Matt Echols recalled that it was Fashion Week in Paris - “a big deal,” according to Matt. It was April, 2001. And there we were in the lounge of the Ritz Carlton Paris, the same place that Princess Di and Dodi Alfied spent part of their last night.
Surely, Matt and I were watching the anorexic, narcissistic, “beautiful” people. But that’s not what I remember. What I think of – who I think of, seven years later – is Peggy Childs. The same Peggy Childs with whom I served in the state legislature. The same Peggy Childs who succumbed to cancer at the young age of 50.
There we sat in the beautiful City of Paris and in a room frequented by the world’s celebrities – two country boys from Georgia on the way to a State Legislative Leaders Foundation meeting in Bensberg, Germany.
Then, I thought about Peggy. I always think about Peggy when it happens. He was good, very good. You aren’t a piano man in the Ritz Carlton Paris unless you’re good. After all, this Ritz is not Hal’s on Old Ivy.
And then, he played it: Georgia On My Mind. And, I thought of Peggy. I always think of her when I hear our state song.
Let me back up, a little, and try to start over. I had a long legislative career. Modesty does not prevent me from saying I was actively and directly involved in some of the big decisions made in this State for at least 20 of my 32-year tenure.
But, it is not these things that I discuss when asked, as I am, frequently, “what are you most proud of that you were involved with during the time you were in the last legislature”?
My answers include the changing of our state flag (a non-quality of life issue that changed the image of this state), our (Rep. Sonny Watson and my) successful efforts to unite Houston County, and the 1979 adoption of Georgia On My Mind as our official State Song (a song that is sung and played world- wide - even in the Paris Ritz Carlton - and is the most ‘bang for the buck’ publicity that any state ever had).
Peggy was a fine person and a capable and hard-working legislator. But, I couldn’t tell you anything she ever did except sponsor the legislation to make Georgia On My Mind our song.
And, not only did she get the bill passed and enacted into law, but she got that Georgia native, Ray Charles, to come to the floor of the Georgia House of Representatives and play it and sing it to a packed House and Gallery (in a place Mr. Charles wouldn’t have even been allowed to come to 20 years earlier). Hoagie Carmichael, the man who wrote the music, telephoned from Los Angeles and talked over some kind of “magic” (it was magic in 1979) electronic hook-up to the assembled group.
I remember his complaining that at 10 a.m. in Georgia it was “mighty early to get up in L.A.”. All in all, it was the most exciting day I spent in the General Assembly.
It doesn’t matter whether I hear Willie Nelson playing or singing it at Chastain Park, or Charley Marshall playing or singing it at one of his haunts in Atlanta, or the band Celebration at Janice’s surprise birthday party (we requested this song for “our dance”) in our barn in Perry, or the piano man at the Ritz Carlton Paris, I think of Peggy. That’s just the way it is.
Peggy, you did good - really good. I’ll bet you’ve got those angels in heaven playing our song on their harps.
And, incidentally, I’ve asked Janice to have it sung and played at my funeral. Yeah, Peggy, you did good. Really good.
This column will appear in James Magazine. It is printed here with permission of the editor of the magazine.
