Across The Savannah
The Winds of Fate
By TOM POLAND

Jacquelyn Johnson asked me to write columns for the Journal and I thought, well why not, though I do live 100 miles away in Shamecockville. But that's okay. I'm from Lincolnton and a Bulldog, and Dawgs rule like kings over here. So after being away 34 years, I'm back. Sort of. Let's catch up.

While working on my masters at Georgia, my department chairman, a no-nonsense woman, called me into her office and issued an edict.

"You're going to earn 10 hours' credit teaching six months at a women's college in Columbia."

"Yes ma'am, you got that right!"

Six months turned into four years and an opportunity came my way: writing scripts for natural history films like you see on "National Geographic." I answered to government bureaucrats, though, and that didn't sit well with me. Not one bit.

Granddaddy Poland, who farmed down in Double Branches, said. "Boy, if you can make money for the man, you can make it for yourself."

Granddaddy Walker owned a country up store near Pistol Creek. My dad ran a saw shop on Highway 47. They didn't have a "manager." Was something wrong with me?

Growing up, I worked in Dad's saw shop, a tin building set on concrete. In summer, sweat made large dark spots on Dad's blue National Linen shirts. In winter, tires blazed in a wood stove turning the stovepipe cherry red even as my breath hung among shafts of blue winter light. The work was hard but honest and real. And nobody wore neckties.

City-slicker executives wear neckties. They don't really "work" and they think they own my talent. That's why I don't write for them. Georgia writer, Harry Crews pegged them good. "If you give a man a white shirt and a tie and a suit of clothes, you can find out real quick how sorry he is."

Sorry indeed. In 1987, I set out to be independent. Freelancing, I soon found, is a surprising life with rewards aplenty. I discovered, though, that some people (executives) relegate writers to a status akin to a short order cook scratching out the day's menu.

I met a haughty Yankee once, a thick-hipped executive, fond of herself and fond of food.

"A writer. Well, I mastered that in college and moved on to bigger things." Bigger, indeed.

Now Southern women see writers as romantic free spirits. You can take that to the bank. One night, long after the thrill of seeing my byline had died, a Southern belle asked in wonderment, "Don't you just love seeing your name in print?"

"I love seeing my name on a check," I replied.

We writers aren't numerous, you know. People are curious about word merchants. How did you become a writer? How'd you get stuck in Columbia? For a long time I couldn't explain myself. Saying I wanted to string words together somewhere, someday wasn't romantic. Nor was saying I hate neckties. Then, two summers ago, I wrote about waterfalls, and Mother Nature helped me out.

Up in the Cherokee's Great Blue Hills of God, rivers thunder over the Blue Ridge Escarpment. Waterfalls pound rocks, kicking up mists. Mountain winds roar in with treasures- fern spores from the far, far tropics. The lucky ones fall into moist, fertile niches and bless barren gray rocks with green tropical riches. The others die.

A free spirit riding the winds of fate, that's me. I, too, fell into a niche. Writing. The tales we'll share across the Savannah. Get ready to laugh, cry, and shake your head. n

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol@earth link.net