Punky was an artist and a flower child who cherished the spirit and the music of the ‘60s. She used pastels to create whimsical characters, and the written word to paint just as vividly. She loved the language, in poetry or prose or morning word jumbles, almost as much as she loved to laugh -- which she did often with an infectious tee-hee, which sounded exactly like she wrote it in her poems.
Punky was born in Greenville, S.C., to A. Wolfe and Katherine Harbin Davidson. She was small in childhood, as she was all her life, and her father, a renowned artist who sculpted the "Littlejohn Tiger" statue outside the basketball arena at Clemson University, began to call her his little Punkin’. It stuck, and she would later have her name legally changed to Punky.
Punky was curious and reveled in her own peculiarity. As a child she begged her mother to sew pockets into her clothes so she could stuff them with rocks and bugs and papery cicada shells. She loved pockets, because they held her secrets, and that made her smile. She loved the simple act of discovery and never ceased to be amazed by the wonders of the natural world. She at times kept snakes and spiders -- to the horror of her children -- and implored her girls not to cut the wisteria or the trees in her yard, for she feared it would hurt them.
Until the end she lived as she chose to live, no matter what other people thought.
Punky knew she could be gruff at times, especially to those she loved the most. But her heart was pure, and just. She sought justice for all and stood always for those who could not find their footing. Punky once quit a lucrative corporate job because she believed the clients were being exploited. She took a job making far less money at a pet store, where she met her parrot BB, who lived with her in Glen Iris until the end.
Punky grew up on the Brenau College campus in Gainesville, Ga., where her parents were professors, and in her memory those days were magical. She went straight to the University of Georgia after her junior year in high school, and went on to pursue a career as a paralegal. She gave birth to daughters Jenny, Jess and Hana before moving to Birmingham in 1972, where she became a staunch defender of her neighborhood and an astute observer of local governmental affairs.
She is survived by daughters Jennifer Burwinkle (Bill), Jessica Goldstein (Michael) and Hana Berres (Tom), sister Dorothy D. McCulloch, nephew, Patrick Kevin McCulloch and grandchildren Ellis, Avi, and Lillian Goldstein, who she loved like air.
She was a faithful Jew who attended synagogue at Knesseth Israel in Birmingham. She will return to her birthplace of Greenville, S.C., where she will be buried Friday in a family plot. The family will be receiving visitors after the evening prayer service at Temple Beth-El, Birmingham on Monday, July 22nd at 5pm.
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