Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

One day, Ray discovers that the fruit-seller has taken a large gopher tortoise as his pet. The fruit-seller has spray-painted the tortoise’s shell, which is now giving the tortoise breathing problems. Ray implores the fruit-seller to let her bring the tortoise back to the woods and find a proper home for him, as the tortoise is an endangered species, but the fruit-seller refuses. Ray decides to call Daddy, a friend of the fruit-seller, who convinces him to let Ray take the tortoise.

Gopher tortoises like the one the fruit-seller took are an integral part of the longleaf pine forest ecosystem. Ray describes the tortoise as being similar to a keystone in an arch, as “the tortoise is central in holding the ecosystem together” (170). The tortoises live in deep underground burrows, which are used by numerous other species as shelter during periodic fires. As the forests have been logged and replaced by replanted pine plantations, these fires have ceased occurring. The lack of fires causes “dense understory vegetation” (172) to take over the forest floor and replace the tortoise’s usual plant food sources

Growing up, Ray would visit her maternal grandmother, Beulah, on her farm, where she lived with her husband Arthur for nearly her entire life. Though Ray remembers Beulah as being “easygoing and accepting,” she also describes how Beulah frequently fought with her father over his strict religious rules. On their visits, Beulah cooks elaborate meals for Ray and her siblings. Inspired by Beulah, Ray tries to learn how to bake. However, on her attempts at baking, Ray frequently gets distracted and ends up completely burning the cookies. In spite of her lack of cooking skills, Ray asks Grandma for her recipes, hoping to one day cook them for her husband. Though Ray is forbidden from watching television at home, Beulah lets her grandchildren watch television at night during their visits. However, the children are always careful to turn off the television before their father picks them up, and Beulah never tells Daddy that she lets them watch TV. Though Ray is grateful for Beulah’s secrecy, her willingness to lie to Daddy leads Ray to “[wonder] how many other secrets she kept, and why” (186). 

Ray describes the indigo snake, an animal whose habitat tends to be the longleaf pine forest. One day, Ray comes across a wild indigo snake while driving along the highway with a naturalist friend of hers, Milton. Finding the snakes in the wild is incredibly rare as the snakes are “so docile that they’ve been overcollected for pets” (188). Despite the snake’s tranquil nature, Ray is careful not to frighten the snake and cause it to “inflict a nasty bite” (188). The indigo snake often uses the burrows of gopher tortoises as its home. As such, the snake’s livelihood is threatened by the ongoing logging and “destruction of gopher tortoise habitat[s]” (188). 

This chapter forms a portrait of Ray’s mother, Mama—a woman Ray views as akin to a saint: “angelic, simple, kind” (196). Mama first meets Ray’s father while attending a business school in Baxley, and the two quickly fall deeply in love. Though Daddy hopes to marry Mama, Mama’s parents do not approve of the relationship. The two make plans to elope and get married by the local preacher while the rest of Mama’s family is working the farm. According to Ray, Mama and Daddy have a “good marriage” as the two remain deeply in love and are practically inseparable from each other. Ray sees the strength of their love as being symbolized in two gifts each gave to the other: a knife from Daddy that says, “if the going gets tough, baby, cut your way out,” and a quilt from Mama that reads, “I love you, Franklin” (196).

Mama devotes her life to caring for the children and the household, spending countless hours cooking and cleaning. Mama also takes charge of looking over the household and the junkyard during the periods when Daddy is suffering from mental illness. Ray notes that her Mama toiled away “without complaint” (199). However, Ray and her siblings’ reluctance to help out with the household chores would occasionally so infuriate Mama that she “broke down and cried” (203). Ray describes how she often refused to assist Mama due to her own bourgeoning feminism, questioning why she had to do household chores while the boys weren’t expected to. Though Ray admires her Mama’s tenacity and strength, she also disapproves of her mother for having “given up too much—her own opinions, even—to marry a strong man and be his helpmate […]” (203).

This short chapter describes Bachman’s sparrow, an endangered bird native to the longleaf pine forests and threatened by the forest’s continuing destruction. John James Audubon discovered the sparrow and named it after John Bachman, a preacher friend. Ray writes an imaginary letter addressed to Bachman from Audubon, who describes his fear for the sparrow’s livelihood after noticing “increased sightings of them here in the ethereal longleaf pine groves of our Lord” (206). In the letter, Audubon invites Bachman to join him in Heaven’s longleaf pine forests to see the sparrows.

Though Daddy encourages Ray’s education in a wide array of topics, he never teaches her about the rich diversity of wildlife and plants that exist in Baxley’s local landscape. Ray’s interest in becoming a naturalist, however, is spurred by her school science teacher, Mrs. Lucia Godfrey. Mrs. Godfrey first meets Ray during recess, comforting her after a group of schoolboys refuse to let Ray play football with them. To cheer Ray up, Mrs. Godfrey begins telling her about the pine trees and other plants that surround the school yard. Ray is struck by Mrs. Godfrey’s kindness and her willingness to speak to Ray without judging her, treating Ray as if she was just like the other schoolkids. The spontaneous lesson leads to Ray developing a lifelong passion for plants and the environment. Ray frequently ventures into the woods by the junkyard to seek out interesting plants to bring to Mrs. Godfrey. 

Flatwoods salamanders are a species of small amphibians that live in pinewoods forests. During the fall rainy season, the salamanders instinctually begin a 500-yard journey to their breeding grounds—a group of temporary shallow pools formed by the rain. The salamanders are able to return to these breeding grounds due to a “map” that has been “etched [into their minds] with the passing of millennia” (218). The map does not change with time, so as construction and development alters the landscape, the salamanders are no longer able to return to their breeding grounds, causing the salamander population to diminish. Striped newts, another species inhabiting longleaf pine forests, similarly undertake a journey to their breeding grounds every year.

Ecologist Bruce Means has studied one flatwoods salamander population in Florida for decades since the 1970s. He has noticed that the population numbers have precipitously dropped in the time that he has been researching the salamanders. The only change in the environment has been that a section of the virgin longleaf forests has been logged and replaced with a man-made slash pine plantation, creating “a false environment” (221). Means suspects that replacing longleaf pine forests with pine plantations has harmed local species’ populations, such as the flatwoods salamanders.