November sped by and will be gone at midnight tomorrow. I have gone through this month busy with lists and activities knowing that there was always at least one more thing that needed doing. The month has been filled with activity and much joy with Thanksgiving and all the other smaller obligations which have dotted the calendar. Be that as it will, the month, for all purposes is over and December is upon us.
For example, right now on this Sunday afternoon I know that there is a garbage can sitting with its top off in need of a liner in the kitchen along with a recycle container. Dishes sit next to the sink waiting putting away. Ingredients for cookies clutter the counter. Tables and buffets are covered with Christmas paraphernalia and decorations waiting disbursement. Stacks of table cloths drift over the dining table. A list for shopping and things to accomplish sits on the table by my recliner yet to be looked at today to see the planned chores.
Life has pretty much been like this all month. Probably when I sit in my chair on the back porch next Sunday afternoon there will still be things which should have been done this week, but they will matter not one whit! I probably should make myself a new list. At the top would be relax and welcome the spirit of December which is embodied in the celebration of our Savior's birth. Next would be listen to the music: Christmas music, the music of the birds, the music of laughter of a friend, the music of shared talk.
With the right balance, everything that needs to be done by next Saturday will be done. We can welcome our friends to our home and have enough energy to enjoy their presence. We can allow the sounds of their voices in song to warm our hearts as all good fellowship should.
Too often we get caught in the doing and forget the purpose. I shall try to remember that Love is the reason that I am cleaning and cooking. I shall focus on the Joy that is Christmas and relish each little preparation that I go through.
I will embrace, once again, the wonder and the glory that is Christmas.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
November, Glorious November
November is upon us! Today begins the next to last month of 2009. This month always catches me by surprise. The year trundles along with no undue speed and all of a sudden, Boom! The awareness that another year is speeding rapidly to a close slams into my consciousness and I am caught up in the throes of what is to be done before 2010 or whatever the next year is, is ushered in.
The great saving grace of November where we live is that the first couple of weeks are normally our fall. We have been known to have a killing frost by the tenth, but we usually do not have long stretches of cold weather until November is a memory. We have our fall color. While we may not enjoy the intense color that the mountains have, we have enough deciduous hardwood trees that we are blessed with color on our roadsides and in our yards. Those dogwoods that already have their bloom buds swelling towards eruption next spring will go out in a blaze of red. The pears, both eatable and decorative, will flame with color. The maples, sweet gums, hickories, blackgums, and crepe myrtles will add to the palette.
The next positive point for November is Thanksgiving. Other places have great holiday parades on this holiday to begin the Christmas season. In my beloved small town rural south, we have a parade to “Mama’s House.” Now that I have attained the rank of Mama, I relish the day with my assorted relatives including my own Mama who played this role for so many years. Now I am the one coordinating the casseroles and seeing that the turkey and dressing are in place at the traditional time. At my table that tradition passed down to me is noon Thanksgiving day. By then, in the old days, the hunters were back home and ready to eat. Now there are no hunters, but the assorted young adults, older adults, and children are ready to have the first go around before they spill out into the yard and community for physical activity leading to round two. I, completely, totally, unabashedly love this day. It normally brings everything that my Lord has blessed me with into sharp focus. When those hands are held and those heads are bowed over pieced together tables overburdened with food, so much of what I am truly thankful for is gathered together in that room.
This year, some of my thankfulness will sweep its way north to South Carolina. An eight hour trip in the car with a nursing baby is a little more than I expect from my daughter-in-law Reagan. Although we will not literally have them in our circle, they will be in our hearts and I will whisper special thanks for my son Kevin, his wife Reagan, and our darling grand girls, Ava Grace and Leila Kate.
The third great thing about November is that there is good football every Saturday. In the South the games that mean something, the infamous rival games, are played. Even when we know in our brains that our beloved team will go down to defeat, we hold to that hope that on any Saturday or Friday or Thursday night, any team can beat any other team. I know that my beloved FSU Seminoles have an uphill battle on that Saturday late in November when they face the number one team in the nation. “On that Saturday we will drop our loving acceptance of other family member’s teams and wallow in the uncontrolled fury of supporting our garnet and gold, no matter that they have no defense and have endured an awful season. The same will be true in other homes and on other days as at least half of us wait to begin the “There will always be another year!” chant.
