Stillerman's+Page

Welcome to my page.

Entry 1: My Rambling Autobiography Until I was five, I thought I was adopted. I’m the youngest of six, and my older siblings repeatedly reminded of the fact. They said I was left on the doorstep by a band of travelers, and I believed them. We lived in a few different locals before my fifth birthday: Kentucky, Japan, New Mexico. My dad was in the Air Force, and he decided to retire from the service nearer to his roots in South Georgia. As we unpacked, I rummaged through the shoeboxes of photographs from the places we had lived. It occurred to me then that I could not have been adopted, bearing such a close resemblance to my sisters. I remember being quite put out that they tricked me, and, being an annoying brat, I’m sure I let them know it. It was late August when we moved, and I celebrated by fifth birthday in what would be my home until I graduated high school. I grew up on a dirt road, surrounded by fields and pine forests. Spending my days playing in the red Georgia clay and running through the fields of corn after a summer rain, I enjoyed the freedom a rural childhood could afford. As long as I stayed within earshot of my mother’s call, I was at liberty to explore. My sisters didn’t play with me much, so I created a world of my own imagination from the trees and garden of my backyard. Occasionally, I would walk the quarter mile of the field behind our house to the pond and skirt the banks, throwing rocks at the lily pads. If the summer had not been too dry, the blackberry bushes would yield a bounty, enough to fill my belly and a small pail before I reached home. By the time I was eight, I began working in my father’s store, located a mere mile down the dirt road in front of our house. I rode my Schwinn the nine-tenths of a mile over washboard roads with dogs barking and nipping at my ankles. Jones’ Grocery would occupy much of my time before and after school and all day during the hot summers of my youth. I spent countless hours listening to farmers gossiping over ice-cold Coca-Colas and bags of peanuts. And during the lulls of the late afternoon, I would curl up with a book on the boxes in the storeroom and read by the light of a 40-watt bulb. On cool days, I would climb the fence to roof of the pump house and write stories and observations from my perch. Daddy sold the store while I was in high school, and I secured another after school job. But it wasn’t the same. Shortly after I graduated, I moved to live with my sisters in Atlanta. I still return home to visit my parents. The store is no longer there, only an empty shell of white cinderblock remains. Many of the fields have been turned into subdivisions, and the dirt road has been paved. My parents, in their old age, have cut back considerably on the garden, but I still walk the paths of my youth, looking for blackberries and memories along the edges.