The Sun is Going Down on Gough, Georgia (Part 2)

Elegy for a Small Town

My mother’s life was forever altered by her father’s surprising decision to leave the city and begin life as a mechanic in a new town, a town both created and virtually abandoned all within a single lifetime. I have often wondered why my grandfather, Calvin Sego, a child of the city-a city in which his family had lived for almost one hundred years-simply up and left for the country. He left behind the streets that were his haunts as a boy and young man-the city where he and his tribe of neighborhood boys raced their bicycles to hang onto street cars, followed the great fire that incinerated Augusta’s downtown and ultimately delivered mail on his bike to the troops waiting to be mustered out at the end of World War I.

Born Calvin Leon Sego (1901-1979), my grandfather grew up on Augusta’s Greene Street in a house that stood where the bus station is now located. He attended the Catholic Boys Training Program at the Catholic Cathedral in Augusta—although his mother was Lutheran. He came away versed in gasoline engines and mechanical work. He worked as a mail delivery boy during World War I and then at the Baker Electric Car dealership.  

Calvin’s job was helping replace electric motors with more powerful gasoline engines. This was done so the wealthy who owned summer homes on Summer Hill, overlooking Augusta, could more easily retreat up the hill in warm weather. Summer Hill’s higher elevation made it cooler (and less humid). And, it  was well way from the textile mills and stench of the mill town that arched above the city’s downtown-as well as the growing Black ghetto below the city. And, it was also away from the annoying gnats, the swarming little flies, that had southerners -then as now-constantly waving their hands, fans and handkerchiefs across their faces to “shoo” them away. It was thought by some northern visitors that the southerners they encountered were very friendly and were constantly waving.

Augusta was a dynamic place in the World War I era. The cotton mills were humming, automobiles were everywhere and the city boasted several first- class hotels, including the Bon Aire. Along with Aiken, across the river, Augusta was a resort destination, especially for those eager to play the newly popular game of golf.  President William Howard Taft’s visit to the Augusta golf course had put it on the map.

Why Calvin moved to Gough may never be told. But at nineteen, he took the train to visit relatives there. He met my grandmother, Carrie Wright (1901-1996).  They were married. Carrie was the daughter of widow and seamstress, Mrs. Daniel B. (Arminta “Mintie” Barrow) Wright (1874-1971) and Daniel B. Wright, both of Jefferson County. Her story is elsewhere on this site, entitled “Arminta’s Quilt.” “Mr. Wright,” as Mintie called him, was much older and died in 1920, leaving Mintie to raise a large family.

Calvin bought the blacksmith shop from the retiring blacksmith and turned it into a car and tractor repair shop. He built a “gas station” alongside his shop beside the Waynesboro Road.  He also sold Goodyear tires and fan belts. Calvin’s arrival was a timely one. He was a trained mechanic just as farming came to rely on tractors. The first tractors were introduced into the area in the early 1920s and Pop made these his specialty.

As a child in the late forties and fifties, I spent many a day in his shop, watching him take apart engines, weld broken cultivators and repair threshing machines. It was a magical place filled with tools and haunted by the ghost of a 1926 Buick sedan which had been converted into a wrecker. It had an oak frame and wooden spoke wheels. It was blue, I recall, and a crane protruded from the hole left by removing the rear window. The elegant old sedan had been reduced to wrecker service.

Before there was electricity or telephone service, Pop used homing pigeons to order parts from the Augusta supply houses which sometimes were shipped to him by train the same day. I realize this story tests my credibility. But, remember that during World War I communication by passenger pigeons was widely used, and in fact a famous pigeon that figured in the “Lost Battalion” story was stuffed and put on display in the Smithsonian Institution—where it still resides today.

Through all the long economic downturn of the 1920s and 1930s, “Pop” Sego operated a successful business suggesting that he was honest, capable and reliable. Indeed, he was all these things in his personal life as well.  A deacon in the Gough Baptist Church and for a time President of the Lions Club, he studied the Bible and the newspapers from Waynesboro and Augusta. In my entire life I never heard him mention politics or religion. Nor did he ever use an off- color expletive around me. Nor did a racist comment ever cross his lips, though he lived in a sea of black tenant farmers whose poverty and political oppression would become the grist for author Erskine Caldwell who had grown up nearby in Wrens.  During the work week (including most Saturdays) Pop was always dressed in coveralls. But on Sundays when we went to church he wore a blue serge suit and tie. He insisted I always reply “Yes Sir” and “No sir” to his older customers-Black or white. Given the social constructs of the place and era in which he lived, it would be misleading to say my grandfather was without racial prejudice. But it is to his credit, I believe, that he never inflicted it on me or sought to perpetuate it through me.

