The Baghdad Bazaar Bulletin
Ask Gladys
Miss Gladys Cailiff, who was present at the inaugural Baghdad Bazaar in June 1939, has kindly consented to offer us glimpses into the history of Baghdad, Georgia, and the origins of our annual bazaar. Contact Us to ask her a question or add a comment of your own.
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN!
I know it’s been a long time, dear readers, but I’ve had some health issues, as they say, bad enough so I needed to learn how to type with one hand. Truth be told, I had to learn how to do a lot of things again, so much so that I could hardly blame some folks who thought my life, as we knew it, was over. For a while, that’s what I thought, too.
But we were wrong. It ain’t over till they put you in the ground—well, I guess shortly before that. One would hope so anyway.
Here I am back in the saddle and excited to read in the paper that Harper Lee is coming out with a new book that she wrote before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Everybody around here, including me, can’t wait to read it. Except, of course, for my friend Etta George, M.D., Piedmont County’s first African American physician (also first female physician), now retired. You don’t want to mention To Kill a Mockingbird to Etta George like I did when she came by to see me last week. She’s got a bug, you know where, about that book, as the following conversation, which took place in my kitchen and is reproduced here to the best of my ability, demonstrates:
“How come all poor Tom, the black man, can do in that book is act like a scared animal?” she asked me. “I’m not saying he doesn’t have plenty of reason to be scared, but how come he just up and runs for the fence in the prison, not thinking about the guards with the guns aimed right at him, like a squirrel running into the road?”
Personally, I’ve always thought that poor Tom had to go at the end of the book for reasons of the plot. Alive, he’d be unfinished business. But Etta wasn’t interested in my literary theories.
“How come it’s only the white man who’s got a brain in his head, so he’s the big hero, trying to save the poor ignorant black man, when we all know it’s more likely he’d be running around in a white sheet with the rest of them?”
“Now, now, Etta,” I said to her. “Not every small town lawyer was a Grand Goblin like Mr. Gordon in Threestep used to be.”
“Of course not,” she said. “Most of ‘em were sharp-shooting civil rights heroes prone to helping falsely accused Negroes who don’t know how to do anything but tremble and sweat!”
I reminded her the whole point was that Atticus was a rare bird, wasn’t it? That he stuck his neck out for justice in spite of all the discrimination and racism and what all.
“That’s right,” Etta said. “And every white person who reads that book thinks they’re like Atticus. It’s a feel-good book for white people.”
And is that so terrible, I asked her? Making people identify with their better selves, so to speak?
“Well, I guess not,” Etta grumbled. “Everybody likes a fairy tale.”
I changed the subject at that point by mentioning that my great-grand-niece Vanessa has a leading role in her high school production of "Into the Woods." I don't always agree with the opinions of my friend Etta George, but after all I've been through these past couple of years, I have to admire her, at age 90, for having opinions at all. I'm 88, and most days I feel lucky to have a pulse.
Gladys Cailiff
Baghdad, Georgia
MORE QUESTIONS FROM YOU ALL
Bruce from Va Grove Studio writes to ask us for a map of Piedmont County. It looks like he tried to use his GPS to find us and got nowhere. My grandnephew Sam has one of those built into his car. Personally, I can’t abide a little voice telling me where to go every minute of the day—turn right! turn left!—makes my heart beat fast as a little bird’s. The easiest way to get here, if you’ve never been, is to Google up the library in Gordon, take a right turn out the parking lot, and just keep on Gordon Hwy until you run into the signs for Baghdad. It’s State Hwy 243 you’ll be riding on. The signs are only up in June.—G.C.
A recent visitor gets acquainted with some of our staff.
