Faith, Folklore, and Friends

One of my favorite things about the south is the Spanish moss that grows everywhere near the Gulf Coast and the southern Atlantic coast. The photo above is from Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia.   Spanish moss doesn't grow here in Northwest Alabama, but traveling south through Alabama, you can begin to see it long before you get to the coast. The photos below were made at Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama. I was totally fascinated by Spanish moss the first time I saw it on a trip to Florida. At a rest stop, I collected a handful of it, hoping to start some on our trees when we got home.  I stored it carefully in a zip-lock bag.  When we got back home and unpacked it, the bag was full of tiny bugs, which brings me to this story. One of our tour guides in Savannah told us that the origin of the saying, don't let the bedbugs bite , came from people stuffing their mattresses with Spanish moss back in the day before we bought mattresses.  I c...

Yesterday was the last Music in the Park for this summer.  It was a beautiful day, not hot at all for late June.  There were approximately 850 people there, but it is hard to be accurate when people are coming and going all the time. Our fearless leader, Mike Adams . He and some others do a fantastic job with Music in the Park every summer. The musical performer was Grammy winning artist, Gary Nichols .  He didn't disappoint, but then, he never does. There will be a fall series of Music in the Park  on Wednesdays in October. See you there!

It was a perfect day for music in beautiful Wilson Park.   I'm so happy I got to be there. Music in the Park is every Wednesday during May and June, from 11:30 to 1:30.  Great entertainment, and its free!  Thanks, Florence Parks and Recreation.

Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama, is huge and ancient.  It is more than a cemetery; it is a history lesson, a museum full of art. A soul could spend the day here and not be able read all the epitaphs and dates and endearments carved in marble. Selma has several museums, old Victorian houses downtown, and the Edmund Pettus bridge made famous in 1965 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.  Lots to do there if you go, but don't miss Live Oak Cemetery.

The bones of Hank Williams and his wife, Audrey, rest in beautiful Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama.  Some say that late at night here, if you listen closely, you can hear the call of a whippoorwill.  You may even hear a faraway train whistle, the sound that made Hank so lonesome he cried.  In the fall, we sleep with the windows up, and we can clearly hear the ten o'clock freight train's whistle as it crosses Cox Creek Parkway.  I think about Hank every time I hear it.