When I spent the day at his shop, we had a routine. Midway through the afternoon Pop would surreptitiously place two dimes or a quarter on the huge table where batteries were being charged. I could retrieve the money, but only if willing to risk a mild electric shock. It could be thrilling to say the least, grabbing the enticing coins, yet certain I would be shocked. With coins in hand, I would head over to Planter’s Store for a candy bar or an ice cream sandwich. Candy bars had to be broken in half and examined for worms or weevils. There was no air conditioning and stock could sit on the shelf for months in the heat. Buyer beware!

Carrie (“Mama”) Sego was a stay- at- home wife who sewed most of her own and her children’s clothes. On overnight visits she would always set aside time for Old Maids or Parcheesi. And we would study the Sears Roebuck catalog together in anticipation of Christmas. Mama knew how to drive but never drove. On her maiden drive she nearly ran over a boy who darted into the road. She was so shaken she would never again operate a car. She was shy and always covered her mouth when she smiled or laughed. She was nearly a foot taller than my grandfather who was only four feet, ten inches tall.

Almost forty years after his death, Pop is regarded as a great man by family members. He was always kind and always patient with me. One of my fondest memories is spending several hours with him in the hospital just before his death in 1979. He told me of his boyhood adventures growing up in Augusta, memories that included the great fire that destroyed much of the central city. I have recorded his memories in a poem which I will post later.

Pop was very keen on applied technology.  He built a windmill and water tower in his backyard and installed running water. He used the windmill to charge batteries providing electric lighting in his home in the years before rural electrification reached Gough in the 1930s. If you stop and think about it, most homes today rely on a gravity- fed water supply. I can see just such a water tank out my living room window, emblazoned with the words “Pickens County.” Small towns of a certain age are regarded derisively as “tank” towns, because their original water tower can still be seen towering above the town remnants.

 Pop Sego built his own heavy- duty mower to keep up the lot next to the Sego home. The area round the house- the “yard”- was not allowed to become a “lawn.” It was always carefully swept using a “brush broom”, small limbs bound together with rags, to keep out grass and weeds, as well as keep possible fire away from the house.

Snakes were also a common problem, so it was good to keep bare ground around your home. A snake could be easily seen on the clean-swept ground.  Six- foot- long rattlesnakes often could be seen crossing the roads where they became immediate targets for drivers, and it seemed every citizen’s duty to kill every rattlesnake that showed itself. Rat snakes and corn snakes were tolerated because they ate rats. Red tail hawks were not tolerated because they ate chickens. Farmers often carried shotguns on board their tractors and fired at hawks and snakes.

Plowing with a tractor in those days meant riding exposed to the elements—and to yellow jackets. If a plow broke open a yellow jacket nest (located underground) the insects would emerge by the dozens or hundreds, stinging the driver. And, causing a great deal of pain, creating a distraction that could lead to an overturned tractor, occasionally resulting in injury or even death to the driver. Most farmers I have asked about this say the insects “get mad” because of the heat and noise made by the tractor’s engine. Plowing on a cool morning before the yellow jackets left their nests was something to be avoided if possible. Today of course, many farmers operate from enclosed cockpits that are air conditioned. I am told larger fields can now be plowed by remote or computer-directed control. 

Calvin was one of the first in Gough to purchase a radio (around 1921) and I remember playing with it as a child. It had two huge vacuum tubes that protruded from a wooden box and a brass dial set on top that provided the means of changing the frequencies that could be received. Radio technology progressed quickly in the twenties and was the main source of news and entertainment for rural as well as urban dwellers well into the 1950’s.

In my boyhood days, there was a beautiful, green,plastic-encased “Philco” radio in Mama’s and Pop’s kitchen. When I stayed with them, we listen to our favorite programs in the evenings. Friday evenings, we were glued to the Philco listening to the so-called “gangster” programs (“The Green Hornet,” “Mr. and Mrs. North”, “The Shadow,” “The FBI” and “Gangbusters”). Each show had its own musical theme and even today, when someone mentions the FBI, I can hear the theme playing and  recall the chant used by their sponsor (“Lava” hand soap) spelling out “L-A-V-A ” in cadence with the music. The Saturday night programs were devoted mostly to comedy. Everyone’s favorites were “Amos and Andy” and “The Jack Benny Show.” Sunday nights were for drama, for a kid boring stuff like “Lux Theater”. Today, I wonder if Mama and Pop listened to President Roosevelt’s “fireside talks” and wartime addresses on the Philco.

