Life on the Hill — The Lexington Line

Each year in the first full week of April, thousands flock to a place known for its scenic botany, friendly faces, and successful golfers. The weeks prior bring unwelcome disruptions as road work causes traffic, businesses close, and parents are unapproachable as the city prepares for the Masters Tournament. Augusta, Georgia, must dispose of its drama and enact its annual Southern deceit to plant new trees and place new traffic patterns.

Its mom is coming home.

The bulk of preparation for the Masters and the irony of the town perch in the pleasantly named neighborhood of Summerville. To external peeks, the region is a sunny suburban haven whose cookie-cutter houses of history are home to the nuclear family’s epitome—a blonde, fit, and organized mother, a father who tirelessly but presently provides, and their two young children, one boy and one girl.

To Summerville residents, fans, and cynics, the neighborhood is otherwise known as The Hill.

While country music shakes outdoor speakers as hired help shuffles around, the white picket fences and aged pillars carry quiet burdens. The Hill mothers pace in and out of headquarters, anxiously waiting to approve their final cleanliness before the revered Masters renters arrive.

For just one week, the Hill families will resign from their kingdoms and sweep their lives under Pottery Barn rugs.

Strangers will sleep in their beds, frolic in their courtyards, share beers on porches, and wave to their momentary neighbors.

For just one week, outsiders will experience life on The Hill in its Southern suburban glory. They’ll live in their houses and gawk at golfers and cook casserole in their kitchens—but they won’t look under the rugs.

“You're just never quite part of it because you weren’t born a part of it,” says Lauren. “If you don't live there, or you don't go to the country club, you’re not invited.”

Like me, Lauren grew up on the outskirts of The Hill. Close enough to know their names, to shop at the same stores, right on the cusp of inclusion but ultimately rejected. She is the same age as the new generation of Hill moms with their Stanley cups and Lilly Pulitzer pumps, but is comfortable in her role as an observer.

Like me, Lauren watches the groups of party-goers in puff sleeves and printed ties taking a few too many trips to the open bars, inconspicuous and undetected as they quaff entire bottles of wine. The social ones form themselves into groups based on age, based on high school, and based on their husbands’ jobs.

In the corner, a few cross-legged ladies nibble one cracker per hour, eyes drained and tired, even though it is a mere 4 p.m. For others, the party is just getting started, but for them, the party concluded the moment they parked their black Yukon XL.

It’s tempting to politely inquire as to why they aren’t enjoying themselves. Compliments on their new dress or sandals are allowed, but mind the fact that they also appear more gaunt than they did at their last social appearance. If their cheekbones have hollowed, their arms have toned, and they claim their exhaustion is due to their new “medicine,” refrain from follow-up responses.

“Everyone is on Ozempic. It makes me feel left out,” says Lauren sarcastically.

There we have The Hill’s first unofficial rule: don’t ask, and don’t tell.

If asked, do what Southerners have done best for centuries—sugarcoat it. Sugarcoat why a “medication” is exhausting, sugarcoat why couples haven’t been sleeping in the same bed, and sugarcoat why Aunt Sue, formerly known as Uncle Chris, isn’t invited to this year’s Easter brunch.

“There's a lot of drama going on, from the Ozempic to divorces to fighting to tax evasion,” says Lauren. “I just prefer to stay out of it.”

The adults on The Hill perform fantastic productions of social theater in meticulously following their association’s first rule. If you want the real details—the juicy, unfiltered reflections of Hill happenings—look to their kids.

If the future of The Hill is in the hands of its youth, then it should brace for impact. The Southern colloquialisms and age-old charm that once made the rot pretty will soon dissipate. If children reflect their parents, which Hill children do well, “bless your hearts” becomes unfiltered explicits in the mouths of their little darlings—and this is where things get interesting.

“Imagine going into a graduation ceremony and seeing all of the white kids sitting in the front three rows wearing gold robes, and then all of the Black kids sitting behind them wearing purple robes,” shares Emma, who went to school at Augusta’s Richmond Academy.

Richmond Academy is a remarkable metaphoric symbol of Augusta, Georgia. Its students span the city, coming from some of the lowest-income areas of the town, but are dominated by an International Baccalaureate program steeped in double names like Lily Grace and stomped by Golden Goose shoes. By coincidence to some and segregation to many, the I.B. program is predominantly white, while the diverse remainder is known as “gen-pop.”

“Instead of embracing diversity, it was a culture of, like, ‘We're better than them,’” says Emma regarding the I.B. program. “We have to separate because we're smarter.”

Although the I.B. students take Advanced Placement courses, it is debatable whether they earn their spot through intelligence or nepotism. The school acts as a social playground for the program’s majority; global affairs class is a photo share of their European travels, and personal finance class is a gossip room.

“No one was holding the students accountable because when a teacher would give someone a bad grade,” Emma says, “the parent would call saying, ‘blah blah blah, I give money to the school,’ and the grade would magically change.”

