An illustrated, candid talk takes the audience back to 1950’s rural Georgia where Tom recalls momentous times hanging out at the local Confederate monument, days playing football, and summers on his granddad’s farm. It was there he spent days with his childhood best friend, Jesse Lee “sweetie Boy” Elam, a black boy. Neither had any notions of racism and to this day they remain friends. The influence of country stores, moonshine tales, outhouses, memories of burnt grandparents’ homes, family reunions Sunday church, early dreams of writing, and more come together to fashion a Southern writer and his views on today’s Southland.
Growing Up Southern
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