Public school report cards were a kind of nemesis for some of us. They were tell-tell evidence of our achievement — or lack thereof — and your parents had to sign them to confirm their having seen same. The grade portion was quite to the point of how you made the grade utilizing the A to F scale. On the back was a small amount of space for each six-week grading period for the teacher to make her or his comments. I frequently received the familiar notice that I needed to “apply myself more”. […]
Peculiar Gardners
Gardeners are a peculiar lot who, like their gardens, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. First-rate gardeners produce bushels of veggies each year; others put a tomato plant in the flower bed and call it a garden. During the heart of winter, the full-bloodied gardener is already imagining the produce, while turning the good earth in preparation for that day when the seed can be planted. There is a time to sow, and the true gardener can’t wait for that day to dawn. What is it that attracts some people to this horticultural endeavor? […]
Whistling Dixie
On a recent journey through eastern North Carolina, I spied this rather large Confederate flag planted in front of a tomb in a cemetery beside a country church. The stars and bars were gently flowing in the summer breeze, creating the only movement under the large oaks covering the burial places and recreating a momentary motion that we once thought was gone with the wind. I wondered out loud: When did Dixie die? Else what is she doing in this graveyard among the dead? Did someone finally do her wrong and do her in? There’s a song somewhere about […]
A Little Church in the Wildwood
There’s a church in the valley in the wildwood No lovelier place in the dell No spot is so dear to my childhood As the little brown church in the dell Most old-timers will recall with great fondness these words of an old gospel song. There was such a church that was dear to my childhood in the middle of Mississippi called the Chapel of the Cross. Built by slaves in the 1850’s, it was part of Annandale Plantation, just across the road from my people’s home place. It’s Gothic Revival architecture drew heavily from 14th-century English country churches. It had […]