Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Sooooo, I'm just wondering how this got started.  My parents, even without the Weather Channel, always acknowledged it, and  hated the days the sun was out to make the groundhog's shadow. For most of the country, how hard is to to imagine winter lasting through the middle of March?  Even here in North Alabama, March sometimes brings snow and cold winds and gray, miserable days. Groundhog's Day is not a national holiday, but it appears on every calendar I checked.  It is cloudy here now, with predictions of big storms later today. Try and make it a good day, in spite of groundhogs and pending storms.

Monday and Tuesday were stormy here and all across the south.  We had much destruction just twenty miles from our home, but we were safe with no damage. Ten of us gathered in our basement and watched the Weather Channel and Huntsville stations that had continuous weather coverage.   We saw a tornado sweep down on Tupelo, Mississippi. We prayed and watched in horror as the twister sped through the city. Tupelo is about ninety miles from here.  Today, the people there are recovering and making plans to rebuild. My parents lived through the massive tornado outbreak  that leveled Tupelo in 1936.  We heard about it just about every time there was a storm when I was growing up.  Mama would look at the storm clouds and compare them to the ones "the day that Tupelo got blown away".  I found this clip of the 1936 storm on the Internet; I don't know who to credit for making this video. Storms are a part of life in the South.  We are thankful ...

Grand Turk is a small island (6.9 sq. miles) with beautiful beaches.  It was colonized in 1681 by Bermudians who set up a salt industry there. The pond at the top right of the photo is still being used to harvest salt from seawater.  The population is less than four thousand.  Like every island I have ever visited, they claim that Columbus stopped there first when he discovered America.   Steph, this one is for you.   In 1962, the whole world heard about Grand Turk, for it was near here that John Glenn splashed down after his history-making space flight.  The island has a replica of the Friendship 7   and John Glenn on display. There is the omnipresent Margaritaville on the beach, thanks to Carnival and Jimmy Buffett, where you can buy $40 t-shirts or stay dry during sudden rain showers.   The only time I hear Grand Turk mentioned now is on the Weather Channel.  The...