Happiness – Page 34

September Oaks: A Midsummer Afternoon at a South Carolina Lowcountry Vineyard

Posted on July 15, 2012July 16, 2012 by Neal Saye

Yesterday afternoon I ventured off the too-beaten trail, heading away from hometown Savannah across the Talmadge Memorial Bridge on US 17 into the South Carolina Low Country. My destination: September Oaks Vineyards, a small but incredibly beautiful boutique winery hidden in the midst of towering, ancient live oak trees, just outside Ridgeland, SC. September Oaks welcomes visitors along a magical shaded drive, reminiscent of an antebellum plantation approach. I’m 99% sure that the Spanish moss tentacles waved a Southern welcome especially for me as I drove onto the property. (And I hadn’t even tasted any wine yet.)

Before meeting a soul, I did a little exploration of the grounds.

The muscadine vines looked in excellent health, grapes drooping heavily and bountifully in the July heat.

I was transported back …

… quite a few years (don’t ask!) to my North Georgia upbringing in Ball Ground near the foothills of the Appalachian Trail, and my father, “Tub,” making muscadine jelly from the grapes we picked along area streams. I closed my eyes, and Dad stood before me in our little blue-curtained kitchen as he measured grapes, sugar and Sure Gel to create the heavenly treat. I blinked and there was my mom, “Neever,” pulling hot golden buttermilk biscuits from the oven. My biscuit, halved and steaming, centered on green Corelle. The butter melting and glistening. The minutes-new, still warm jelly spread. Little Neal smiling in edible joy.

Okay, for goodness sake, let’s get back to the winery tour! I thought I rested secure in my world famous blogger stature until I stood next to this tree. It cut me down to size.

Finally I saw the sign to the wine tasting, so started to mosey over that way.

Got sidetracked.

Find Neal:

The rustically beautiful tasting room.

And here’s Nikki, the wine tasting hostess/teacher. (She’s also an English teacher, so a kindred spirit.)

I know next to nothing about wine, so the experience was fascinating. According to their website, September Oak’s “goal is to create unique and high quality wines, specializing in wines made from muscadine grapes (vitis rotundifolia). We’ll also be developing a variety of wines from different vinefera grapes as well as blending the merlot and muscadine grapes” (SOV Website). The tasting included seven wines: a Chardonnay, SOV Family White (made from the muscadine grapes you saw earlier, and whose aroma reminded me of my dad’s muscadine jelly), White Merlot, Kiwi Gold (yes, with locally grown kiwi), Crescent Moon, SOV Lenoir (“a dry red that brings history home with the Lenior grape that originated in the Low Country in the 1700’s”), and SOV Family Red. Some of these wines have already won prizes. Congrats!

[Do you KNOW that at a wine tasting you actually DRINK the wine?! Glass after glass. Like SEVEN glasses. Isn’t wine alcoholic?]

Here’s another wine-taster, Damon from Hilton Head. (I asked him for a recommendation for a great HH restaurant, and he immediately said, “The Sage Room, on the south end. Tell them I sent you.” So I plan to, soon. I’ll keep you posted.) Damon knew SO MUCH about wine that I felt like one of the Kardashians trying to talk to Einstein.

I mean, he asked questions about grape growth patterns and parent vines and bouquets. The foremost, burning question on my mind was, “Yall think I shoud buy this? It’s so cool!”

It was my lucky day …

… because after the tasting, I ventured behind these doors (Wizard of Oz-ishly) and met the September Oaks owner Grady Woods (cool and appropriate last name, don’t you think?) and his polite son Kent, as they were working.

Grady showed us some of the equipment and explained about plans for expansion of the winery.

I stood behind a barrel and made the announcement that maybe I would just start up a winery/vineyard. (As some of you know, I have frustratingly abandoned my desire to be a tugboat operator.) I thought that perhaps I could call my winery something like NealNowReallyEnJoysWineTastings. But I got no respect at all from Nikki and Damon:

But I got even by confiscating a big ole barrel of wine. “I gotta load this by myself?!”

What a great Low Country afternoon. I will definitely go back one of these days. You go with me!

Now which way is Savannah?

See you next time.

Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers (7/13/12)

Posted on July 13, 2012July 13, 2012 by Neal Saye

It’s lucky FRIDAY the 13th!* And here are Five Happy, Happy Bringers.