The final star in November’s crown is that it is the month the Christmas tree goes up and the preparations for Christmas kick into full gear. We will write the Christmas letter. For us, this includes a review of the year that has been. It is also a chance to say to so many people scattered from coast to coast that they are important to us. We will receive our first card on the first of December. It will be from our cousin Wilma who will probably have spent some time during the Thanksgiving weekend addressing them. I know this. I count on it. The cards will continue until we get the annual Christmas letter from Len and Judy out in Oregon which normally arrives sometime in January because they have been on a fabulous family trip doing something unusual in somewhere exotic which delayed the mailing. Christmas preparation also includes getting ready for our annual open house which will happen the first week in December.
So, bring it on November! If I were the maker of calendars and the arbiter of all things right, I would decree that you above all months deserve a thirty-first day which could come from January. Who needs thirty-one days of what January dishes out to us each
The great saving grace of November where we live is that the first couple of weeks are normally our fall. We have been known to have a killing frost by the tenth, but we usually do not have long stretches of cold weather until November is a memory. We have our fall color. While we may not enjoy the intense color that the mountains have, we have enough deciduous hardwood trees that we are blessed with color on our roadsides and in our yards. Those dogwoods that already have their bloom buds swelling towards eruption next spring will go out in a blaze of red. The pears, both eatable and decorative, will flame with color. The maples, sweet gums, hickories, blackgums, and crepe myrtles will add to the palette.
The next positive point for November is Thanksgiving. Other places have great holiday parades on this holiday to begin the Christmas season. In my beloved small town rural south, we have a parade to “Mama’s House.” Now that I have attained the rank of Mama, I relish the day with my assorted relatives including my own Mama who played this role for so many years. Now I am the one coordinating the casseroles and seeing that the turkey and dressing are in place at the traditional time. At my table that tradition passed down to me is noon Thanksgiving day. By then, in the old days, the hunters were back home and ready to eat. Now there are no hunters, but the assorted young adults, older adults, and children are ready to have the first go around before they spill out into the yard and community for physical activity leading to round two. I, completely, totally, unabashedly love this day. It normally brings everything that my Lord has blessed me with into sharp focus. When those hands are held and those heads are bowed over pieced together tables overburdened with food, so much of what I am truly thankful for is gathered together in that room.
This year, some of my thankfulness will sweep its way north to South Carolina. An eight hour trip in the car with a nursing baby is a little more than I expect from my daughter-in-law Reagan. Although we will not literally have them in our circle, they will be in our hearts and I will whisper special thanks for my son Kevin, his wife Reagan, and our darling grand girls, Ava Grace and Leila Kate.
The third great thing about November is that there is good football every Saturday. In the South the games that mean something, the infamous rival games, are played. Even when we know in our brains that our beloved team will go down to defeat, we hold to that hope that on any Saturday or Friday or Thursday night, any team can beat any other team. I know that my beloved FSU Seminoles have an uphill battle on that Saturday late in November when they face the number one team in the nation. “On that Saturday we will drop our loving acceptance of other family member’s teams and wallow in the uncontrolled fury of supporting our garnet and gold, no matter that they have no defense and have endured an awful season. The same will be true in other homes and on other days as at least half of us wait to begin the “There will always be another year!” chant.
The final star in November’s crown is that it is the month the Christmas tree goes up and the preparations for Christmas kick into full gear. We will write the Christmas letter. For us, this includes a review of the year that has been. It is also a chance to say to so many people scattered from coast to coast that they are important to us. We will receive our first card on the first of December. It will be from our cousin Wilma who will probably have spent some time during the Thanksgiving weekend addressing them. I know this. I count on it. The cards will continue until we get the annual Christmas letter from Len and Judy out in Oregon which normally arrives sometime in January because they have been on a fabulous family trip doing something unusual in somewhere exotic which delayed the mailing. Christmas preparation also includes getting ready for our annual open house which will happen the first week in December.
