Sapelo Island: Part 4

We were on Sapelo when Michael Jackson died. In fact, we were in the cemetery when we heard the news. Cryptic, maybe. Sad, definitely.

My mom was big on Michael Jackson when I was a kid. She always listened to MJ in the car and I happened to be at the age when music starts to affect you. The Jackson 5 kind of shaped me, as did The Beatles, their White Album and a dark-haired boy named Rocky Raccoon. I listened from the backseat of my parent's Honda and didn't let a seatbelt stop my groove. Chubby kids get down.

On Sapelo, we belted out lyrics to "ABC" while riding in the old school bus from the cemetery to the beach. The volume was up and the moment brought me back to my childhood. We were kids again, singing "Easy as 1-2-3!" while the real children on the bus looked at us dubiously. They didn't know the Michael Jackson that we did, and they didn't know that adults could sing and dance like we do, which is awfully scary at best, but nonetheless feels damn good when you get into it.

I didn't mean to eulogize MJ in this entry, it just sort of happened that way. I looked back at my photos from the cemetery and, well, it happened. That morning, we took up rakes, sickles and pitchforks and did our best to clear some brush from the hallowed grounds. High school students in Georgia are required to complete so many hours of community service in order to graduate, and their time and efforts in the cemetery would gain them a few of those hours. Plus, the manual labor would be a kind gesture to pay to our gracious hosts, the Saltwater Geechee of Hog Hammock.

Learning from my unfortunate voice recording incident the night before, I asked Mr. Reginald for permission before taking pictures in the cemetery. He asked that I not focus my camera on the names on the headstones out of respect for the families whose loved ones had passed.

As I walked up and down the winding path past hand-made headstones and under the shade of Spanish moss, I felt the haunt of the deceased and the hurt of the families who, at one time, returned their loved ones to the earth.

Hand-chiseled names on the headstones dated all the way back to the 1700's.

All headstones face east. The deceased were buried in this direction so their spirits could wake to the rising sun.

We cleared a fair amount of brush and fallen limbs from the fence line that day.

Uyinda and Raven.

The Gorem brothers, Glendarius and Marquez.

Chase.

I had to take this picture. Look closely and you can see that Mr. Sam Grovner was born on Independence Day, July 4th, 1852. That's 76 years after the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies free from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain. Mr. Grovner, however, was not a free citizen of this newly formed country; he was most certainly born into slavery.

And this is the shot that made me think of MJ. It's the only one from the bus ride to the beach that isn't too blurry. Pictured is Hakeem, singing or laughing or both.