* From now on, Friday the 13th is going to be considered a very lucky day filled with all good fortune. Okay? Good. It is now so.

1. Enjoying a fire in July (!)

2. Elephant Ears and other Joys of Nature

3. The Cross

4. Hanging these pics correctly the first attempt.

5. Always having the right tools.

Joyful Weekend!

Joy in Nature, Savannah Joy

Welcome to My Backyard, the Alley of the Angels

Posted on July 6, 2012January 5, 2023 by Neal Saye

Welcome to the alley of the angels

Hey, they say your eyes can gleam

When you can a just tell the truth all night

(And you can chase them dreams all night)

Welcome to the alley of the angels.

— John Cougar Mellencamp

Places–I love the poetic resonance of that word. Some places are special; you had them growing up, of course you did. And do now. Magical places. Special because of their cocoonishness, or their broad openness. Their smell, or their connection to friends or family. Their lightness, or darkness. Their safety, or risk.

So I was aghast a few years back when I attended a writing conference at the Sea Turtle Inn in Atlantic Beach, FL, and one afternoon decided to skip the meetings and drive down memory lane. I headed south to Jacksonville Beach to find the motel where my family and I vacationed from about the time I was six or seven till I went away to college. It had those wonderful beds where you inserted a quarter into the headboard, and the mattress vibrated! For fifteen minutes! My mother, father and brothers would all hop on. Who needed the Ritz?

I knew exactly where the Horseshoe Motel stood. I had been there SO many times as a kid. But I started to doubt myself when I passed the lifeguard station and came to the ridiculously sharp turn in the road far beyond my memory motel location. I can be dense, so it took me at least three to-and-fro trips before I realized (admitted?) that the place had been demolished for a condo. Sad. A childhood place gone for good.

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I live in beautiful downtown Savannah, smack-dab in the middle of the nation’s largest historic district, to be exact. I can hear the huge freighters blowing their bass notes at night …

… as well as the clatter of horseshoes as carriages tour past Colonial Park Cemetery across the street.

I love walking the Savannah streets, breathing history.

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I don’t really have a backyard, in the traditional sense of the word. But, boy, do I have a backyard! It’s really a small alley, which runs behind the building where I live.

Even though it is communal, and somewhat small, there are hidden crannies where one can sit and read, or laptop, or daydream. It exudes a trace of otherwordliness, a fragrance of excursion. I step into my “backyard,” and suddenly I’m in Europe–Florence, Italy perhaps, trying to decide on which trattoria to frequent. I sit to read in its botanical wealth and am lost, not just in the book’s maze, but in the place, the green, the leafyness, the nowness of nature.

This place calls me to look up, to pause and see.

To view from unfamiliar perspectives and angles.

A tremendous perk of having place appreciation is that windows appear, and open (or shut), and allow you to see just what you desire to see. Or simply, and deliciously, to dream.

There’s power in place.

Both growth and potential growth. Both static and kinetic.

Sometimes sitting is all that’s needed in life. To embrace “is-ness,” accept “am-ness.” Breathing in, breathing out.

A sense and celebration of place, our place, they gift us with calm assurance that we are where we are, for good reason. That rhythm and movement take us (or keep us) where we need to be.

My backyard invites me to …

And such encouragement affirms the heart of this attempt at blogging.

Posted with Blogsy

Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers (6/29/12)

Posted on June 29, 2012July 1, 2012 by Neal Saye

Friday! Here are five wonderful adders to my happiness (Is “adder” a word?) (Well, in the way I’m using it, I mean?) (Because “adder” is a type of poisonous snake.) (Yuk!) (Or something non-understandable having to do with computer circuits and addition.)

1. Being okay with not knowing whether some words I use are actually words. Because since I have reached a certain age, I don’t care about such correctness so much. I’m trying to embrace my “is-ness,” you know?

2. Seeing the sun rise over the ocean on Amelia Island Thursday morning.

(Okay maybe I went straight back to bed afterwards. But I did leave the doors open so I could hear the surf.)

3. Earlier in the week, I visited my parents in the small North Georgia town of Ball Ground (where I grew up). Tuesday morning, as is our tradition when I’m home, we made our way to Hardees for coffee and breakfast biscuits (sausage and egg for me, in case you’re wondering).