So, bring it on November! If I were the maker of calendars and the arbiter of all things right, I would decree that you above all months deserve a thirty-first day which could come from January. Who needs thirty-one days of what January dishes out to us each
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saying Goodbye; Saying Hello
A soft rain falls today, this last Saturday in October as we gaze out at the underlying beauty of the small maple trees over on poplar ridge. Color is going quickly with the last trees to color now emerging in their fall glory. The poplars have long since turned loose, dancing to the yellow piles lining the ridge. Here at 1400 feet, the color will soon be gone and we will have the tree silhouettes which foretell the winter which will soon come with its gray skies and cold nights.
We have soaked in the glory of October this year. It has been a lovely respite flavored with seeing old friends and meeting another generation of cousins that we did not know. It has been lovely seeing those I have known for nearly half a century and that Klep has known all his life.
We have enjoyed eating at old favorite places like the Golden Dairy. Having supper with Wilma and Bruce at the Country Café and over in Bullsgap was fun. Being with friends when you can sit and talk for a couple of hours over a good meal is a true blessing. As always, we had new “finds” which will become tradition, especially The Jubilee Café near Surgoinsville. We will remember it not only for its good food, but for the joy of watching the birds as we lunched and sharing the story of the man who now runs it.
Our lives have been enhanced by the glory of music at the museum of the Appalachians, Music Junction, Bellamy’s Hardware, Heritage Days, and the Carter Fold where we enjoyed a West Virginia old mountain group and an auto harpist. We will miss the fiddles, the guitars, the mandolins, the banjos as we return to Florida.
We have reveled in the blessing of the creations of our Lord. We have worshipped the Creator as we marveled in his artwork which has changed daily.
Now, we will return to home base nostalgic over the change of the season but eager to know what will await us as we return to friends and family in Florida. November will be upon us with the promise of holidays and cozy evenings around the fire.
We have soaked in the glory of October this year. It has been a lovely respite flavored with seeing old friends and meeting another generation of cousins that we did not know. It has been lovely seeing those I have known for nearly half a century and that Klep has known all his life.
We have enjoyed eating at old favorite places like the Golden Dairy. Having supper with Wilma and Bruce at the Country Café and over in Bullsgap was fun. Being with friends when you can sit and talk for a couple of hours over a good meal is a true blessing. As always, we had new “finds” which will become tradition, especially The Jubilee Café near Surgoinsville. We will remember it not only for its good food, but for the joy of watching the birds as we lunched and sharing the story of the man who now runs it.
Our lives have been enhanced by the glory of music at the museum of the Appalachians, Music Junction, Bellamy’s Hardware, Heritage Days, and the Carter Fold where we enjoyed a West Virginia old mountain group and an auto harpist. We will miss the fiddles, the guitars, the mandolins, the banjos as we return to Florida.
We have reveled in the blessing of the creations of our Lord. We have worshipped the Creator as we marveled in his artwork which has changed daily.
Now, we will return to home base nostalgic over the change of the season but eager to know what will await us as we return to friends and family in Florida. November will be upon us with the promise of holidays and cozy evenings around the fire.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
October Mountain Ramble
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name….Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul.” What appropriate words appeared in our devotions early Sunday morning, October 25th before we set off on our ramble over Roan Mountain into North Carolina, back over Black Mountain and through Ashville, returning to Tennessee through some of the lesser used highways.
As we left the hollar, we shivered in the 38 degree coolness. A light frost added a silver sheen the green grass in the meadow. As we wound our way down the narrow road to state road seventy, we passed our neighbors horses who had found the only sun beam that had made its way over the mountain. Yellows, gold, and red leaves edged the road. The Pine Mountain beyond Hickory Cove Baptist Church was ablaze in splendor with the blue grass shining bright red at the foot of the hills by the houses which cling to the level land.
As we headed toward 11W, we passed the Devil’s nose which at long last was beginning to color up. One of the fields at the foot of the mountain had some newly baled hay. Tendrils of fog clung to the bales and looked like steam arising. We had intermittent fog clinging to the tops of trees as we turned toward Kingsport. When we approached rivers and streams, the valleys were shrouded in fog, looking like boiling pots. The top of Bays Mountain was shrouded in fog.
At Harmony, Tennessee we headed toward Roan Mountain which rolled toward the towering peaks before us. The town of Roan Mountain, Tennessee is set in a lovely little cove about 2500 feet above sea level. Nearing three thousand feet, we drove along a beautiful mountain stream. At 48 degrees outside, it was a little too cool for wading. Nearing the top of the mountain, about 5200 feet, we negotiated another hairpin curve and saw a beautiful young buck with six inch spikes standing regally by the road watching traffic.
