TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026 BY WADE PEEBLES

Okay boyz, here we go again!

Hello from ground zero, here at the "We Boyz Three Plaza" in verdant, lush, aromatic & odiferous, scenic, lackadaisical, lovely, Garpatch (Garfield) in east-northeastern Emanuel County. The lovely belly-button of Georgia. That reminds me of "Granny" Miles of Baxley, who was a real character indeed. She was a well off business woman, and widow, owning businesses in her area, and the old stockyard in Jesup among others. Her sister, "Aunt Doll," was usually with her, and was meek and mild beside Granny Miles, and was quiet but would raise her eyebrows in response to some of the language Granny Miles used and outrageous things she would say. Granny Miles and Aunt Doll were good folks indeed. She hated Swainsboro, and she would tell me she liked me but the rest of Swainsboro could kiss her behind. When I was a boy Mr. Forest Lewis owned the stockyard in Swainsboro, and his brother-in-law quit him and opened another stockyard near his, in partnership with Granny Miles and her husband, which infuriated Mr. Lewis. Not long afterward, Forest Lewis shot and killed his turncoat brother-in-law. It was said to be in self-defense, as he called Mr. Lewis, who was shaving at the time and told him he was coming to kill him. Mr. Lewis put his gun near the door and went back to shaving, and Mr. Marsh (I think he was a Marsh) allegedly came in the front door armed where Mr. Lewis killed him. No one in our area blamed Forest Lewis, and no charges were made. HOWEVER, Granny Miles gave a very, very different version of that entire affair, but she and all the others are long gone, and some bits of her telling of it are a bit too salacious and indelicate to be told here. Suffice it to say, that she had no use for my hometown, saying, "if Georgia was a bulldog, Swainsboro would be its *sshole!!!" I always found that to be hilarious. I had not intended to write any of this, but my phrase referring to Garfield as the belly button of Georgia brought it to mind. Now after having written here about those long ago events, please keep in mind that when oral history and intergenerational gossip is told and retold, the tale stretches, gaps are filled, errors in remembrance occur, lies are told, aspects are filtered out, and so forth, so I might have many details of the story wrong, or you may have a different version of it. So be it. That is the nature of the beast. Now, let's move over and talk about insurance, we have various kinds of insurance as a necessary evil. We dislike all of it, but I do recall a type of insurance that was cheap and a quality program indeed. That was old time school student medical insurance. When we were young, those policies cost only a few dollars, probably less than five dollars per student, and they paid all claims fully with no hassles. I don't know if it is still available, but if so, it has to be more expensive now. It would have been foolish to not take the insurance being such a real value. Okay, nuff said... Numbers 6: 24-26 KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me