Well, as luck would have it, when we were handed our coffee cups (by a talkative caramel-colored lady who made the biscuits earlier and who was leaving for Puerto Rico the next morning–I’m a good listener/eavesdropper) and went to the urn (cool word) to pour our brew, the huge container was empty. [That sentence is “weigh” too long, but I don’t feel like revising it right now. There’s a severe heat warning in the Eastern U.S. and I really need to take a cool nap ASAP.]

Back to the coffee urn–since it was still nearly dawn (7:30 ish!) and I was only half conscious, I kept pushing that little handle/lever thingy up and down (in maniacal poking-the-elevator-button-to-make-it-come-faster style) hoping to force some joe into my two-dropsful cup.

My mom, 85, who broke her leg a couple of months ago and struggles with walking, relying on a walker, which we fold up and put in the trunk of the car, had already found a table near a group of extremely LOUD senior citizens and waited semi-patiently for her coffee. Seeing me struggling foolishly with the urn spout, she yelled at a shocking volume over the partying old folks, “Neal it’s empty! Can’t you see that? Tell your daddy to get that pretty black girl to get us some from behind the counter. We know her. Are you sure you don’t want the breakfast platter?”

But my father, 89 in November and an extremely efficient doer-of-things, had other plans. While I was staring, openmouthed, at a hauntingly beautiful, ancient and tiny, bird-like, blue-haired lady wearing an oversized Lady Gaga t-shirt cinched at the waist with one of those orange plastic rings, my dad picked up the large, empty urn from the beverage area and carried it slowly, shakily and singlehandedly to the counter. “There you go,” he said to Caramel, who laughed a good-natured “Oh my!” and said we would have coffee in no time. And we did.

4. Sea oats.

5. The incredible fragrance of jasmine growing on trellisses. Find some and smell it deeply.

These fragrantly beautiful vines were growing in abundance in my parents’ side yard.

Have a spectacular last weekend in June!

College Teaching, Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers (6/22/12) — Retirement Edition

Posted on June 22, 2012June 22, 2012 by Neal Saye

Yesterday, I retired from full time professorship at Georgia Southern University. Here are five things about my retiring that make me happy/reflective.

1. This cool plaque from CLASS (GSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences).

2. Turning in my grades this morning.

3. Enjoying the silly truthfulness of a message I posted on my Department of Writing and Linguistics listserv, when I announced my approaching retirement: Ten Take-Aways from Being a Professor at Georgia Southern for Twenty-Four Years.

* The student is more important than the subject being taught.

* Listen to the student–she or he has a voice.

* Newton (the ancient classroom building which houses my department) never changes.

* Deans and department chairs do (pretty regularly) (Okay, very regularly.)

* The secretaries really run this place. Be good to them.

* How I arranged my classroom tables, what books I used, what my theoretical framework was (though important) paled in comparison to being in love with teaching young people (and some not-so-young people) and LIKING students.

* Don’t grade everything.

* At least once every week, tell your students something funny–about you, or them or whatever.

* Take a walk around campus every now and then just to take in its natural beauty.

* Don’t take yourself or your job too seriously.

4. A fun saying-goodbye gathering with department members and other collegaues.

Tim Giles and Interim Department Chair Phyllis Dallas.

Mary Hadley, Thomas Klein and Tim.

Terri Welford and Interim Dean Curtis Ricker.

Interim Associate Provost Mike Smith (former CLASS Dean)

Laura Milner and Mary Marwitz

Fellow blogger Emma Bolden

Poet Extraordinaire Eric Nelson

Michael Pemberton and Angela Crow

5. Realizing that being sad at leaving such wonderful colleagues and students proves the joy of having been a part of Georgia Southern University for so long.

Happiest of Weekends to You All!

College Teaching

Final Little Hallway Walk and GSU Retirementville

Posted on June 21, 2012September 9, 2012 by Neal Saye

Office 2225B on the second floor of the Newton Building on the campus of Georgia Southern University. A second home. For a long time.

But my office is cleared out now, books all boxed and removed. Quieter than it has been in eons. Computer-humming quiet. My office phone suddenly shy, afraid to ring and disturb emptiness.

I’m retiring from full-time college teaching.

This evening, after my last set of finals is turned in, I will walk out my door and down my little hallway for the final time as a professor at GSU.