At four thousand feet in elevation we lost the leaves and gained evergreens, some type of spruce. We topped the mountain at slightly less than six thousand feet and started heading back toward color. We found the autumn colors back at four thousand feet. As we neared the valley, we passed a field of cows with young calves frolicking in the cool weather.
We found a restaurant after we passed through Bakersville, North Carolina, Sallie’s Mountain View Restaurant where Klep enjoyed sirloin tips with mushroom sauce and I had chicken Cordon Bleu, both prepared by Sallie. They had a terrific trade Sunday and we could understand why. Our daily special dinner was topped off with slices of pie: peanut butter for Klep, black bottom for me.
Our next road was 226 which had signs warning that the road would worsen. It did. As we descended, the grade was quite sharp at times, but the leaf colors were beautiful as the trees met over the road. We paralled Coxes Creek for awhile and passed the Catawba River as we neared Marion, North Carolina “Where main street meets the mountains.” We were again facing mountains in front of us as we headed to Old Fort, North Carolina on US 70 which merged into I 40 as we climbed Black Mountain near Ridgecrest.
In Ashville we left the interstate at the highway 191 exit for the farmer’s market where we chose our apples to take home next week to Florida. We discovered an apple that we had never had before, Sun cCrisp, which is a hard apple with a really full flavor. We also got two of my favorite apples: Strawberry Rome Beauties and Jonagolds. Klep got him some parched peanuts to enjoy while porch sitting and I got some orange slice candy. We also got grandma some honey with the comb in it.
Traffic was backed up badly on I 26 because of a rockslide near the North Carolina-Tennessee border on I 40. We opted to return to Tennessee on US 70 which cuts west out of Weaverville. Highway 70 basically follows the French Broad River, but since the road has been improved, we did not get to see much of the river. We did pass numerous places which cater to rafters on the river.
Instead of going all the way to Newport, Tennessee, we exited on highway 208 where we saw several fishermen standing in the water fishing in the Little River. By four- thirty six we were back in Tennessee and headed down again. We passed the Nolichucky River and Dam and skirted Greenville before heading into Hawkins County. We were amazed by the traffic on I 81 as we crossed it. We came through the Romeo community and found our way to the Golden Dairy for a well deserved treat before heading to the Hollar House.
The hill was a burnished gold when we arrived at the house, a beautiful ending to a lovely ramble. We had traveled over two hundred and fifty miles, most of it on very winding roads at slow speed, the only way to appreciate the beauty that this season brings to Appalachia.
As we left the hollar, we shivered in the 38 degree coolness. A light frost added a silver sheen the green grass in the meadow. As we wound our way down the narrow road to state road seventy, we passed our neighbors horses who had found the only sun beam that had made its way over the mountain. Yellows, gold, and red leaves edged the road. The Pine Mountain beyond Hickory Cove Baptist Church was ablaze in splendor with the blue grass shining bright red at the foot of the hills by the houses which cling to the level land.
As we headed toward 11W, we passed the Devil’s nose which at long last was beginning to color up. One of the fields at the foot of the mountain had some newly baled hay. Tendrils of fog clung to the bales and looked like steam arising. We had intermittent fog clinging to the tops of trees as we turned toward Kingsport. When we approached rivers and streams, the valleys were shrouded in fog, looking like boiling pots. The top of Bays Mountain was shrouded in fog.
At Harmony, Tennessee we headed toward Roan Mountain which rolled toward the towering peaks before us. The town of Roan Mountain, Tennessee is set in a lovely little cove about 2500 feet above sea level. Nearing three thousand feet, we drove along a beautiful mountain stream. At 48 degrees outside, it was a little too cool for wading. Nearing the top of the mountain, about 5200 feet, we negotiated another hairpin curve and saw a beautiful young buck with six inch spikes standing regally by the road watching traffic.
At four thousand feet in elevation we lost the leaves and gained evergreens, some type of spruce. We topped the mountain at slightly less than six thousand feet and started heading back toward color. We found the autumn colors back at four thousand feet. As we neared the valley, we passed a field of cows with young calves frolicking in the cool weather.
