the big oak tree

Rumor has it a big tall oak tree grows on the corner behind the post office in downtown Thomasville.

The week has been a long one, and yet I feel like I have just arrived here in this small, quaint town in southern Georgia.  All my patients cater to deep southern accents and request to see the therapist only once a week due to rising gas costs.  May we please fix the appointment to match with their weekly trip to the grocery store? We smile and nod and do so, for this is the way of life here.  My patients are friendly and not a scowl crosses their face, my co-workers tell wonderful stories at lunch and utter “bless her heart” after each name. Their spirits are larger than what can fit in a room, and their hearts burst with care.  I have discovered I should have been born a southern girl.

As I have found out, I drive only 2 miles to work, and downtown is 4 blocks on way and the hospital another 4 blocks the other way.  Walmart lies maybe 2.5 miles away and there is no Target here in this town.  Dinner treated my roommate and I too the most amazing handmade pizza I have ever had.  Delicious and made with so much personality I am still stuffed.  After dinner, we discovered by asking our local coffee shop server, that downtown closes around 4pm on Friday’s and doesnt open again until Saturday, and just for the day.  To grow up in Thomasville is to be used to the quiet.

The movie theatre’s floors crunch with stale popcorn, and the security man doubles as a ticket-taker.  Teens mill around the outside until the movies just begun.  Life here is simple, plain and quiet.  Life here is friendly, smalltown and personal.

We found the Big Oak tonight.  Winding branches reach out across the street.  A small sign sits in front of it, boasting of its 327 years of growth.  Chains twist amongst the leaves in effort to hold up the past into the present.  To look up into the tree is to look through time and into peace.  The tree’s trunk is 10 men thick and beats with the heart of a small, quaint town in southern Georgia, where downtown has always closed at 4pm Fridays.

~ by greaterthings on June 21, 2008.