Faith, Folklore, and Friends

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.

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filet gumbo                   Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio.                    Pick guitar fill fruit jar and be gay-o                                    Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou. These are lyrics from Hank Williams' song, Jambalaya .  Where I came from, everybody loved Hank and for years thought his death had somehow cheated them.   Jambalaya was #1 on the Billboard country chart on September 6, 1952, not long before Hank's passing. We sang it for years afterwards. We didn't have a clue what those words (except fruit jar) meant; the bayou could have been on the moon as far as we knew. But we sang it anyway, just because it was a catchy tune and what was good enough for Hank was good enough for us. More than half a century...