We found a restaurant after we passed through Bakersville, North Carolina, Sallie’s Mountain View Restaurant where Klep enjoyed sirloin tips with mushroom sauce and I had chicken Cordon Bleu, both prepared by Sallie. They had a terrific trade Sunday and we could understand why. Our daily special dinner was topped off with slices of pie: peanut butter for Klep, black bottom for me.
Our next road was 226 which had signs warning that the road would worsen. It did. As we descended, the grade was quite sharp at times, but the leaf colors were beautiful as the trees met over the road. We paralled Coxes Creek for awhile and passed the Catawba River as we neared Marion, North Carolina “Where main street meets the mountains.” We were again facing mountains in front of us as we headed to Old Fort, North Carolina on US 70 which merged into I 40 as we climbed Black Mountain near Ridgecrest.
In Ashville we left the interstate at the highway 191 exit for the farmer’s market where we chose our apples to take home next week to Florida. We discovered an apple that we had never had before, Sun cCrisp, which is a hard apple with a really full flavor. We also got two of my favorite apples: Strawberry Rome Beauties and Jonagolds. Klep got him some parched peanuts to enjoy while porch sitting and I got some orange slice candy. We also got grandma some honey with the comb in it.
Traffic was backed up badly on I 26 because of a rockslide near the North Carolina-Tennessee border on I 40. We opted to return to Tennessee on US 70 which cuts west out of Weaverville. Highway 70 basically follows the French Broad River, but since the road has been improved, we did not get to see much of the river. We did pass numerous places which cater to rafters on the river.
Instead of going all the way to Newport, Tennessee, we exited on highway 208 where we saw several fishermen standing in the water fishing in the Little River. By four- thirty six we were back in Tennessee and headed down again. We passed the Nolichucky River and Dam and skirted Greenville before heading into Hawkins County. We were amazed by the traffic on I 81 as we crossed it. We came through the Romeo community and found our way to the Golden Dairy for a well deserved treat before heading to the Hollar House.
The hill was a burnished gold when we arrived at the house, a beautiful ending to a lovely ramble. We had traveled over two hundred and fifty miles, most of it on very winding roads at slow speed, the only way to appreciate the beauty that this season brings to Appalachia.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Spices, Pumpkin, and Cool Autumn Air
My yankee friends laugh over the fuss we native Southenors make over the first cool snap of the fall. they scoff when we drag out sweaters when the temperature dips below sixtie. My friends who share my heritage understand completely. They know that whenever that morning arrives with the zip in the air, it is time to pull out the spices and think about baking something.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
South Carolina
My brother married while we were still undergraduates. His wife was a cute, pixie graduate student from Davenport, Iowa with flashing brown eyes and about as opinionated as the rest of us were. She was, as was the fashion in the early sixties of those of us tasting the heady life of academia, quite liberal. She found many of the things here in the deep south barbaric. One of the things she said during one of our early conversations was that she could never, ever live in South Carolina or Mississippi. Now this statement did not particularly bother me because at that time I had never been in either state and my knowledge of the two states was limited to what I knew about them historically and from the CBS evening news. We, of course, had no other networks available either at our parent's house or on campus. Several years later, after I had driven through South Carolina a couple of times and spent several days there, I had a little clearer view of the state.
While we were in Japan, we had a new couple from Utah join the Inspector General team. Since they were young and were assigned to Green Park Housing those of us who also lived there were responsible for welcoming them, inviting them to dinner, and helping them settle in. The several couples of us gathered for the dinner and of course the conversation was lively as usual. Charlotte, the newcomer, was sharing her background and opinions. It seems that she had gone to the University of South Carolina as a drama major and was an expert on all things southern. She made the statement that all Southerners were decadent and that education in the south was nonexistent. Those of us, the majority of the group, of course took issue with her statement, but kept our true reactions somewhat muted, being southern and having been reared to mind our manners. We did wonder why she would have remained at some hick college to get her degree if it were so bad, but did not engage her in any lengthy debate over the issue.
South Carolina still gets a little of this treatment. People are still snickering about the governor and his mistress from Argentina. Of course there are enough scandals above the Mason Dixon line to balance out whatever ridiculousness we may find in the South Carolina state house.
