Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Wouldn't it be nice to stick our feet in a cold mountain stream on a day like today? Wading a cold creek on a hot day is the best way to cool off.   Some of us, however, don't have a lovely creek in the backyard to wade in.   Next best thing: soak your feet in a dishpan or tub of cold water. Keeping your feet in cold water for just a few minutes will cool you all over.   I don't know how this works exactly; I do know that our feet have more than 250,000 sweat glands each, so that probably has something to do with it. If you must go outside, a wet washcloth on the back of your neck works wonders, too. Hang in there.  The weatherman has promised cooler weather next week with temps staying under a hundred.

Things I am most thankful for today:     Air conditioning      An inside job       Good, cool water         A backyard, although crispy, that is not on fire.

 I know what you're thinking. Since I have been posting about Cades' Cove all week, it is only natural that you would think this scene is right out of a lovely mountain meadow. Or maybe it could be from some of the hiking trails near the Smoky Mountain National Park Greenbrier entrance, one of our favorite hiking places. Actually, it is near the Greenview Cemetery, about 1/4 mile from our house in beautiful, steamy North Alabama.  Beauty is everywhere.  We just have to open our eyes and take time to look.

If These Walls Could Speak  by Jimmy Webb If these old walls, if these old walls could speak. What a tale they have to tell, hard headed people raisin' hell. A couple in love livin' week to week. Rooms full of laughter, if these old walls could speak. If these old halls, if hallowed halls could talk. These would have a tale to tell, the sun goin' down and dinner bells. And children playin' at hide and seek. From floor to rafters, if these old walls could speak. If these old fashion window panes had eyes. I guess they would have seen it all. Each little tear and silence step fall. And every dream that we came to seek, And followed after, if these old walls could speak. They would tell you that I owe you, More that I could ever pay. Here's someone who really loves you, Don't ever go away. That's what these walls would say. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pC_w58Xys

The John Oliver Cabin in Cades Cove is the typical mountain cabin: made from logs with a fireplace and a sleeping area in the attic.  John and his wife were some of the first white settlers to the area, and would have starved the first winter without help from the Cherokee who lived there.  The couple had nine children (two died as infants) and raised them in this cabin. The very knowledgeable volunteer ranger counted off nine of us in the small area (the whole house was smaller than our living room) and asked us to imagine living there.  He explained that the cabin was for sleeping and storage; everything else was done outside. And who wouldn't want to stay outside, when your front yard looks like this? One of the ladies in the crowd asked the ranger, "How in the world did they have that many children in this crowded cabin with no privacy?" The ranger sheepishly smiled and said, "Pretty much the same way we do it today."

Most of you know that the Smoky Mountain National Park is my favorite place on Earth to be.  We have been countless times, but we never run out of fun things to do.   Last week, we were in the Smokies for six days, and still didn't get to visit all the places we wanted to see.  We did a lot of hiking, lingering, and listening.  Y'all know you are going to hear more about this, right? We got home Friday afternoon, and yesterday afternoon, I spent some time planning our next trip over to East Tennessee/North Carolina.  I'm teaching in July, so I will have to stay home then.  Hopefully, I'll be canning tomatoes and vegetable soup during July, too. Life is so full and good. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

We grow green beans every year.  Rattlesnake is our favorite because they seem to last longer after the intense heat of July and August gets here.  We stake them on tepees of bamboo poles. This year, we have had some good rain at good times so we have lots of beans.  LOTS of beans. I usually break the beans with a novel being read to me from a CD.   It is mindless work, so I can pay attention to the story.  I was finished with this batch by the time one CD was finished. This batch produced fifteen pints of green beans.  I use pints when it is just the two of us; I can quarts for nights we have company for supper. Doesn't that look good?  I canned these on Monday of last week.  Last Thursday, I canned six quarts. I haven't picked them since then, so I know the vines are going to be full when I venture back out there.  A bowl of green beans at Thanksgiving dinner is as much a staple at our house as dressing...

