Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Ray next describes the pine savanna, a part of the larger “longleaf pine ecosystem […] [which] joins the longleaf pine flatwoods to the swamp” (239). The pine savannas are mostly absent of trees, which allows for herbaceous vegetation to grow amidst the swampy water that covers the savanna. One plant that thrives in the pine savanna is the pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant that feeds on insects. The pine savanna, similar to the longleaf pine forests, similarly evolved to thrive under the periodic fires that strike both of them. The fires help “repress the advance of woody shrubs” (242), which allows a variety of other plant species to grow. 

Though Ray’s family lacks the finances to physically travel, she often sits with her siblings in the family car and imagines that they are “travel[ing] to far-off places” (245), such as Washington D.C., New York, or Canada. While most magazines are forbidden in Ray’s home, she is allowed to read National Geographic, which gives her information about cities and landscapes around the world. The first winter where it snows in Baxley is in 1977, when Ray is 15 years old. Ray is ecstatic about the snow, as she has never seen it before. School is cancelled, and Ray and her siblings spend all day playing in the snow. Afterwards, they ride their car around and observe how the other children spent their snow days. Ray describes how going on car rides is a regular leisure activity for her family, mostly because it provided them entertainment when “there was nothing else to do” (248).

Leon Neel is a logger who uses the study of ecology “to preserve a forest intact while extracting economic benefits” (251) by cutting and selling some of the forest’s trees. By carefully choosing which trees to cut down, and focusing on unhealthy trees, Neel is able to log some of the forest’s trees without completely destroying the natural habitat. While Neel believes in the importance of preserving the longleaf pine forests, he also recognizes that preservation is costly. Neel’s method is a compromise, which allows the owners of longleaf pine forests to profit off the land while still preserving the ecosystem. 

Ray leaves her family home at 18 to attend North Georgia College. She is then completely “on [her] own” (257), as she pays her own tuition with savings and job. In college, she begins to partake in a variety of new experiences as a “form of healing and survival” (255) following her strict upbringing. Though she attends a military school with strict rules, Ray finds herself drawn to those fellow students who are more rebellious and prone to rule-breaking. Ray gets drunk for the first time, and regularly parties with friends. One friend, who has a crush on Ray, convinces her to go skydiving. Another time, Ray goes with friends to rappel down a cliff in the dark—an experience which Ray sees as “a metaphor for [her] arrival into the world […]” (258).

Ray is drawn to taking classes that offer practical skills, such as swimming. She takes a field botany course, where she bonds with a mountain woman who shares similar goals to her: “to live simply, close to nature, to grow and collect our own food, to use plants as medicines, to be as self-sufficient as possible” (261). Ray invites the poet James Dickey to read his poems at the school, offering to take him on a tour of the local woodland in exchange for a reduced speaking fee. Ray’s courses in botany and biology nurture her passion for the environment and the natural world, one which she wants to continually develop throughout her life. From the biology department, Ray first learns of the concept of environmentalism, and becomes determined to devote her life to advocating for the preservation of the environment.

Though the land Ray’s family’s junkyard sits on once housed a longleaf pine forest, the junkyard is now only home to common animals, rather than the gopher tortoises or indigo snakes that reside in the pine forests. Ray describes how she often “dreams of restoring the junkyard” (268) to its original ecosystem, and then wonders how she would go about fixing the junkyard in the same way that her father fixes cars. Ray describes how there are some striking similarities between junkyards and wildernesses, as “both are devotees of decay” (268) and both seemed to be organized chaotically. 

The short afterword advocates the importance of preserving natural ecosystems, such as the longleaf pine forests. Ray writes that humanity holds collective responsibility for the destruction of forests: “when we log and destroy and cut and pave and replace and kill, we steal from each other and from ourselves” (272). Ray imagines a revolution in which all members of the South, regardless of race or class, work together to rejuvenate the South’s original ecosystems. 

Ray writes that she will one day “rise from my grave” (273) to a world in which her descendants live amidst a revived longleaf pine forest. Ray describes her feelings of contentment and joy from finally seeing the forests restored.