“The night the lights went out in Georgia”
BY STEVEN RAY BOWEN

 

After that night – which was July 27, 1973 – Mama took a turn for the worse.

The next morning, Saturday the 28th, Mama awakened for a while but was not very coherent. She managed to reach out for me to take her hand. I did, and she held onto it for a long time, closed her eyes, and I sat with her, looking outside at the bluejays flying around from tree to tree, and to people driving by, going and coming as always.

It would be an hour before I felt Mama’s grip loosen, but I stayed still with her until Grandma came in and told me she had breakfast ready for me, that I’d better eat, I needed to stay strong.

After that, she went in and out of a coma for the next week. I went ahead and went to work, and that distracted me to some degree.

The crew must’ve had some special power to read people, especially Doocy, because they were as nice to me as I’d ever seen.

If I turned over a wheelbarrow, it was “that ol’ wheelbarrow’s had a bad wheel a long time, Pups.”

If I threw two brick up at a time up to the scaffold, as we did, and they fell short and tumbled and almost hit somebody, it was “T’Breeze should’ve leaned down Pups ‘n caught thet, yuh put ‘em right in Doocy’s pocket.”

And if I wandered off to the back side of the house to pick up culls and moved in slow motion, it was “sho is good for t’Pup t’see whut needs t’be done whiles t’rest of us jus’ stands lookin’ at it, yessir, t’Pups is on the ball, thet’s one thang for sho.”

We were gathering around for lunch on Monday when “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” came on the radio.

It had played all summer, but that day it just hit me badly. Just when I thought I was holding it together, the emotions welled up uninvited, and I had to find a place to go hide.

But I was safe. Doocy made sure of that.

A couple of weeks earlier when Corrina and I were out on the town, that song came on the radio, and we talked about it a good while. I had heard the history of it back in the beginning of the summer, so I had some background that Corrina was used to hearing by then.

“That song was Vicki Lawrence’s first hit, I think” I said, “and it jus’ came out a few months ago and skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard’s Top 100 songs of ’72 and stayed number one for at least two weeks.”

“It’s pretty tragic, isn’t it, Pup?” Corrina said after we listened to the song through.

“Oh my,” I said, “it’s one of those classic Southern tragedies.”

With each of us catching different details when we listened, we talked on about “the boy Andy” in the song, who was from a fictitious town called “Candletop.”

Andy comes home one night and learns that “that Amos boy Seth” had been with his young bride. Andy runs home to get a gun to go get his revenge, but when he gets there, he finds the Amos boy lying in a pool of blood. He sees a Georgia Patrol driving by and shoots a shot in the air to alert them to the killing, but the “big-bellied sheriff” jumps out of his patrol car and says, “Boy, why’d you do it?”

“That’s terrible,” Corrina said.

I couldn’t help but think it seemed a little too tragic for her to listen to, but she was tougher than what I sometimes gave her credit for.

“Pup, did I get it right,” she added, “that it was actually Andy’s sister who got to the house first and killed the boy?”

“Yes, that was awful, wasn’t it?” I said, “and then she must’ve gone and killed the wife, too. At the end the girl narrator says that the wife’s body was one that’d never be found.”

I thought about it, then added, “I guess we know now, Corrina, that tragedies are real, don’t we?”

She nodded.

But we didn’t stay with those thoughts long. One thing we did that summer – we dealt with reality when we had to, but we didn’t stay there.

I remember telling Corrina, “You know, when I met you, the lights went out in Georgia that night, too.”

“No!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes, the very minute I met you the lights jus’ went out like ya’ll’s porch light whenever I drive away in our red Nova.”

“You’d better explain yourself, buddy, or you’re going to be in big trouble.”

“I don’t know if I can explain it, Miss Belle, it’s all a blur. I jus’ remember that when I first saw you, all I could see were stars, nothin’ else, jus’ stars all across the black sky.”

“So the lights went out then,” she said.

“Absolutely. All through the state of Georgia.”

“But we were at our house in Alabama, we weren’t in Georgia when you met me.”

“See,” I said, “that’s how bad it was. The lights went out in Georgia and Alabama both.”

All she could do was shake her head and laugh. But I didn’t fail to notice that afterward she scooted closer to me, seeming very relaxed.


“The night the lights went out in Georgia” continues next week.


Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.