Anyway, my knowledge of South Carolina and my experiences in South Carolina have vastly increased since I defended her honor to Charlotte back in 1971. At that time I had no idea that parts of my family had lived in South Carolina. My mother's Grandfather Jackson came from upstate South Carolina to Hamilton County Florida in 1848. Her Great Great Grandfather Law immigrated to America through Charleston sometime in the seventeen hundreds, coming from Barbados. He then went into Liberty County Georgia where the family lived until they settled in Hamilton County about as soon as Andrew Jackson cleared the natives out.
Out first trip to South Carolina came as Klep and I began our move from Valdosta to Tokyo in 1968. We had been married less than a year when we packed out our household goods and spent a month visiting and traveling. Klep spent a couple of years during his teens near Walterboro, South Carolina on a plantation where his dad worked as a herdsman in charge of the owner's prize Angus cattle. Klep loved the experience, but his mother never adapted to being away from the hills of east Tennessee. In addition to the changes in climate, the mosquitos were a bane on her existence. So, after a couple of years in the lowlands, they moved back near Rogersville where he finished high school. Anyway, he wanted to share the area with me, so we took a couple of days in late April. We toured Cypress Gardens and Middleton Plantation, and some other places. We drove over to Hilton Head which was in the early stages of development, and we had one particularly lovely luncheon looking out at the water near the Hilton Head bridge where we had shrimp Louis. We enjoyed the experience of drifting under moss laden trees with azaleas blooming all around us at Cypress Gardens. We marveled at the formal gardens and the English atmosphere of Middleton Gardens.
Years later we returned to the area with the boys, but we spent more time in motel swimming pools and at outlet shops on that trip than at gardens.
In the nineties we spent a lovely week in the historic district of Charleston. To use Pat Conroy's title, we spent a week South of Broad. Our morning walks took us around the battery. I spent my days browsing through antique stores on King Street, marveling at the prices, and at the old market watching the Gullah women weaving baskets and soaking in the atmosphere. We ate she crab soup and other good sea food, walked around, and listened for the bells on the hour from St. John's.
Now we find ourselves in South Carolina quite often because our youngest son and his family live in the upcountry. We have fallen in love with this region, the rolling hills, the pleasant weather most of the year, and the variety of activities which are there. Of course, for us, the main attraction are the two lovely little girls who call us Nana and Papa.
I wonder if Karen, my sister in law, ever changed her mind about South Carolina. I hope so. After all, her daughter did her pharmacy residency at the medical College of South Carolina in Charleston. In fact we had a lovely visit with her while she was there. I don't care if Charlotte Freeman changed her opinion. She isn't and never has been on my Christmas card list, anyway.
While we were in Japan, we had a new couple from Utah join the Inspector General team. Since they were young and were assigned to Green Park Housing those of us who also lived there were responsible for welcoming them, inviting them to dinner, and helping them settle in. The several couples of us gathered for the dinner and of course the conversation was lively as usual. Charlotte, the newcomer, was sharing her background and opinions. It seems that she had gone to the University of South Carolina as a drama major and was an expert on all things southern. She made the statement that all Southerners were decadent and that education in the south was nonexistent. Those of us, the majority of the group, of course took issue with her statement, but kept our true reactions somewhat muted, being southern and having been reared to mind our manners. We did wonder why she would have remained at some hick college to get her degree if it were so bad, but did not engage her in any lengthy debate over the issue.
South Carolina still gets a little of this treatment. People are still snickering about the governor and his mistress from Argentina. Of course there are enough scandals above the Mason Dixon line to balance out whatever ridiculousness we may find in the South Carolina state house.
Anyway, my knowledge of South Carolina and my experiences in South Carolina have vastly increased since I defended her honor to Charlotte back in 1971. At that time I had no idea that parts of my family had lived in South Carolina. My mother's Grandfather Jackson came from upstate South Carolina to Hamilton County Florida in 1848. Her Great Great Grandfather Law immigrated to America through Charleston sometime in the seventeen hundreds, coming from Barbados. He then went into Liberty County Georgia where the family lived until they settled in Hamilton County about as soon as Andrew Jackson cleared the natives out.
