Mr. Write's Page

I’ve thought about writing this post many times, but never followed through. Somehow, the subject seemed a bit too personal, and disheartening. You’ll understand when you read it.

Why address it now? Maybe reading about “Logan’s Law” was the catalyst.

————

Logan’s Law

In his 1997 novel, “The Runaway,” Terry Kay introduced Logan’s Law, which he defined as the law of the way things are.

He named Logan’s Law after the fictional Logan Dolittle, a cruel and corrupt sheriff who enforced the status quo in his county.

Kay’s novel takes place in the South in the 1940s. In that setting, Logan’s Law is used to keep the power structure in control, to maintain order in the community, and to keep the Blacks ruthlessly in their place.

That scenario is more than just a Southern thing. As Kay notes in his introduction, “Logan’s Law is enforced in one form or another by every race and culture on earth.”

Which explains a great deal about the behavior of people in groups. Living by the status quo, and willingly submitting to it, are forces as powerful and certain as the law of gravity.

Typically, average people in average communities defer to the status quo as a way to conform and belong. Exceptions are few. If a child questions why certain things happen, his parents may explain, because that’s the way things are. Things have always been that way.

In one sense, this helps maintain peace and order. In another, it perpetuates prejudice, corruption, and fear.

I’ve never been one to feel responsible for the actions of my forebears. I figure I wasn’t there, and I had no influence on their behavior. Whatever my ancestors did, positive or negative, well, that’s on them.

It’s a good thing I feel that way, being from the South. The history of this region is a mixed bag of highs and lows — one that, frankly, does not average out well.

As far back as I can trace my ancestry, my relatives seem to have been average people of average means. Some were country folks and farmers, others were city dwellers in various trades. If I had a relative of substantial wealth, or, for that matter, a slave owner, I haven’t run across him yet.

And I’ll freely admit that not everyone who populates my family tree was a good guy. I’m related to my share of rascals, villains, and criminals. This is real life, not Mayberry, R.F.D.

Family Money

Consider the black sheep brother of the Jones family from rural Bulloch County, Georgia.

George and Gincy Ann Jones were farm folk, and they raised eight children. My maternal grandmother Leila, born in 1899, was the youngest of the four Jones girls.

George and Gincy Ann sent five of their eight children to college, Leila among them. Two of the four brothers earned law degrees.

According to family lore, one of the lawyer brothers misappropriated a sum of family money and fled to Miami. The police were not contacted, the money was not recovered. The brother was simply disowned.

Bill Horne

Or consider my maternal grandfather, Leila’s first husband, Bill Horne.

Bill was from Macon, and he worked as a dispatcher for the Central of Georgia Railway. In 1920, during his business travels, he met and married Leila. Their daughter Ann was my mom.

Bill’s job with the railroad kept him away from home for months at a time. He worked across the South, sometimes as far away as Texas. Periodically, he would return to Macon for a few days at home.

Bill was a frustrated writer. He wrote fiction in his spare time, but didn’t sell much. He also was a stringer — a free-lancer — for several small newspapers. Mostly, he wrote about sports and the outdoors.

Several times, Leila told me, Bill paddled alone into the Okeefenokee Swamp. He emerged days later with a fresh batch of stories about wildlife, or boating, or solitude.

Mom was still a toddler when Bill walked out on the marriage and left Leila to fend for herself. He moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, and continued writing. If he had any success, we never heard about it.

Bill made no effort to stay in touch with his daughter. Eventually, he remarried. Mom never saw him again.

In 1950, when I was just a kid myself, Bill died of cancer. He was 49.

Mom never knew her father and had no memory of him. It was a regret she carried for the rest of her life.

Leila, being a strong and resourceful person, landed on her feet. She opened a beauty salon in Macon and ran it successfully through the Depression years and into the 1940s. At about the time Bill died, Leila married Frank Byrd and moved to Suwanee, Georgia.

Lucy Horne

Bill Horne turned out to be a cad, but his parents remained loyal to the wife and child he left behind.

Through the years, Lucy and Bill Horne, Sr. stood by their daughter-in-law and were doting grandparents to my Mom.

I never knew Bill Senior. I remember Lucy as a frail, elderly widow living alone in a small house in a modest Macon neighborhood.

She was a kind and gentle lady, but when we went to see her, she was very emotional — always sad and needy, crying easily. To me, it seemed excessive and abnormal.

I never knew why, and I didn’t ask. I just assumed she was lonely, and maybe had endured more troubles than I knew about.

Indeed, trouble had come to Lucy at a young age.

She was born in 1882. As a child, she was involved in a tragic and disturbing incident, surely the low point in my family history.

This is the story related to me years ago, always in a hushed and somber manner.

One hot summer day, when Lucy was four or five years old, she was sitting in the shade in front of her house. As she sat there watching the people go by, a black male — some say a teen, some say a young adult — walked past the house, drinking a bottle of cola.

No one ever knew if he threw the bottle intentionally, or if he simply didn’t see Lucy and casually tossed the bottle away.

The bottle struck Lucy in the temple. She was cut, but not badly.

No matter. Word spread quickly. A group of local men tracked down the man and lynched him.

Whether any of the men were from my family, I don’t know. No one was held accountable. Logan’s Law prevailed.

If you step back and look at our history objectively, the pattern is clear: we move forward haltingly, but we move forward nonetheless.

On the whole, we are moving in the right direction. Human rights, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights — our society is slowly inching along a path toward greater fairness and compassion.

The pace is agonizingly slow. Always, there are fearful people and selfish interests trying to block the path. Sometimes, they succeed.

But, optimist that I am, I believe this is only temporarily.

I look forward to a time when people can explain “the way things are” to their children with pride.

Leila and Bill in happier times.

Lucy and my brother Lee, Macon, 1948.