Faith, Folklore, and Friends

I have to admit that summer in the South isn't perfect. There are the numerous snakes, gnats, mosquitoes, and other UFO's that plague us during these sultry months. One of the nastiest ones, chiggers, can't be seen with the naked eye, which is probably a good thing. If they were as big as an ant, it would surely mean instant death to anything they were able to climb on and sink into. My siblings and I spent every warm day of our youth playing outside, in the woods and fields, usually barefooted. We all had chigger bites from the time school ended until the cold weather ran them back in the ground. Sometimes, our brown naked legs would look like the Appalachian foothills on a miniature scale. The beautiful butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa , grows wild in our area. I have always loved it but we were afraid to get near it because it was also a favorite of chiggers. Its common name in this area is chigger weed, so I guess my mom was right when she warned us to stay away from ...

My friend, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, the Belle of All Things Southern, had a cute story about river baptizing in her "All Things Southern" newsletter this week (allthingssouthern.com). It got me to thinking about some baptisms that I witnessed in my long-gone and wasted youth. We were not a church-going family on a regular basis, but we did go occasionally for strictly social purposes. I was a pure heathen; church to me was a totally fun event that was temporarily interrupted by a sermon. Most of this church going took place in the summer, when annual revival meetings where held. This summer-time holiness tradition began before the days of cars and pickup trucks, when people walked or rode wagons to church. It had to be after the crops were laid by. In the little church we randomly attended, you didn't mess with tradition. Some years, a large tent would be erected in a pasture nearby for those who wouldn't be caught dead near a church house. A visiting evange...

It was a different world. The people living in North Alabama in the late thirties lived simply. Working without ceasing, they had little time or opportunity to keep up with world affairs. When they began hearing talk, sometimes weeks old, about fighting in Europe, about a crazed Nazi killing innocent people, they agreed it was awful, terrible, but it had little to do with them. When the news came that the Japanese had bombed the naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Pacific, a place as far removed as the moon to them, they wondered what they would hear next, wondered if this evil could reach their sleepy little river town. Roy Robertson, 28 years old, was content with his life on the small farm. He and Mary Elizabeth Sharp were married in 1939, and he and his young wife were building their future, starting their journey together. He had just finished his spring planting when he was drafted in June 1942. He reported to Fort McClellan, Alabama, for his basic training. A strong ma...

What a way to spend the weekend--listening to stories surrounded by spring on the South's most beautiful campus!