Martin Toes

My first cousin John and his girlfriend Christina had a baby this week. Her name is Breanna Nicole and she weighed 6lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long. She has brown hair and blue eyes... and Martin toes.
I never really think much about my family or my Southern heritage until another baby is born. I have a really really huge family. My father has 10 brothers and sisters. 3 sisters and 7 brothers. A sister and two brothers have passed on, but all of the remaining siblings live within 50 miles of here. Not to mention thier nearly 40 offspring (minus the 3 cousins that live on the west coast all within 20 miles of eachother). and now our children.
The kids were raised poor, living in near squallor and constant poverty. As children they rarely attended school, and went to work as soon as they were old enough. Picking cotton, tending tabbacco feilds, and scraping together enough to help the brood get by. My grandfather worked for the State on a road crew, walking everyday miles and miles from nearby Little Rock, SC to the "big town" of Dillon.
We all share in the loss of the Patriarch and Matriarch of the family. My grandfather John Dewey Sr died when my Father was only 7 and the youngest, my aunt Linda, only a few months old. There is not one single photograph of him. My grandmother died a year before my birth in 1976 to heart problems. I am told that when the light hits my face just right or when my eyes flash in anger, that I resemble her.
My uncles were wild in their youth, notorious in this small town.Lawless drunks who caroused and were outlaws.Rebels, angry over thier stolen childhoods. My oldest Aunt, "Betty Jean" was a wild beauty in the 60's. She married young, and took a few of the kids with her when she left home, my father one of them. My two youngest Aunts, "Linda and Nita" partied through the 70's and 80's marrying and divorcing 5 men between them. But time and age has mellowed them all, and all of them have become dotting Grandfathers and Grandmothers. All of thier wildness melted at the words "Papa" or "Granny.
We are not a "pedigreed" family. We are of no particular lineage, and our geneology drips off into obscurity after a few generations. Scandal or poverty caused some relative about 5 generations back to make a name change to Martin and we cannot trace any further. But we have married among the families of Dillon county, touching the branches of nearly every family tree.
We have a distinct look, a grecian nose, and olive skin. Influences from the middle east are evident as well as something that could only come from darkest Africa. English and Polish, Italian and Dutch. Some are tall and lanky like Europeans, others are squat and wide appearing cuban or mexican. But the one thing nearly every person has, are Martin toes. They are long and thin and they are dexterious and the second toe is much much longer then the big toe.
When my own daughter was born as well as any other "Martin baby", the first ting anyone ever does is whip out those tootsies and afirm thier lineage. Its a proud moment.
There is something very sweet about belonging to something. Knowing that you are a part, and that nothing can change it. We may not be much, or have much, but we have eachother, and our toes ;)