In The Hill’s operational enclave, where any situation can be settled with money, there are no disciplinary consequences, even at school. You can still, as demonstrated by an I.B. Hill student in 2023, be accepted and enroll at a college with a 33 percent acceptance rate, even if you brought multiple guns to high school one day. That is, of course, if you are white, wealthy, and say you’ve “learned from your mistakes.”

Hill, though a noun, can also take the form of an adjective. To be included on The Hill, one has to be Hill enough. Teenagers appreciate and include each other to a social extent based on geography, but true Hill friendship requires tireless dedication. To be Hill enough is a task of its own.

“Being in a friend group equals power,” says Emma. “There was such a clear hierarchy. There were the core friend groups and then the stragglers who were hanging on to the friend groups.”

The straggler–The Hill’s ultimate humiliation ritual. Just like in the movies, Richmond Academy has its queen bees. Keeping up with the Hill teens is not as simple as wearing the latest trends or bringing the most expensive gifts to birthday parties. You have to be thin enough, say the right things, have the right hobbies, and never publicly fall from grace.

“There was a girl who would cry every single day at school because she had so much built-up stress and anxiety because of this group she felt like she had to be a part of,” shares Emma. “She started doing Orange Theory at 16 and would count her calories at school with a calculator.”

Rule number two: keep your image no matter the cost. The biggest consequence on The Hill is ostracization, and though standards for this are inconclusive, one mustn’t teeter the possibility.

It is most widely accepted that discipline outside of school must come from one’s parents. But on The Hill, the lines between good and evil are blurred. If children learn by example, then children on The Hill have a front-row seat to feigned manners from parents masking malice with martinis.

“They would drink every single weekend at someone's house, and there was always parental consent,” says Emma. “The parents would be sitting on the couch, drinking with them.”

The film-depicted rite of passage—teens stacking on each other's shoulders in trench coats or dressing up in their mothers’ scrubs to elicit alcohol from tired gas station personnel—is difficult to experience when parents ask their children for suggested alcoholic additions to their shopping lists.

October 31st, 2021, was a scene from “Superbad.” The biggest Halloween party in Hill history that ended, quite literally, with a hole in the wall. For just one night, my closest friends and I were invited in, even if it was for lack of a better venue. Someone who attended our school had a parent out of town and capitalized on the opportunity to put herself, or rather her house, on The Hill’s map.

In a society of teens, status cannot be standardized based on jobs or direct wealth, so the students of Augusta are categorized based on schools. There is Richmond Academy, the base of The Hill, Aquinas, a private, more luxurious school, Augusta Christian, and Westminster, whose students are socially quieter, and then the school I attended. Davidson Fine Arts, a magnet school, not a Hill school, known colloquially as “Gayvidson.”

“Who knew Gayvidson people could party?”

Even the quiet girl from my math class attended. Over 100 teens came and went—standing on couches, hooking up in bedrooms, and drinking straight from Grey Goose bottles stolen from their parents. For one night, I got to see how the Hill people partied. And they partied hard.

Just outside of the scene, tucked away from the ears of any potential defenders, my friend James experienced his first instance of blatant homophobia at that party. The perpetrator? A well-known, newly drunken Hill boy.

“Some loser called me a slur,” says James. “I feel like most homophobia I’ve encountered has been microaggressions, calling things 'gay' to mean 'bad,' so that certainly didn’t feel good.”

The political affiliations on The Hill, as showcased in James’ scene, often break rule number one. Instead of don’t ask, don’t tell, election season plants Trump yard signs lining Hill mailboxes and anti-abortion reposts on Instagram stories of students. Though not always as explicit as a slur, political ideologies on The Hill are pervasive and deeply rooted.

“People say things, believe things, and do things there because ‘that’s how it’s always been done,’” says James. “And when you push back on how that’s not a good reason to do something, their minds literally explode.”

There’s the third and final rule in my unofficial Hill handbook: don’t break tradition.

Tradition culminates in every aspect of life on The Hill, and it’s an antique imperative not to break. Tradition was broken when a gay couple was finally granted membership at the country club, and tradition was broken when a popular student was denied acceptance to the University of Georgia. Neither ended pretty.

The motto of the Masters Tournament is “A tradition unlike any other,” but its merit is debatable. A spectacle of exclusive wealth, the invite-only tournament extended its first summons to a Black person in 1975 since its beginning in 1934. The glamorous role of a tournament restroom attendant is seldom, if ever, filled by a white man. It’s no wonder the tradition is a Hill favorite.

“They're just in their own little bubble, and I got to witness it from the outside for an extended period,” says Emma. “They will remain in their bubble, move back to Augusta after college, and then all their kids will marry each other.”

The Hill remains because it upholds itself. Mary Claire Jones will marry Charles Johnson III. His father, Charles Johnson II, dated Mary Claire’s mother in 1982 while attending Aquinas High. Charles Johnson III will take over his father’s law firm to provide for his wife and children.

The Johnsons will live in a house with a white picket fence, oblivious to financial struggle or racial discrimination, and their hardships will be internal. They’ll shut the front door, and Mary Claire will clean the house for Masters renters while Charles golfs with work buddies and their children attend I.B. classes at Richmond Academy.

Nothing has changed, and nothing ever will. That’s life on The Hill.