DARIEN – There’s nothing like an early morning breakfast—even if it is your own kitchen—but when you are on the road it just seems more fulfilling, especially if there is something extraordinary about the landscape and the environment.
When I walked into Kathleen Russell’s kitchen here recently, I could smell the bacon frying and was greeted by her other guest, Kenny Palmer. He is her long-time neighbor and friend—a very good person about whom the Beatitudes could have been written. For sure he is a Good Samaritan, always extending a helping hand. He has been enriched by some worldliness but is now happily entrapped by the vicissitudes of home.
A little explaining is in order. He left the Old South of the seventies, when opportunity was still limited for African Americans, and struck out for New York, settling in Harlem. He found work at an hourly rate that would have been unheard of in McIntosh County. He prospered but learned that by the time he paid the rent and utilities, there wasn’t a lot left for groceries and other necessities. He could go anywhere he wanted and do whatever he wanted; there were no barriers. But sometimes the cost of a meal at the end of the month could be overwhelming.
He enjoyed the atmosphere of “the City,” but his real home was the Georgia coast from which he was bred. Through it all, he learned that for most of us, making do is a requirement to get through life and realized he could make do much better where he grew up than his well-known adopted address.
Initially, he had to persuade his New York–born wife, Sharon, to join him as he returned to his native state. She didn’t see the sun come up over the marsh every day in Manhattan. She never saw Kenny pull a three-pound trout out of the water, fillet it, and give it the rare tender-loving care on the grill to create as fine a meal there is. Something that would have brought about a tab of $150.00 or more in New York costs virtually nothing when it is done the Kenny Palmer way.
Fried eggs, grits, and bacon á-la-Kathleen Russell is not only as good as it gets, it is bountifully enhanced by the sun coming up over the marsh. A cloudless sky at sunrise with birds singing, seagulls floating aimlessly in the wind, and trout becoming temporarily airborne down by the docks makes you regret that you aren’t an artist.
Such scenes bring about humility, which made it fitting that Kathleen conducted a soft-spoken and introspective devotional. However, this does not mean that she gives up her right to invoke her boatswain-mate vocabulary if someone challenges her about an issue in these parts.
She knows well the history of U.S. Highway 17’s clip joints and the illicit shenanigans of a tyrant sheriff of yesteryear. Kathleen’s daddy, Charles Williamson, spoke out against the crooked sheriff and a judge of similar ilk.
What happened next? They burned his newspaper, printing press, and the rest of his business to the ground. Then Dink NeSmith, who owned the Jesup Sentinel, 40 miles up the road, printed the Darien News until the family could get back on its feet.
As we are enjoying breakfast and the spectacular view of the marsh, I couldn’t help but think about the hue and cry from various corners about the meddling media. It really starts at the local level. Small communities need editors who are willing to stand up to wrongdoing by public officials and sheriffs who are bullies instead of upstanding citizens.
Billionaires buying major media outlets is not healthy for our society. How can a Jeff Bezos, latent owner of the Washington Post, underscore editorial independence when his career has been to increase the bottom line in all the businesses he has owned?
And right here in McIntosh County, this area got its respect back because Kathleen’s family was willing to take on a crooked sheriff and a crooked judge.
However, she would rather enjoy promoting the local news about weddings, 4-H clubs, blessings of the fleet, and enjoy weekly breakfasts, accented by devotionals, with a family friend who goes about his daily life, doing good for his fellow man.
This parting shot of Kenny Palmer. There was a young, local kid who needed some mentoring. Kenny picked him up from school, took him home, and provided leadership and counseling. The kid is white.
When some of his black friends asked why, Kenny said, “It doesn’t matter. When a kid needs help, we should respond.”
Here in this county where corruption was once as thick as the marsh, there are some good things taking place when everyday Americans are Great Americans.