There were things to see and do in Gough despite its size. I was free to roam with my Daisy “Red Ryder” air rifle. Songbirds were off limits and crows were a challenge-they were big and wary. When I was very small, my grandmother would take me out to feed the chickens and allow me to help. She always carried a broom in case the old rooster decided to attack us when we came into his compound. I have seen her administer what I would call a “home run” swing to these birds in mid- air.  Several of them ended up in the frying pan.

Just across the side road from Calvin and Carrie’s home was a huge cotton field. Making my rounds with my air rifle, I was sometimes showered with DDT poison from low- flying, crop- dusting airplanes-typically “Stearman” double-winged aircraft that had served as trainers during World War II. The use of DDT would eventually be banned, after Rachael Carson’s famous book, Silent Spring came out. I recall reading in the newspaper that annouther scientist followed Dr. Carson around on the lecture circuit saying that DDT was not harmful to humans. He would eat a spoon full of the powder after every speech.  If DDT shortened my life, I am not yet aware of it. You can imagine this was very exciting for a small boy, immune as small boys believe themselves to be from danger, cavorting in a cotton field as a crop duster passed over at very low altitude, the pilot tipping his wings in a salute as a stream of white powder -a precursor to jet streams-flowed behind.

One scene of Gough life is indelibly recorded in my memory. When I was about five or so, my father and I arrived in Gough from Augusta where we were then living. We were in the red Jeep my father bought when he returned from service in the Army during World War II. It was very early in the morning as we pulled into the rear of Calvin Sego’s garage. This also was the rear of Planters Store. Located here was a large circular concrete “trough” for watering mules and horses-perhaps the “artesian well” promised by the town founders. In the center island was a hand-operated water pump, as might be found on any farm at the time. Surrounding the watering trough were half a dozen mule-drawn wagons pulled up close to allow the animals to drink. Perhaps a dozen Black men stood and squatted about, talking as their mules drank. I was a small boy and was very much impressed by this scene. It remains a metaphor in my mind of the plight of poor Black farmers, as well as the death throes of a way of life.

In retrospect, Saturday was the only time such a trip to town was likely-the wives and children of these men might have been inside Planter’s Store buying corn meal, fatback and lard-the essentials of farm family cooking:  corn meal from which fried cornbread was made, with its delicate and crispy lace edges ; lard for frying fish, red meat, and potatoes; fatback for flavoring collards and beans.  I grew up eating these same foods, foods which we  are today no longer advised to eat. As with DDT, I m not yet aware that it has shortened my life. Yet.

When I reflect on this, I realize that as late as the late 1940s there were still many rural Blacks relying on mule-drawn wagons for their trips to town on Saturday—indeed, I witnessed a similar scene in Louisville about 1954, where mules and wagons were still occasionally seen on the streets on Saturdays.

At that time, our family was staying in a boarding house in Louisville where my father was supervising the construction of the telephone company office-in a neighboring town-Thompson, perhaps. The “Guest Home” was Mrs. Brewton’s Boarding House, situated in a beautiful classical revival family home, likely built with wartime cotton profits and styled in imitation of antebellum grandeur. I remember regularly prepared sit-down dinners served in the dining room.

Recently, someone attending one of my lectures heard me mention “Mrs. Brewton’s Boarding House” which had disappeared by the time I visited Louisville as an adult. In its place lay a parking lot for a new grocery store. My listener came to attention and interjected that the house not torn down, but moved out of town and has been restored. Almost every small town located along the railroad tracks could once boast of at least one such “guest home” or boarding house where travelers, especially the ubiquitous traveling salesmen, might stay. Gough apparently never had a hotel or “guest home.” Salesmen likely would have found little reason to stay over in Gough.

Let’s call this the first draft and first chapter of an oral history of Gough. Help me by adding your own stories or those passed down by family and friends. Waynesboro, Vidette, St. Clair, Wrens and Louisville are near Gough and of course the people in those towns would likely have had social, church or school friends from Gough. In many ways this is about Georgia’s heartland, cotton country, an original county, scene of Revolutionary and Civil War action, heart and soul of generations to come. I am undertaking this to honor my mother, Mamie Sego Kitchens (1921-2012), Miss Burke County of 1938.

Note: Stories told to me by my mother, Mamie Sego Kitchens, inspires much of the poetry I write. It deals with the violence, racism and tragedy of the decades between the World Wars for the most part. As my poetry is published elsewhere, I will add it to the website. It is not a good idea to post unpublished poetry (or any literary effort for that matter) on the internet, since most publishers and literary contests often will not accept poetry or stories that have already appeared online