Robert’s wife,  Melanie, has a long-standing relationship with St. John Catholic School in Valdosta.  She started first grade at St. John and graduated from eighth grade there before moving on to high school.   Melanie shared some of her fondest memories of being in Catholic school which included story time with Sister Pauline in the first grade.

Years later Melanie would return to St. John to teach English.   “You raised a generation of arrogant punctuation police,” says Robert.

“Not just punctuation police, grammar police,” corrects Melanie.

Eventually, Melanie became principal of St. John, although at first she was unsure of whether or not she could do the job.  “I was a good English teacher.  I knew what I was doing.  That was my comfort zone and I was being asked to move out of my comfort zone.”  In the school’s 69-year history, Melanie is the very first lay person to serve as the principal.

Asked about her proudest moment as an educator, Melanie replied,  “I like to tell the kids that we’re the ones who got Publix [a grocery store] to change the sign at their check-out from ‘Ten items or less’ to ‘Ten items or fewer!’ “

Juliette Gordon Low was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1860 and started Girl Scouts of America in 1912.  Currently, there are over 3.7 million young women all over the United States that are part of the program.

At MobileBooth East in Savannah, current Girl Scouts Victoria Ross and Ashley Sutton interviewed Allene George. Allene has been a Girl Scout since 1932 and is now a lifetime member. She remembered holding meetings in a log cabin on an Army base at Fort Screven on Tybee Island in Georgia.  “Back then we only had one type of  Girl Scout cookie and we didn’t sell them, we ate them,” Allene said.

From left: Ashley Sutton, Allene George and Victoria Ross

Victoria asked Allene about summer camp at Camp Low. They were surprised when they found out that there was no electricity at the camp. “What was your best experience sitting around a campfire?” Victoria asked. Allene remembered cooking and singing – many of the songs Ashley and Victoria also know.  “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold,” they all recited together.

As a closing question, Victoria and Ashley asked Allene what advice she would give to current Girl Scouts. “Enjoy your Girl Scout years and the friendships you make along the way.  Don’t ever be ashamed to wear your uniform.”

Charli was 16 years old when she married Lloyd, Tiffany’s father.  Lloyd was in the Army, and by the time he was discharged, Charli had given birth to Tiffany’s brother Anthony, and was pregnant with Tiffany’s sister, Charlotte.  Charli and Lloyd decided to move to Georgia so that Lloyd could go to college.  On the way to their new home they were stopped for speeding in a small town.  The policeman offered to let them go if they paid him a bribe; otherwise he would take Lloyd to jail.

“We don’t have anything to give you,” said Charli.

Then she saw her rings.  Despite Lloyd’s objections, Charli gave the officer her wedding rings to save Lloyd from jail.

Charli Reeves with her daughter Tiffany Reeves Burke and grandson Julius Sebastian Burke

Lloyd came through with another ring but then, years later, Tiffany got into New York University and needed a deposit for housing.  Lloyd had been very sick and the family was broke.   An acquaintance offered to give Charli the money to pay Tiffany’s deposit.  Charli was reluctant but she didn’t want to deny her daughter. So she accepted the generous offer under one condition: that her benefactor take her ring until she could pay him back.  He agreed to hold the ring until Charli could repay his loan.  She did just that, reclaiming the ring later.

Charli looks at the rings as symbols of commitment that go both ways, saying, “The rings at times of crisis have served me well.”

The MobileBooth is located right nearby the Telfair Museum of Art in Telfair Square – one of 25 squares in the city.  Everywhere you look there are green spaces with oak trees covered in Spanish moss.  Plenty of opportunities to sit in the shade and have a good conversation…

Eric Nauert of Georgia Public Radio treated us all to an excerpt from the Thornton Wilder play, “Our Town,” connecting it to the StoryCorps mission to preserve human history.  Read the quote as you enjoy the photographs from Opening Day in Savannah:

“[…]Even in Greece and Rome, all we know about the real life of the people is what we can piece together out of the joking poems and the comedies they wrote for the theatre back then.

So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us […] more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight.

See what I mean?

So[…]people a thousand years from now […] this is the way we were (in the provinces north of New York) at the beginning of the twentieth century. […]This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.”