Tonight at 6:09 CDT, the Summer Solstice will begin.  This will be the longest day and the shortest night of the whole year.  Summer officially begins, and what's not to love about summer? We have fresh food from out gardens and flowers are blooming.  There is not so much laundry since we don't have to wear three layers of clothing.  School is out and we can wade in the creeks.  There are weddings and festivals and vacations and daylight 'til bedtime.  And, of course, lightning bugs! Oh, and watermelon!  Tomato sandwiches...I could go on and on. My youngest son spent one summer in Alaska and saw how the solstice was celebrated there.  He had trouble sleeping because it was always daylight...just weird, he said.  He did enjoy the Solstice parties with grilled moose burgers. Heat doesn't bother me....anything below eighty seems a little chilly to me.  So, I'm ready.  This is going to be the BEST SUMMER...

Old chair bought at Zip City Auction:  $2 Yellow paint left over from our kitchen update: Free Green pot found on the side of the road:  Free Plants from Lowe's: ~$5 Wreath from Loaves and Fishes Thrift Store:  $1.50 Having this on my front porch: Priceless

Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.~ C.S. Lewis This is the week-end, kind friend, the time to search for new adventures and make some memories.  Don't let this day end without making it one to remember!

There are those among us who think I'm a little touched in the head because I love to can food. I don't know where this comes from; perhaps a primordial instinct somewhere in that part of the brain we don't understand to store food for the winter? Usually, I don't do things the hard way if there is an easier option.  But I just love canning.   It's much easier now than when we were children.  Mama felt herself a failure if she didn't have a room full of stored food.  She canned all the fruits and vegetables until she finally got a huge chest freezer.  We thought we had died and gone to heaven when we could just put that corn in bags instead of canning it over a hot stove.  It also meant we didn't have to wash canning jars that were brought up from the storm house, full of spider webs and dead bugs and unknown objects.  Sometimes, a lid would have rusted on the jar, which had to be removed and the rust scrubbed off so the jar was suitable...

Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Luke 12:27

The following story about Railroad Bill was told and written by Kathryn Tucker Windham in her book Alabama: One Big Front Porch .  I love her stories and wanted to share one with y'all. Somehow nobody can tell a story about Brewton, Alabama, without at least mentioning Railroad Bill.  He didn't have anything to do with courthouses or with cats--unless you believe the tales they tell down in south Alabama about how Railroad Bill could change himself into a cur dog or a fox or a sheep or even a cat when the law got too close to him. Railroad Bill started running from the law when he and a deputy sheriff had a misunderstanding about a Winchester rifle Bill owned, and Bill wounded the deputy with the gun.  Bill caught a freight train to take him away from the place.  Riding freight trains got to be a habit with Bill.  So did stealing from them. He'd break open a boxcar while the L&N freight train (Bill was partial to the L&N) was lickety-splitting al...

My hero, Kathryn Tucker Windham, died one year ago today.  She had just turned 93. What a loss for me, the whole state of Alabama, and storytellers everywhere! Mrs. Windham was in her late eighties when I met her, but I had been a fan of her books for many years before that.  She came to UNA for a program a few years ago.  Some said she wouldn't draw a crowd, but they were so wrong.  My granddaughters, one in kindergarten and the other in fourth grade at the time, went with their friends to the performance, and they all loved her.  After she finished telling stories, Mrs. Windham sat for hours and signed her books for everyone who wanted her to.  My granddaughters treasure their signed books, even more so since she has passed away. When we sat on the porch on the hot summer nights of my youth, hoping to catch any stray breeze that happened by, we listened to Daddy tell stories.  Some of them he told so often, we could repeat them almost...

