“Just wait one year, and you’ll ask, ‘Baton who?’” It was 1974 and my Dad, having completed his studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, had the unenviable job of telling his 12-year-old kid that we were packing up and leaving Baton Rouge for the Blue Ridge Mountains where he would be minister of music at First Baptist Church in McCaysville, GA.  I was not enamored.  

You see, I told Dad that I loved living in Baton Rouge. I loved going to LSU games and being an up-and-coming Tiger. I loved life in what to me seemed like a big city, and I certainly loved living close to my grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends, all of whom made my world a non-stop celebration of the best things in life.  I loved Grandma Carter’s gumbo, Grandpa Carter’s easy style and Dean Martin-like humor, Granny’s elegant and razor-sharp mastery of the English language, Grandaddy’s quiet strength, the strong coffee, the earthy and colorful humor of Louisiana with its wry Cajun influence, and the sugary sweet sounds of Dixieland Jazz when we traveled to the French Quarter. This was the closest thing to heaven on earth as far as I was concerned, and now I was about to be wrenched away from it all so I could live (presumably, it seemed) on the set of Hee Haw.  

The die had been cast, however, and soon I felt like a low-ranking member of a missionary family dispatched to the deepest wilds of a foreign land to learn the strange customs of the natives and maybe help a business sample of them learn of our ways.  In fairness, I should add that not only was I wrong in my misbegotten assumptions about these good people, but that I made many lifelong friends along the way.  Granted, they may not cheer for the Tigers, but one can only do so much. 

The point, as it relates to this stage of life, is that I nevertheless felt dislodged from the place and the people who gave me life and gave such rich meaning and foundation to that life. 

Still, it was in McCaysville that I had my first kiss (and a few succeeding kisses, now that I think about it). It was the place where Mrs. Arp, my 8th-grade teacher, had me select a passage from any poem I wished and read it to the class, after which she publicly encouraged me to continue reading, writing, and speaking. The passage was from Stanzas On Freedom, by James Russell Lowell, written in 1843 when the country was drifting toward Civil War:

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

To say that life in that little north Georgia town was full of wonder and revelation would be an understatement on the order of describing the Grand Canyon as an inconsequential ditch somewhere in the desert. Nevertheless, one year after we arrived in McCaysville, I pulled Dad aside and said, “Baton Rouge.” He knew that I hadn’t forgotten it.  Because as much as I loved the people in McCaysville, it all seemed bland when compared with home! 

Decades passed, and from one part of the map to the other, whether moving with parents or moving with the military, or driving over a million miles across the country in an 18-wheeler, the sense of “home” was always elusive, always out there someplace but never quite within reach. Like the “Lonely Stranger,” from the song performed by Eric Clapton, I spent decades on an odyssey which yielded a panoply of experiences and lessons that, while rich, could never satiate my heart’s desire to go home. 

From McCaysville I found the first yearnings of young love, along with the beginnings of my own “voice.” In Valdosta, I learned that adults are not immune to failure and mistakes, avarice and vice. From my college years in Panama City, FL, I developed a lifelong love affair with the written word and began in earnest to explore the philosophical and ideological foundations of the nation’s Founders and the Framers of the Constitution. 

The experiences and discoveries continued over one career in the military and another driving an 18-wheeler across America. From the Mideast, I learned that thousands of years of culture and experience won’t necessarily inoculate a people from homicidal hatred and idiot violence. Then, from Memphis, I learned that there are places even dumber and more violent than the Mideast. 

Several years back, Ricochet’s James Lileks asked whether my travels across the country had revealed any remaining bastions of small-town civility, decency, and decorum. And the answer, back in 2013, was yes, absolutely there were a few redoubts of civil society remaining. 

Now, as 2022 comes to a close, it seems those bastions are fewer and far between. So that when the time came to leave Memphis and find a place to settle down for good, my mind immediately locked on a little rampart of good manners and decency where people aren’t afraid to be respectful and still speak the flat-footed truth to the latest political fads and delusions. 

Louisiana will always have my heart, but my mind and my spirit needed a place where ever-encroaching violent crime isn’t a relentless and existential problem — a place where the lifestyle heals the soul. 

I found that place in a quaint historic community called St. Andrews. On one corner is a little church that dates back to 1887. A quick stroll down the street from my cottage takes me to the bay on one side and a gorgeous park festooned in dazzling Christmas finery on the other side. My backyard is a large and beautifully furnished outdoor pub where one can sit under twinkling lights, bask in the glow of strategically placed fire pits and enjoy live music and friendly conversation.  

Weekends here are filled with outdoor concerts, arts and crafts in the park, a quaint and colorful collection of outdoor cafes and restaurants, artists, boutique shops, and people who will look you in the eye, smile, and genuinely wish you a good day.  It reminds me of the French Quarter when it was safe.  

There’s a Thai restaurant across the street and a delightful and tastefully decorated restaurant next to it that features jazz music, a full bar, and the friendliest staff this side of the pearly gates.  In the park, across the street, stands a mammoth oak tree purported to be over 250 years old. It was alive before the Declaration of Independence was signed, and will be alive long after I’ve departed this world. But for now, it’s reassuring to sit underneath that giant tree, listen to the birds and the music, savor the moment and company of those who heal my spirit and inspire a happy life. Here, at last, the heart has found home, and the soul is content.