{"id":6,"date":"2005-10-24T14:56:49","date_gmt":"2005-10-24T14:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/?p=6"},"modified":"2006-05-02T12:10:17","modified_gmt":"2006-05-02T12:10:17","slug":"where-the-ground-wont-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/24\/where-the-ground-wont-move\/","title":{"rendered":"where the ground wont move"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s taken me hella long to get this thing sorted. Five weeks of serious writing before I even knew what I was going to write about. Then I read one of those books you only read as a matter of course in high school or because you’ve joined Oprah’s Book Club and in a sudden burst are feeling all intellectual. Or because you’ve found it in a 99p bargain basement bin at Waterstone’s with only a fiver in your pocket (3.95 going toward a venti strawberry Frappuccino at a down-the-street Starbucks).<\/p>\n

“As I Lay Dying.”<\/p>\n

Read it when I was 15. My sophomore English teacher..what was her name….the little squat lady who wore her hair in a grey bun and thought she was a Chippewa because she made turquoise jewellery….she said I’d enjoy it. I didn’t.<\/p>\n

If I wanted to spend time with ole Cash and Vardaman (ain’t that a name…I’ll see your Vardaman and raise you a Nannie-Bell) while they were readying for Addie’s burial, I’d just head on back to Grapevine Mountain and watch Pa dress a grave for his ‘too-cheap-to-buy-their-momma-a-decent-coffin’ second cousins to lay her in.<\/p>\n

I thought about the same grave and the same cousins when I picked up the book two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Pa doesn’t build coffins. Not anymore. But he builds the graves to put them in. He does it because no one else will, and because people deserve to be laid to a real rest…in a family cemetery….where family do it all. Pa’s been doing it since he was twelve.<\/p>\n

\"Pa<\/center><\/a><\/p>\n

Last spring he buried his brother. It took five men to put the dirt back. After the coffin went in. Ten hands to do what Pa did with two.<\/p>\n

He’ll be 69 on Saturday. He use to be a coal miner.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Faulkner this time. His southernness.<\/p>\n

I know Anse. I know Cash. I know Addie. I know people having to be buried where the ground won’t move.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it moves in the mountains.<\/p>\n

Pa and a coffin.<\/p>\n

I’ve got my story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s taken me hella long to get this thing sorted. Five weeks of serious writing before I even knew what I was going to write about. Then I read one of those books you only read as a matter of course in high school or because you’ve joined Oprah’s Book Club and in a sudden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hum-drum","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}