Out first trip to South Carolina came as Klep and I began our move from Valdosta to Tokyo in 1968. We had been married less than a year when we packed out our household goods and spent a month visiting and traveling. Klep spent a couple of years during his teens near Walterboro, South Carolina on a plantation where his dad worked as a herdsman in charge of the owner's prize Angus cattle. Klep loved the experience, but his mother never adapted to being away from the hills of east Tennessee. In addition to the changes in climate, the mosquitos were a bane on her existence. So, after a couple of years in the lowlands, they moved back near Rogersville where he finished high school. Anyway, he wanted to share the area with me, so we took a couple of days in late April. We toured Cypress Gardens and Middleton Plantation, and some other places. We drove over to Hilton Head which was in the early stages of development, and we had one particularly lovely luncheon looking out at the water near the Hilton Head bridge where we had shrimp Louis. We enjoyed the experience of drifting under moss laden trees with azaleas blooming all around us at Cypress Gardens. We marveled at the formal gardens and the English atmosphere of Middleton Gardens.
Years later we returned to the area with the boys, but we spent more time in motel swimming pools and at outlet shops on that trip than at gardens.
In the nineties we spent a lovely week in the historic district of Charleston. To use Pat Conroy's title, we spent a week South of Broad. Our morning walks took us around the battery. I spent my days browsing through antique stores on King Street, marveling at the prices, and at the old market watching the Gullah women weaving baskets and soaking in the atmosphere. We ate she crab soup and other good sea food, walked around, and listened for the bells on the hour from St. John's.
Now we find ourselves in South Carolina quite often because our youngest son and his family live in the upcountry. We have fallen in love with this region, the rolling hills, the pleasant weather most of the year, and the variety of activities which are there. Of course, for us, the main attraction are the two lovely little girls who call us Nana and Papa.
I wonder if Karen, my sister in law, ever changed her mind about South Carolina. I hope so. After all, her daughter did her pharmacy residency at the medical College of South Carolina in Charleston. In fact we had a lovely visit with her while she was there. I don't care if Charlotte Freeman changed her opinion. She isn't and never has been on my Christmas card list, anyway.
Friday, August 14, 2009
August Memories
August is nearing the halfway mark. We have yet to taste the cool morning air that will arrive with the end of the month hinting that fall is a possibility. Right now we are in those days when the breezes are few and the air has the heaviness of full Southern Summer. I have a particular fondness for this last full month of the season. Many of my memory pages are full of pleasant August times when we had the last free weeks before returning to school.
I grew up on a farm. More specifically, I grew up on a farm where the main cash crop was bright leaf tobacco. That meant, briefly, that the tobacco plants required our attention from the time the seeds were sown in the bed over Christmas until the last leaf came off the sticks and was hauled off to the market in early August. What with the setting out, and the howing and the dusting and the suckering and the cropping and the stringing and the hanging in the barn and the curing and the removing from the barn and the packing down and the taking off the sticks, our lives were a little busy during the first six to seven weeks of summer. Things gradually modernized with tobacco after I escaped it, but during the fifties, crews of kids with a few adults harvested tobacco. It was long, hot, nasty work, but all the memories are not grim ones. I especially enjoyed working on other farms. After about six hours of work, we would break for noon. We were fed well, and we enjoyed each others company during the couple of hours off. It was then back to the barn or field for another four or five hours. After the last stick was hung in the barn, we would load into the farmer's truck and head for home.
My best camping memory is of a time we got to go to Lake Winfield Scott with my Aunt Jennie and Uncle Henry and their girls. Tobacco season was over and our parents let us ride up to Atlanta on the train. This in itself was a major event. We took with us a shoebox full of fried chicken and other food to eat on the way. Mama took us to Valdosta to catch the train. It was my first time riding a train and it started a lifelong love of travel that way. I must have been about twelve at the time. All our other trips to the city had been either on a Greyhound bus or in our 1946 maroon colored Ford coupe. I remember falling into conversation with a woman about Blue Springs. Our Uncle Henry picked us up at the train station and whisked up out to Winona Drive in Decatur. Over the weekend we packed up and went camping, sleeping overnight in pup tents. We had Spanish rice cooked over the open fire for supper. I still remember swimming in the cool lake waters and playing in a little pebble lined stream. The next day we went for a hike among other things. It was a fine time.
