Bob White Bob White Bob White Bob White Bob White

We grew up on Massalina Drive, in a house with dense woods beside and behind In the 'forties it was that way. All my growing up years, if you were outside at sundown you heard the wildlife chorus tuning up. Most memorable -- well, most memorable were the mosquitoes, but second most memorable were the Bob-Whites and Whip-Poor-Wills in the woods beside and behind us. And at dusk the woods filled with lightening bugs, who soon overflowed into the yard between the house and Massalina Bayou down front, a wink here and a blink there until there were so many you had to run inside and grab a glass jar and make yourself a lightening bug lantern.

That was ages ago. I haven't heard a Bob-White or a Whip-Poor-Will or seen a lightening bug in a thousand years. But here in the woods just off a winding country road in Georgia, a Bob-White braggadociously announces himself on the grounds of this retreat center way out in the middle of nowhere. 

Linda and I have a little cottage across the road from the Old Farm House, and it has a tiny screen house jutting out back toward a field and the edge of the woods. As we had our coffee Sunday morning, a Bob-White called without end. Linda said another Bob-White, which my hearing couldn't pick up, was answering from across the road. This may be the most peaceful place I've been in a thousand years.

A thousand years.

TW