When we were house hunting ten years ago, the two huge trees in the backyard were what I liked best about this house.  One a poplar and the other scaly-bark hickory, they have shaded our deck and provided a habitat for birds, squirrels, and lots of insects.  I have no way of dating them, other than comparing them to similar trees in the area that are more than a century old. Two years ago in July, during an insignificant thunderstorm,  the poplar was struck by lightning, which burned a strip from the bottom to almost the top of the tree, in addition to scaring at least ten years off my life. We removed the fried television sets and computers and repaired the rest.  The tree looked fine. Then, last year, I went out to the backyard to see this huge fungus growing about eye level.  Fungi, of course, will not grow on living tissue, so my heart fell to my stomach and I feared for that tree. Last year, a few limbs didn't get leaves in the spring....

Quite frequently, I hear the lament that people are meaner today than they have ever been.  Do you agree?  Or, maybe it's just that we are bombarded with this meanness on the Internet and television.  Can you remember when the nightly news could be broadcast without copious cleavage? People were pretty much the same a hundred years ago as they are now.  There was some lingering morality then, so perhaps many just didn't parade their sin like they do now.  Or, maybe they did. Or, maybe they were just misunderstood. The following snippets are from a local newspaper from a while back. Caleb FRY, a crazy man from Winston county, hanged himself with hickory bark near Cullman a few days ago. He had been carried to the Insane Asylum, but Dr. Bryce refused to receive him because he was not insane. ( 7 Jun 1883 Moulton Advertiser) A Brutal Act One Bob CORNELIUS, who has been working for Mr. R.J. STEPHENSON near Danville, for three years or more, and who marr...

If you haven't been to the grocery store this week, here's an ad for you. Actually, this ad is from the 1930s for a local grocery store.  I found it in Sweetwater: The Story of East Florence by William Lindsey McDonald. The thing I found most strange was the 1/2 cent on some of the items, such as their 10 cent napkins at only 7 1/2 cents.  I would be so happy to pay 17 1/2 cents for a whole pound of cream cheese. Ten pounds of potatoes was the same price as a pound of bacon.  A dozen apples were 12 cents, compared to a can of peaches for 15 cents. I know what our fruit would have been that week. The best thing about this ad is the promise to have these groceries delivered to your kitchen.  People then  must not have been as picky as we are now.  I think I could live with whatever the grocer picked out for me just to keep from going  to the store.

We are told that God never changes, but the way we worship and the teachers/preachers certainly do change.  I love reading about the preachers who made such a difference as our country was being settled.  One of these was Sam P. Jones. Jones was an alcoholic lawyer who became a Christian.  Later, he was an evangelist (revivalist) who led crusades all over the country. The following excerpt from the book, Life and Saying of Sam P. Jones by Mrs. Sam P. Jones, tells of a revival in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1884. At Chattanooga he (Sam Jones) held one of the strangest and most peculiar, yet powerful meetings in his life.  Dr. G.C. Rankin, who was pastor of the old Market Street church, tried to get the ministers of the other denominations to join him in an invitation to Mr. Jones for a union revival.  Not one of them was willing to enter into such an arrangement; then Dr. Rankin invited him to hold the meeting in his church.    ...

                                                                                           National Geographic Photo God is not an employer looking for employees.        He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings.                He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus. ― John Piper , A S...

The few cabbage plants we planted this year did very well.  We have had lots of slaw and fried cabbage, but there was no way we could eat all that cabbage before it spoiled.  I made 24 pints of kraut to have after the garden is long gone. My mom always canned lots of kraut.  It was a good source of vitamin C when we didn't have any fresh vegetables from the garden.  On special nights, it had sausage or hot dogs in it. Grandma has a huge kraut cutter someone had made that fit perfectly over a wash tub.  So when the cabbage was ready, Mama would take all of us to Grandma's for a kraut making day.  We took turns running the cabbage over the blade of the kraut cutter, and the big tub filled up pretty quickly.  When half or more of the cabbage was shredded, some of us would go inside for the canning part. The shredded cabbage was packed in sterilized quart jars.  A little canning salt was added, then boiling water was poured over it until it w...