An Unlikely Friendship

Abstract

HISTORICAL AUTHOR—BYRON HERBERT REECE An Unlikely Friendship______________ Mildred White Greear When I think of Byron Herbert Reece, sometimes the first, and often returning, thought is how improbable our friendship. Byron Herbert Reece, Phillip Greear, Jean Greear and Joe Greear Sr. at the Greear Home in Helen, Georgia Our first meeting was dramatic. Briefly, there was a near brawl in the home of a Greear family friend, when Byron and Sol Greear, brother of my husband Philip, came dangerously close to blows. Our hostess pushed between them, insisting that one of them go get more eggs for the eggnog. 68 Byron left and did not return. Sol went to his mother's house, bringing back pockets full of broken eggs. After the party ended, we could not find Byron in the Greear house, and Philip was not inclined to go searching because he knew his friend's personality better than I who had met him only a few hours before. However, when I threatened to go look for him alone, Philip was persuaded. So it was that in the early morning hours of January 1, 1944, I walked down unfamiliar paths in unexpected snow calling this stranger's name. Stranger was not quite correct. I had of course heard much of him from Philip whose close friendship included associations at Young Harris College and regular correspondence as they critiqued each other's poetry. To me he was the name at the bottom of a letter. When the Christmas-New Year holidays ended, Philip and I returned to Gulfport Army Air Force Base. I came back to Helen in the spring, alone, because Philip did not have leave. On that occasion, Sol and his wife wanted to go to Choestoe, Byron's beloved native district, to look at some land. Byron had dropped by to see us because he had to come pick up his mother who was visiting her sister a few miles away. Sol suggested that I ride with Byron as far as his aunt's house. This in that little Ford of the tires so thin that he would say, "Sit light, or we might have a flat." Enroute he used a word that puzzled me greatly— truly offended me—and I never uttered another syllable until we reached his aunt's house. What I was thinking was: Well, this man needs to be turned over to his marnai Again there was a long lapse ofcontact. He planned a visitto Gulfport but wrote frankly that he did not have the money to spare for a trip. As the war continued, Philip and I decided we would make our home in Helen, and when he was frequently transferred and finally alerted for a port of embarkation, I came to Helen to live. Though visits between the Reeces and Greears were sporadic, it was a time for my friendship with Byron to develop. This in spite of his dictum that the use of the French language by the non-French was terribly elitist, and he could not understand why I would teach French and Spanish instead of something practical. "Oh yes," I replied once, "like Christus natus est." This being a line from one of his poems. He had the grace to grin in mock shame. I think he was pleased that I was beginning to know his work so well. Now, in my desk is a small collection of picture post cards of the fold-out kind... like those one buys on vacation to form a cascade of views proving where one had been. These little treasures were sent to 69 him by one of the fifty-seven women who proposed to Byron after his poetry had begun to work its magic. He sent them to me with a note that maybe I would like them; he didn't intend to go to France. The pictures are charming scenes from "La Comiche." In addition to the printed information, his admirer had written, "C'est la plage où l'on se baignait." If it were an imagined inducement for him to come frolic with her in bathing suit, it failed. It became ritual as we came to Georgia and after...