Response 4: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

In Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Janisse Ray tells not only her story, but stories of her ancestors as well. She intertwines all of these stories with stories of the land her people lived on for generations. Ray’s book is much more a memoir than Gift’s or Abbey’s, and it charts a coherent narrative moving from childhood to adulthood, even reaching back before she was born. Gift includes some stories of her childhood as well, but her book is firmly grounded in the present and her collection of stories couldn’t be described as a memoir. Much of Ray’s book is written from a childlike perspective, and much is an imagined retelling of events or phenomena she didn’t personally witness. Abbey’s and Gift’s books are very much in adult voices, expressing adult thoughts and emotional states. Although Ray spends a good deal of time meditating on the landscape, it is not nearly to the extent that Abbey does. So much of Abbey’s book is lyrical description of his land and surroundings, and like Gift he is rooted in the present. All of the authors share an extensive vocabulary for species that surround them, and an informed knowledge of the landscape. The authors also share a sense of activism, advocating for their beliefs about human impact on the land and how it might be lessened or transformed.

Ray connects her own narrative to that of the land in so many ways. One of her strategies is to recount memories from childhood that show her out in the landscape, whether facing into the wind in her favorite pine tree or floating in the pond or digging for earthworms. She introduces us to the landscape she loves through the wondering eyes of a child, and in so doing advocates for the land in a way that an adult’s polemic can’t. She alternates chapters between those recounting her personal history and those recounting the history of the land, and she imagines it all from a first-hand perspective, as if she inhabited the singing pine forests hundreds of years ago or roamed the woods with Grandpa Charlie. Her strategies for talking about the land and her family echo each other, and both narratives become tied together as part of Ray’s mythical history.

This book challenged my preconceptions about how writers can engage with the natural world, and with their own history, in a work of nonfiction. I never would have thought to describe the evolution of the pine forest through voicing the longleaf pines and the lightning in the way that she did. And I would have hesitated to tell unseen stories from my family’s past, fearing readers would find it hard to trust my voice. I still think these methods should be undertaken with thought and care, but Ray makes it work within the context of her book. This book also challenged my ideas about junkyards. Popular culture perpetuates an image of a junkyard owner as a person who shoots rats for sport, and it’s not that I believed that, it’s just that I didn’t have an alternative to it. If I’m being honest with myself I hadn’t really thought about that image or evaluated it. I’ve never been to a junkyard but now I understand its utility, and it makes sense to me that the owner of a junkyard would be a person who loves to salvage and repair things. (Not to say that all junkyard owners are necessarily like Ray’s father.) I now understand that junkyards, at least in theory, are more like Construction Junction than a garbage dump.

If I were writing about my childhood in relationship to nature, my approach might differ from Ray’s in the sense that I don’t think I would tie my own personal narrative to ideas about conservation. If my depiction of my childhood evoked in the reader an enhanced appreciation of nature, or a contemplation of their own personal connection to nature, then that would make me happy. But it wouldn’t be my explicit intent.

I’ve been a city girl almost all my life, but so many of my childhood memories are attached to the natural world. I could write a whole essay or perhaps more about the magnolia tree in the front yard at my parent’s house: climbing it with my little brother and hanging upside-down from its branches; pink petals over everything announcing the arrival of spring; the mystery of its bark and the sticky strangeness of its red seeds; the time in middle school when a boy I liked cruelly tore down one of its larger branches; the terrible feeling inside as he laid it broken on his shoulder and dragged it down the street, its lovely crown of leaves trailing behind him on the pavement. We took it down to the hill at the end of the street and tossed it in with some weeds and undergrowth. Not even a proper burial. My brother cried disbelieving tears when I told him and if he blamed me he was right to. I should have been able to stop it. The image that stays with me most is the leaves dragging against the street, their papery sound, the way the sun and wind played in them as if nothing had changed.