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The Walk.

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Goodbye, goodbye little hallway! Goodbye, goodbye GSU!

Hello, hello ….

College Teaching, Joy in Nature

Walking in Beauty

Posted on June 21, 2012March 19, 2013 by Neal Saye

I spent my undergraduate years basking in the incredible natural and manmade beauty of Berry College in Rome, Georgia. I will never forget the JOY of studying on the world’s largest campus, surrounded by sites so breathtaking that occasionally, even as a green freshman, I would stop in my tracks on a journey across campus and stare, openmouthed, at the afternoon light shimmering off of Swan Lake or, on a cold February morning, gaze entranced out my Dana Hall second-floor, frosted dorm window into the ordered courtyard below and smile as deer delicately ate holly leaves and startling red berries in the snow. I can still hear my young footfalls on the ancient wooden floors of Berry’s gorgeous chapel (modeled after Christ Church in Alexandria Virginia). And here’s where I ate my meals, the Ford Dining Hall:

What fond and HAPPY Berry memories I have. Oh my gosh, that place was magical!

So, of course, I never thought that another school could compare with Berry.

But for the past twenty-four years, I have taught English at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. When I first arrived, my limited vision focused, uncomfortably, on sand, 100 degree summers and beyond-belief pesky gnats. (Why is that “g” there? Why are gnats ANYWHERE?) “Who could live in this desolate place?” I wondered. But slowly the tall pines and the amazing spring azaleas and (inexplicably) even the hot, humid summers wooed me, and I gradually fell in love. As I adored beautiful Berry as a student, I came to cherish GSU as a professor. The school and the land have been so very good to me.

I have watched GSU’s campus grow and develop into an enclave of living beauty. But far too often, in my busy business of teaching and grading and conferencing, I would forget what thrived outside my office window. So recently I decided to take a leisurely walk across my campus home. Come with me.

Let’s begin at the Akins Blvd. entrance off Veterans Parkway:

The RAC (Recreational Activity Center) where I spent many an hour trying to hold back the belly bulge.

Let’s ride over to the two eagle statues.

Now let’s climb a tree.

Look, I’m an Olympic hero.

Did you know that the “S” in GSU also stands for my last name, Saye?

When I sit down and think about it, I realize how much I have loved this school and this beautiful land.

Georgia Southern University has allowed me to enjoy a great career of helping young people progress and mature into their greater lives. I’ve been involved in a wondrous building process!

I’m so happy that both Berry and Georgia Southern are part of who I am.

Savannah Joy

I’m a Famous Fashion Model

Posted on May 22, 2012May 23, 2012 by Neal Saye

Last Friday night I ventured into unfamiliar territory by attending the beautifully chic Looking Back to the Future: Ralph Rucci Evolved fashion exhibition and reception at the SCAD Museum of Art in downtown Savannah. (Not familiar with SCAD? It’s the Savannah College of Art and Design, with an incredible campus scattered all over the Historic District.) Here I am beforehand, perusing the invitation and trying to decide three things.

1. Who Ralph Rucci is. I thought at first that maybe he was related to Susan Lucci (aka Erica Kane–All My Children), before realizing I confused the “L” and “R” of the last name.

2. If “reception” might translate into “jumbo Savannah shrimp and mojitos.”

3. If (since this was a fashion event) I had anything cool to wear that wouldn’t make my butt look big. (Could I wear skinny jeans at my age?)

A bit of research revealed that Rucci is a well known American fashion designer, with a line called Chado Ralph Lucci (“chado” coming from Japanese tea ceremonies which pay close attention to detail and expertise). His work “always embodies the same formula: the collections present the most beautiful rainwear, outerwear, furs, leathers, embroidery and rich hand techniques, dance dresses, and drop-dead evening gowns.”

Not 100% sure why, I decided to go.

I’m so glad I did.

Because now I’m famous. (More about that later.)

I arrived about 6:30 p.m. at the amazingly beautiful museum, which was created within a crumbling National Historic Landmark railroad warehouse, part of the large Central of Georgia Railroad Depot complex.

Here I am with docent extraordinaire Brianne Shew (a SCAD Fashion Design student) who introduced me to the exhibition and explained that “couture” is high-quality, custom made clothing, usually with 80% or more of the piece hand sewn. (And I finally learned how to pronounce the word: “koo-toor”: http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=couture.)

