Chicken Fat: a Mountain Front Porch Social

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C.W. Conner in his tux-tshirt.

We went to a social gathering Wednesday. .

C.W. Conner gave the middle-day social at his reclusive hadaway near Burnt Mountain near Ellijay. I would call it a Middle-Day Tea, but there was no tea. It was just come, hang out on C.W.'s front porch and talk. Talk about old things we remember and try to think of things we couldn't remember - that part was almost like "21 Questions". We did not have tea but we had beer and wine instead. It was a relaxing day.

C.W. owns about 26 acres near the foot of a mountain, but you cannot see fifty feet beyond the house he built because to dense trees and foliage. However, at a distance you can hear a donkey and some cattle make their sad sorrowful sounds.

C.W.'s little gravel road leading to the paved road is probably near a mile long. If you hear a car coming you know company is coming, his house is the only one there.

Do you remember the 1940s and 50s, the North Georgia mountaineers had a reputation of making moon shine and bootlegging. Times have changed, Whiskey is legal now. However, in some places the spirit is still there. Now, it is drugs, not being hauled by souped up cars but in airplanes. C.W.'s neighbor was expecting a shipment and the airplane pilot or crew mistakenly dropped it on the wrong property and the wrong person at the sheriff's department received the call. I say wrong person, because some of them were paid off to look the other way. The bag of drugs that fell from the sky was traced to C.W.'s neighbor and he ended up going to prison. When he got out he went in the chicken business. He now has six very long buildings that houses chickens. W.C. said his neighbor is a good friend and every once in a while they would go to town and have lunch. The chicken-man either lives with his mother or his mother lives with him. Either way, the mother bakes cakes and pies and puts in W.C.'s mailbox from time to time, their mailboxes are next to each other on the highway.

Next to the neighbor's chicken houses up on a hill is a trailer which we almost went to by mistake. W.C. said the man who lived there once bought a computer and printer and started printing money. He was caught and went to prison. W.C. said he is a great person, and he would do anything for anybody, even give you the shirt off his back. I was thinking about dropping by and visit him and ask for a couple of $20 bills to eat dinner on the way back to Marietta.

One lady there named Pat knew me well, but I didn't remember her. She was married to the late George Hobby. She brought up things about our neighbors and immediate kin that I had either forgot about or never knew..

Another lady, also named Pat, was a co-worker with Anna at the Air Force Contracts section at Lockheed; they are both retired DOD employees.

It is a small world.

C.W. Conner is a self taught artist. He made a name for himself in the folk-art world. He has rivaled the late fellow north Georgian artist Howard Finster. He is very good and some of the stuff he puts into his art is symbolic and metaphoric . Also some things he puts into his art does not mean anything to anybody but him.

An enjoyable day.