Henry Greene By Chip Burson

SNAPSHOTS

Henry Greene

By Chip Burson

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,

and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

I was not in safety, ….yet trouble came.

 Job, KJV, Chapt. 3, v. 25, 26

After this lived Job an hundred and forty years,

…So Job died, being old and full of days.

 Job, KJV Chapt. 42, v. 16, 17

Photographer, Tim Patton, presented me with this photo, which I believe he captured on a photo shoot trip through either Mississippi, or somewhere in the Carolinas. It is natural and spontaneous—unplanned.

I was raised, in part, on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. In the 50’s, the old slave quarters and African American neighborhood was called, “Jew Town.” Still is. When I was about six, a powerful land storm came through and rammed into a rumbling Nor’easter coming in off the Atlantic. (The Georgia Bite, as that part of the coast is called, rarely gets hurricanes). It flatted Mr. Humdoo’s old place.

Dr. Mack, the only physician on the Island, was my father’s best friend. When we were down from Atlanta, the island was blessed with two doctors. Dr. Mack was caught land-side in Brunswick, so we went to see about Old Hum when the call came from a neighbor. He was the doctor’s fishing guide, confidant, and source of immense ocean, river, and marsh wisdom. He was dead. The house fell on him. I asked my father why we were driving so slow to get to the house, and he simply said, “Son, death is not an emergency.” He was all but silent for the entire day after that; alone in his boat out on the marsh creek. For me, this photo represents Mr. Hum’s ghost, and is saying exactly what he would have said.            

Chip Burson 7.7.15