Open House by John T. Edge

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Open House by John T. Edge

The essay is a summary “Open House” featured in January edition of the Oxford American in the year 2003. John T. Edge the writer narrates of his changing perspective of a restaurant he used to frequent in his undergraduate years at the University of Georgia. After years away from the place, he returns in his adulthood to substantiate the once fleeting rumors that the place was a local klavern for the Ku Klux Klan and that the husband of its patron, Herbert Blanche, was a key member of the white supremacist group in 1960s. The renewed interest is aroused by his analysis of the importance that third places played especially in the Civil Rights Era. He focuses on restaurants and eating taverns where strategies benign and sinister were laid out, inconspicuous with to outside world, but with enduring impacts. Edge narrates the mertamorphosis of the restaurant from a Ku Klux Klan meeting room to a fraternity hangout and its current state as a church for the very people the former incumbents targeted, blacks. The writer stipulates that though locations may remain constant their utility speak volumes of the surrounding population shared values.

During his youth, the location was a stop by to refresh from a night out raving oblivious of everything. The above statement is fortified by the fact the he returned to his old hangout in search of truth. This implied that in those days they lived a lie or were too immature to handle the said truth. Unfortunately, he is not alone in his selective pursuit of truth. The values of the then residents were reflected the white jury knew that freed the suspects of Lemuel Penn’s murder despite overwhelming evidence. Upon returning to the place to find a church, the cab driver was infuriated when Edge implied that the place was once a site of historical injustices. The truth often disturbs the peace it is easier forgetting or ignoring.

Edge felt a sense of nostalgia upon exposure to his youthful hangout, implying that locations act as memory cues for past endeavors. The words dark shadows imply that he is ashamed of the acts he committed in this place. He recalls of a particular night when he together with his friends went to Open House to cool down after a night out drinking. His exploits in the downtown parts of Georgia often ended up with a coffee boost at the said restaurant preceded by occasional puking. The author of the article shows that the overt demonstration of strength or negative behaviour is not spontaneous rather a manifestation of unnoticeable activities done in private.

The character of their patron, Mrs. Blanche stimulated Edge’s youthful curiosity. She was an attractive middle-aged woman with the gusto of a comic and a motherly aura.  She did not hesitate to reproach the youngsters if she deemed the behavior unbecoming. The fascination was augmented by her dark past that was only limited to whispers, the wife of a prominent Ku Klux Klan member alleged to have murdered a black motorist. The double life is a representative of the restaurants characteristics.

Over the three eras of the places existence, it appeared to retain its core utility, purification. Initially it was used by the Klavern to make elaborate plans to cleanse their town of the Negros they perceived to be contaminating their race and disturbing the peace. When it become a restaurant the fraternity boys referred to it as their purgatory implying it cleansed them from the impurity that was attached to their nightly escapades. The last owners, the Black church was used it as an altar of spiritual nourishment and sanctification. . Edge notes that time often forgives history and can redeem a place of bloodshed consecrating it into an altar for good.