interesting to kids started all of this it was really the memories of the farm that brings the good feelings back.

At that age the farm was a wonderland of adventure and imagination for a young boy. When granddaddy wasn’t in the field I could beg him to ride me on the tractor. I was always willing to get up in the middle of the night to walk down to the tobacco barn and check on the tobacco that was cooking in the rafters overhead. Let me tell you there is no better smell in the world than cooking tobacco leaves right out of the field. I was always up on time to have breakfast with my granddaddy and drink coffee out of the saucer just like he did. Then it was off to get corn from the corn bin to feed the hogs. All this meant I could ride in the back of the truck free as a bird. We would back up to the hog yard and I would hand him the buckets of corn like I was a real man. He wouldn’t let me out of the truck at the hog yard fearing the sows would freak out if I got in between her and her young. I loved sitting on the tailgate of the old green truck shucking corn and doing whatever it took to be outside with my granddaddy.

Although the outdoor adventures with granddaddy were fun I did so love my grandmother. There has never been and kinder more sweeter woman to walk this earth than her. I would sit in granddaddy’s chair and peel butter beans and peas with her. This was thunderstorm work because if it wasn’t raining I was outside.  She would watch “Days of Our Lives”every day at lunchtime. I became acquainted with the tortured lives of Don and Marlena at a young age.  Grandmama introduced me to the sweet southern nectar we call sweet tea. I could drink it by the gallon if she would let me.

I could type all night about the fun I had on the farm when I was a child but the point of this was to convey how memories come like domino’s falling. The pelicans lead to Captain Sandy that led to the farm in Jesup. I can visit the farm in Jesup and not have the same flood of thoughts that those birds brought to me today. However they got there I am glad to have had them. I now have an urge to go shuck corn but I know it wouldn’t be the same. I need a hard working man named J.W. Strickland, a 1972 Chevrolet truck and a bushel of the sweetest corn in Georgia to get that feeling back. I have something that time and a lot of years can’t take away. I have memories that pelicans can bring.