VALDOSTA, GEORGIA — They gave me fair warning.
“Do you mind being hugged by men you don’t know? Because we’re in the South. And we hug. It’s a side hug, like this,” City Councilman Tim Carroll demonstrates with an arm around my shoulders and a quick squeeze, “but it’s still a hug.”
We laugh about it, but he is right. A handshake at the beginning, but a hug at the end.
I went to Valdosta on the recommendation of military sources who, when asked, “Who does it right when it comes to community-base relationships?” answered without hesitation, “Go see Valdosta and Moody Air Force Base.”
My assignment was to learn about what makes theirs a successful marriage — and what can Tucson learn from their experience.
Southern hospitality is too simple an answer, and saying that well, Valdosta is a small town is selling it short. When you’re welcome in Valdosta, they make sure you feel it.
* *
Valdosta is in some ways the flip side of Tucson.
I wasn’t there long before an uneasiness crept in, a desert dweller’s visceral reaction to the surroundings. In parts of Southern Georgia the ground isn’t ground, it’s water disguised as earth.
The leafy debris and fallen trees in the woods move with a slow, slow current. The water isn’t everywhere, so you have to look closely. Road shoulders on remote highways look solid, but aren’t. It’s like the feeling of being out in the desert and realizing that rattlesnakes see you but you can’t see them.
Physically, I felt out of place. But with people, it was different.
As I spoke with people in Valdosta and at Moody, the theme of being welcome kept popping up. Come on in. We’re glad you’re here. Let us show you our community. Let us send you to your Georgia home — the Hampton Inn by the convention center — with food.
There are similarities between Tucson and Valdosta. Both downtowns are on the rebound, and they’re becoming known in foodie circles. But I am more interested in a tip from an Air Force captain who’d been stationed at Davis-Monthan. She is comparing the two cities and mentions that you can get a Mexican hot dog at the same place you’d find the best gas-station taco in Georgia — and that it is just outside the gates of Moody.
That’s how I meet up with Noe Cantu, owner of Taqueria de Mexico, which shares a building with a gas station and convenience store.
Mexican hot dogs are starting to catch on in Valdosta. It took a little while, Cantu says, but word is spreading. All he needed was the first customer willing to give it a go.
Cantu makes his hot dog as you’d find it in Tamaulipas: wrapped in bacon, deep fried, topped with chopped jalapeno, tomatoes, onions, mayo, mustard and ketchup, and served with fries. It’s not the Sonoran dog we know in Tucson, but the Mexican hot dog universe is large.
*****
Reba Leggett is the mother of a friend of a friend. She and her husband, Charles Willis, very kindly agree to help me get to know their town. They talk about the relationship between Moody and Valdosta, and their own Air Force connections as a spouse and a veteran. Reba’s first husband, who is deceased, was stationed at Moody. Charles grew up just outside of Valdosta and saw the world with the Air Force before coming home.
Charles and Reba spend hours driving me around the surrounding counties. They want me to have a sense of the land, the history and the people around Valdosta. We talk about who lived in what part of town and the history behind it.
They take me to peach orchards, to the beautiful swamp where Charles explains how the rivers flowed into one another, and the white building where Charles attended elementary school some 70 years ago.
We laugh when I ask are those puh-KAHN trees and Reba replies from the back seat, "Well, honey, that may be what you call them but we call them PEE-can trees."
She takes me to meet her friends as they exercise on donated Curves equipment at their church. Charles calls the new editor of the newspaper and asks if he’ll talk with me. Charles says he’s a good one because he gives it straight to the powers that be. Reba drives me there, and waits in the car.
When I arrive at Reba and Charles’ home on Monday morning Reba hads just gotten off the phone with her state representative’s office. She wants Rep. Amy Carter to know what she thinks about an education bill under consideration. It’s important that our representatives know our views and there’s nothing more important than children, she says. I agree.
On Tuesday, I drive by Moody one final time. I stop by Reba and Charles’ home a few miles from the base to say thank you and goodbye. It is sprinkling and foggy when I get there, but raining hard when it is time to leave.
The Valdosta airport is so small there isn’t an enclosed jetway, and Reba is concerned I’ll get damp boarding the plane. I say, don’t worry, I’ll be fine, but she won't hear of it.
They find me an umbrella. I have no choice but to take it.
We hug. And I head out into the rain, back to the desert.
