Cedrick Shelton Archive

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The river bones

During this time of extreme temperatures and drought, the Flint River’s waters get so low that the river’s bones are exposed. And everything that once was lost to its depths comes to the surface.

The lonely riverbed becomes flooded with ancient memories claimed by high waters long ago and sometimes there are even places you can walk around a rocky distance notorious for wild currents. The soul of the river is laid bare; you can stand and look into the intimate places that reveal fossilized remnants carved from the land stretching from its origins in the Georgia Piedmont down to the Apalachicola.

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Magnolia in the mists

Standing on the river’s edge of some foggy morning on the Flint, I noticed magnolias blooming in their full glory. And this moment of sudden, stolen silence transported me back to the days of my childhood, to a place I felt abandoned, when my father would take me away from the promises of the city to stay with my grandmother during the summer. She lived out in Baconton — roughly the middle of nowhere.

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Beneath the mossy oaks of Thronateeska

Beneath the mossy oaks near the Flint River, the modern world fades away. Time bends between where we are and where we have been. And once upon a time, when the waters rose,

they were there, too.

If only they could speak to us as we walk beneath them and we could hear their stories and feel the history amidst the wonders of the Flint. For there is a forgotten birthplace crouched next to the sleepy banks of a river, full of a special rock that when struck together drew a spark to a new city.

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Chickens in the city Remnants of a rural life

While driving down Pine Avenue the other day, I came across the most peculiar sight. I thought to myself, “In downtown Albany, there are chickens in the city and proudly crossing the road.”

Immediately, my mind went to that old joke, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and for some reason the answer didn’t matter this time. After living in Atlanta for nearly 10 years and returning to this rural site, wandering amidst busy, oncoming traffic and modern life, I couldn’t but help to think that Albany had not grown that much since I had left. As I discussed it with my fellow Albanians, so many seemed to dismiss the chickens as “country,” which implied that to have them in the city is backwards.

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