These aren't just any peacocks--or I guess I should say peafowl: my photo was taken on the farm in Georgia where the great writer Flannery O'Connor raised them, or their ancestors (she had died 15 years earlier). I was there on one leg of a trip that took me through the South in the early summer of 1979.
As soon as spring semester was over I began a driving trip that took me on a counterclockwise loop from Sheboygan to Nashville, Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, Biloxi, Milledgeville GA, Charleston and Newberry SC, Washington DC, New York, central PA, and Cleveland. I didn't take photos of my first two stops--Nashville, where I spent time with my Northwestern friend Harriet and her family (cf. BOXES 96-98 for my previous visit to that city), and Tuscaloosa, where my sister was currently living--but I did take a few in New Orleans, to which we took a side trip.
As I recall, our first stop was for coffee and beignets at the Cafe du Monde, after which we walked to the French Quarter:
Here's Ellen sitting at a square nearby:
I took two photos of the St Louis Cathedral, morning and afternoon, as you can tell by the clock:
We stopped at at least one other square, and also visited one of the famous cemeteries:
And we took a streetcar (but not the "Desire" line) to the Garden District:
Returning from New Orleans we stopped at this bayou near Biloxi, MS:
And I see that I took a photo of a house with a fine wrap-around veranda and one of a magnolia tree in bloom--I can only assume they were in Biloxi.
My next stop, after dropping off Ellen in Tuscaloosa, was Milledgeville, GA, 90-some miles southeast of Atlanta. My Northwestern friends Mark and Cynthia Coleman (see BOXES 84-85 and 108-110) were now living there, Mark having a professorship at Georgia
College there. I see that I took one photo of their daughter, Elizabeth, but none of her parents or of the town or college. But I did take quite a few pictures of a farm outside town. This was the home of the celebrated fiction writer Flannery O'Connor. It is now open to the public for tours, but in 1979 it was simply in the custodianship of Georgia College, if I remember correctly; in any case, Mark arranged for me to be shown around the place by the college's librarian, who was in charge of the property. It mostly looked like an ordinary farm, except for the peafowl strolling around the grounds, but it was exciting to me because it called up scenes from her stories.
The peafowl were quite tame, and I was able to get a good number of closeups:
(I've spared you a couple of redundant poses.) Besides a dilapidated house on the property, there was also the main house in good condition (though I didn't go inside), with an expansive back yard that stretched down to a pond.
From the pond there were fine views of the Georgia countryside:
After a few days' stay with the Colemans, I drove northward to Newberry, South Carolina, where I visited yet more former colleagues, Royce and Joy Shaw, who had taught at UW-Sheboygan but were now at Newberry College. Again I took no pictures of the college or the town, but I did go with Royce on an excursion to Charleston one day. We arrived in time for lunch at a seafood place that specialized in she-crab soup (a novelty to me), and then strolled down the main street of the historic district toward the harbor. Along the way were St Michael's Church (the tall spire) and the French Huguenot Church:
Here's another shot of St Michael's from a distance; that's Royce standing on the right:
. . . and another of the French Huguenot Church:
I took several photos of what looked like town houses with verandas:
And here is a glimpse of the harbor:
In my next post I'll report on another side trip we took from Newberry and on a rodeo that had come to town, as well as on the rest of my loop around the South to New York and back to the Midwest.
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