Georgia... the U.S. State! ... is also known as the Peach State. (Not sure of any Peach Countries on Earth (the planet.)) Nonetheless, I had lived there for seven hated years (hated because of the intense heat and damned gnats) but never saw any peaches other than in the grocery stores. I did see a gazillion pecan trees and the fallen pecans below them. In Albany, there was a peanut processing plant SOMEwhere because driving near it you could smell the peanuts so strongly.

Our house was, unfortunately... no, VERY unfortunately... in the flight takeoff pattern of the nearby Air Force base. Due to the international emotions and festivities of the day concerning Cuba and some other unnamed country, lots of B-52's and KC-135's would take off all hours of the day and night. Let me emphasize the word "nearby" because, using my cheap BB gun, I could have hit the bottom of those behemoths as they... what's a better word than "roar"? (Our house was beyond low cost of the day, back then. That aircraft pattern did limit sale and resale value of all the housing in the area considerably.) I think my love of flying came from my assumed guess that such noise was not loud INSIDE the planes.

Georgia had some of the most inhospitable animal residents near our home. We started with those gnats. They didn't bite, they just clouded around my head as if I was a nest. As I walked, the cloud followed me, I swatted at them, and my parents laughed at me because, from a distance, they couldn't see those damned things.

Then there were the ear wigs, the huge Florida Harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex badius), centipedes, millipedes, hornets, wasps, bees, black widow spiders (and the benign Daddy Longlegs), chiggers, dog (and human) ticks, Stick-tights (Desmodium cuspidatum), doodle bugs (ant lions), grass stickers (I can't find the scientific name... found it: Cenchrus spinifex), rattle snakes, water moccasins, cotton mouths, and the occasional scorpion.

Oddly enough, despite severe racial tensions of the time, my childhood friends and I only had one potentially serious racial problem that never amounted to much.

Of course, being from Canada, I had a slight problem with language. I'd never heard of a chifferobe before. Fireflies (lightning bugs) were "lattnin boogs". "Fixin' to do something" had nothing to do with repairing anything. The word or suffix "self" became "sef". I don't know what happened to the "L" in it. Cornpone (cornbread) was a really awful tasting cake. Pinto beans reminded me of the taste of small rocks and mud. Oh, and yellow squash. If you ever had a little girl (same aged as you) invite you into a secluded corner of the school yard and asked you to "diddle" Her "sunflower", well, you know she just wanted your attention.

Georgia might be a wonderful place for some, but for me, I hated everything about it... except those little girls and their sunflowers.