Other memories crowd the scrapbook of my mind: our vacation up through the New River area of West Virginia when we took the boys white water rafting; our trip to Canada and back through New Hampshire and down to Concord where we saw so many of the sights around our America writers; our trip back to Minot and down through Yellowstone and Colorado; our trips to Amelia Island to the beach as the boys got older.
Since we met in one August and married in the next, many of our flashes of memory surround wedding and anniversary events. Until our fifteenth anniversary, it was a tradition that Klep bring me a dozen Margarete daisies for each year of our marriage. The boys enjoyed this, but there finally came a time when there weren't enough vases in the house nor table tops to accommodate the daisies, so we retired the tradition.
Perhaps the sweetest memories of August for me are those which return to the days when I was eight or nine years old. I can still remember the sights and sounds of the magic evenings in late summer before We would have to be in bed early for school. I can feel the cool I found sitting under the draping jasmine or the wisteria vines after the dew had fallen and just watching the light leave the sky. There was magic and possibility all around. Freedom and imagination were ours for a few more precious days. It was long before the days of daylight saving time and we could be up until there was a moon in the sky and we could say "I see the moon and the moon sees me; God bless the moon and God bless me!"
The magic of August is still with me. Tonight if the skies clear, I will go out and talk to the August moon again.
I grew up on a farm. More specifically, I grew up on a farm where the main cash crop was bright leaf tobacco. That meant, briefly, that the tobacco plants required our attention from the time the seeds were sown in the bed over Christmas until the last leaf came off the sticks and was hauled off to the market in early August. What with the setting out, and the howing and the dusting and the suckering and the cropping and the stringing and the hanging in the barn and the curing and the removing from the barn and the packing down and the taking off the sticks, our lives were a little busy during the first six to seven weeks of summer. Things gradually modernized with tobacco after I escaped it, but during the fifties, crews of kids with a few adults harvested tobacco. It was long, hot, nasty work, but all the memories are not grim ones. I especially enjoyed working on other farms. After about six hours of work, we would break for noon. We were fed well, and we enjoyed each others company during the couple of hours off. It was then back to the barn or field for another four or five hours. After the last stick was hung in the barn, we would load into the farmer's truck and head for home.
My best camping memory is of a time we got to go to Lake Winfield Scott with my Aunt Jennie and Uncle Henry and their girls. Tobacco season was over and our parents let us ride up to Atlanta on the train. This in itself was a major event. We took with us a shoebox full of fried chicken and other food to eat on the way. Mama took us to Valdosta to catch the train. It was my first time riding a train and it started a lifelong love of travel that way. I must have been about twelve at the time. All our other trips to the city had been either on a Greyhound bus or in our 1946 maroon colored Ford coupe. I remember falling into conversation with a woman about Blue Springs. Our Uncle Henry picked us up at the train station and whisked up out to Winona Drive in Decatur. Over the weekend we packed up and went camping, sleeping overnight in pup tents. We had Spanish rice cooked over the open fire for supper. I still remember swimming in the cool lake waters and playing in a little pebble lined stream. The next day we went for a hike among other things. It was a fine time.
Other memories crowd the scrapbook of my mind: our vacation up through the New River area of West Virginia when we took the boys white water rafting; our trip to Canada and back through New Hampshire and down to Concord where we saw so many of the sights around our America writers; our trip back to Minot and down through Yellowstone and Colorado; our trips to Amelia Island to the beach as the boys got older.
Since we met in one August and married in the next, many of our flashes of memory surround wedding and anniversary events. Until our fifteenth anniversary, it was a tradition that Klep bring me a dozen Margarete daisies for each year of our marriage. The boys enjoyed this, but there finally came a time when there weren't enough vases in the house nor table tops to accommodate the daisies, so we retired the tradition.
Perhaps the sweetest memories of August for me are those which return to the days when I was eight or nine years old. I can still remember the sights and sounds of the magic evenings in late summer before We would have to be in bed early for school. I can feel the cool I found sitting under the draping jasmine or the wisteria vines after the dew had fallen and just watching the light leave the sky. There was magic and possibility all around. Freedom and imagination were ours for a few more precious days. It was long before the days of daylight saving time and we could be up until there was a moon in the sky and we could say "I see the moon and the moon sees me; God bless the moon and God bless me!"
The magic of August is still with me. Tonight if the skies clear, I will go out and talk to the August moon again.
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