And here I am with one of the mannequins (right before I got a mean look/”no, no” headshake from another docent for getting too close to the mannequin/womannequin).

While browsing through the exhibit, I met a guy with the coolest pants. Upon introducing myself and my blog, I discovered that Mangue Banzima had recently moved with his family from New York and now owns Qui? Inc., an image consulting firm. Mangue is married to the lovely Isolde Brielmaier, art historian and chief curator of exhibitions of the SCAD museums. He writes a fascinating fashion blog: http://www.quistyle.com/blog (where you can see many photos from the Ralph Rucci exhibit). As a matter of fact, at his blog, Mangue welcomes your own fashion photo submissions.

And at one point Mangue took my picture and included it in his blog: http://www.quistyle.com/blog/page/5 (scroll down). WHY on earth didn’t I dress up more?! Still, since I’m now famous, from now on please treat me with the respect I deserve.

While at the museum I stuck my head in a couple of the other exhibits. Here I am sitting in the dark watching a video of frozen shoes sinking into a hole.

And, then, at another exhibit, trying to take a stand and march to my own beat:

But failing and succumbing to the crowd:

Oh well. Come on, join us.

I really had a wonderful time at the SCADMoA and the Rucci show. When you can, go!

Leaving, I said goodbye to yet another friendly and helpful Scadite, student Cory Elder, a SCAD painting major.

Moral of story: go where you haven’t gone before, try something new or challenging. Stretch. Who knows, you might become famous too.

P.S. If you have any suggestions for MY new fashion line, let me know ASAP. Thank you.

Holiday Joy

Mama — Tell Her Now!

Posted on May 13, 2012May 5, 2022 by Neal Saye

“Mama.” Perhaps no other word in our langauge evokes such tender and loving feelings.

My mom turned 85 on May 2. Here she is with my dad (88). They have been married for 65 years!

Geneva Mae Reavis Saye and Harold Hulon Saye Sr.

If I had to answer the question, “Neal, what’s the greatest lesson your mother has taught you in life?” I would have NO problem at all answering. I learned the lesson so, so early: the power and authority of humor and laughter. Some of my greatest memories growing up consist of roaring with giggles and laughter at some of the silliest things. My mother is a master at seeing the lightness in situations. The Christmas when I was about six, I asked for a real juke box, and FOUND IT it my parents’ bedroom closet on Christmas Eve. Mama thought it was hilarious when I started yelling in confusion, “WHY is my juke box in your closet??!!” She said, through fits of unrestrained laughs, “Santa wanted your dad and me to try it out first.” (That Christmas began my distrust of Santa.) Or the time when I asked for (and finally got) a rocking chair for my sixteenth birthday (don’t judge me), and she (like you probably) laughed and said, “WHO wants a rocking chair on their birthday?!” I still get teased about that very practical and emotionally calming gift.

Or her ongoing confusion with the words “veterinarian” and “vegetarian.”

Or the Christmas when I was about eight and had this obsession with making sure the ornaments were placed perfectly (in my opinion) on the live tree branches. I had gone to bed, but thought that maybe I should check the tree one more time for spatial accuracy of the bulbs and tinsel. A big round glass ornament on a limb just out of my reach needed attention. Reaching up, I grabbed the branch, too hard I suppose, and pulled the ENTIRE tree on top of me, electric lights and all. Screaming in holiday terror, I flailed at the evergreen monster till my mom and dad ran into the living room. I distinctly remember my dear mother hooting with laughter and saying to my dad (far too loudly), “Just look what Neal’s done now!”

Or her ongoing advice throughout the decades: “It’s really not that important, Neal. You’ll laugh about it soon.” And I usually did. (Except for early Christmas memories.)

What an incredible privilege and joy to have a mother who taught me when I was younger and who continues to teach me to this day that happiness is a choice. That laughter is an answer, a solution, medicine. That humor is a gift to get and to give.

My advice on this glorious Mother’s Day: Don’t wait till your mom and dad walk out of your lives forever to tell them, show them, how very much they mean to you and how much you love them.

HAPPY, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY 2012!

I dedicate this beautiful version of the song “Mama” by Il Divo to my mom and to yours. And remember to tell her now!