Stetson Men

He was a hat man from another time
of gentlemen and southern chivalry
saying grace before he dined
standing upon the entrance of a lady
working the garden til dark
in bed by eight o'clock
up by five for the field to part
only for dinner making a stop
He knew all the plants by name
Just what they needed to grow
All the many friends the same
Words of love and comfort he knew
The Stetson rarely worn today
Men mostly sit when ladies enter
I miss the old way
Calloused hands so tender.

Assumptions

We make the assumption
that everyone would know
the making of syrup
and how around the
mill would always go
but to eyes untrained
it looks but a LOL
as they don't know how
despite all the many words
and photographs shared
but a comedy of errors.
We laughed out loud we did
We made the assumption
it would never end
but it did
and now I post these
memories
and all people can do
is laugh out loud
as inside
I cry.

Black Friday

It is rather pleasant in a way, not the unemployment, which is disconcerting, but not having today to be part of frenzy of  Black Friday. For years, there I would be, wanting to be back in Crawfordville with family enjoying the fire and the making of syrup, visiting with loved ones. But we would have to pack Thursday and journey back, me rising early, early for the opening. And now, stores are opening in the evening of Thanksgiving, some never closing.
I do not in any manner miss this. Especially bad was the six years working at Sears and being on Commission, knowing there were only so many registers, and a boat load of associates wanting to ring on those registers, getting or hogging the sales. The resentment, the jostling, oh the memory!
Penney's was just as bad, being in management, never expecting to go home, working twelve hour days and longer.
Poverty has its reward I suppose.

In Perfect Time

Yes, beneath palm,pine and hammock oak
a gathering of some very fine folks
I see them yet on this Thanksgiving day
the unbroken circle around the upright listening
to Norma and Vera play
the children now grown with their own
singing the old, old songs
in their heart today carrying on
in the passing of years gathering still
some around the camp fire, others on the Orange Hill
A great cloud of witness forever growing
The songs of glory all now knowing
The gruff old hunters lingering near
With trigger finger wiping away the tear
Softly and tenderly listening
From deep beyond Bottle Spring singing
Letting the old buck pass on for
JP,Chubby, Wardell or Acree to take
For today all along the old Main Line
All gather in the Unbroken Circle in perfect time.

We gather together

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing,
He chastens and hastens Hill will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning,
Thou, Lord, wast at our side: the glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou leader in battle,
And pray that Thou still our defender wilt be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised: O Lord, make us free!

Homewood

In the good old days before the dreaded black Fridays, before the shopping frenzy dominated our psyche, there was the occasional Thanksgiving I could spend at Homewood, not having to return until the following Monday. Rare, but I think it possibly occurred once or twice in my retail career.
More often than not, we would only have Thursday to spend Thanksgiving at Homewood and we made the two and a half hour drive usually in the late evening after the store closed today.
We would arrive at my fathers old home place after dark to see the smoke rising from the chimney, knowing he had a fire going in the wood stove in the front room. Landon and Jordon were small and usually sleeping when we arrived. We would carry them in to the front room and put them in the bed with the homemade quilts.
We had to tip toe about for all the furniture in the old house with the wooden floors would rattle the dishes in the cabinets when we went up and down the dog trot hallway. We would stay up a bit catching up on plans for Thursday, then off to bed as my father was always in bed by eight or nine PM.
We would wake early on Thanksgiving to the smell of bacon frying with my father making pancakes, usually with the help of my sisters girls, Allison and Jessica. We all crowded around the little table in the kitchen off the back of the house, added years after Mrs Towles originally built the house around 1900.
My father and I would eat first then go out to the syrup shed to begin the cooking process. My father, when I was working, would already have completed all the difficult tasks of preparing the cane by cutting and stripping it, carrying it and stacking it, getting everything prepared. All I had to do was help with the skimming and cooking down of the sixty gallons of cane juice.
Other family helpers would arrive and by noon, the full family and friends would have gathered around the Sugar Shack as we called it, helping grind down the cane and prepare the Thanksgiving dinner.
My father would take a break to bless the meal and we would continue with the cooking while everyone ate. We would finally decide when it was time to pull the syrup and bottle it. With all the amber bottles with our own labels sitting on the shelf, we would then enjoy our Thanksgiving meal.
It was always sad for me to have to leave that evening and return for the early,early opening the following morning.
To this day, though the retail industry did their dead level best to ruin my favorite time of year and holiday, I am now especially thankful for the time I did have to spend with family if only for a day at Homewood in Crawfordville, Florida. 

Hymn 80. 8 &7. Love Divine.

Grateful Recollection I Samuel 7:12.

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above:
Praise, the mount,--I'm fixed upon it--
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Here I raise by Ebenezer;
Hither by thine help I'm come;
And I hope, by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed with precious blood.

Oh! to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
--Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee:
Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it--
Prone to leave the God I love--
Here's my heart--O take and seal it;
Seal it from thy courts above.

Robinson.

Hymn 433. L.P.M. St.Helen's.

Thanksgiving for National Prosperity.

How rich thy gifts, Almighty King!
From thee our public blessings spring;
The extended trade, the fruitful skies,
The treasures liberty bestows,
The eternal joys the gospel shows,---
All from thy boundless goodness rise.
Here commerce spreads the wealthy store,
Which pours from every foreign shore;
Science and art their charms display;
Religion teaches us to raise
Our voices to our Maker's praise,
As truth and conscience point the way.
With grateful hearts, with joyful tongues,
To God we raise united songs;
Here still may God in mercy reign;
Crown our just counsels with success,
With peace and joy our borders bless,
And all our sacred rights maintain.

Kippis.

White Springs United Methodist.

Dream Maker

 

 

Born September 1, 1933 in Friars Point, Mississippi, Harold Lloyd Jenkins, aka Conway Twitty, in April 1982 came to perform at the Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum. Arriving at his name from combining two towns in Arkansas and Texas, or from a New York City restaurant manager with the name who served in the Army with Jenkins, either way, the rest is history.
My brother Lewis, was in the early beginnings of his radio DJ career at WDSR in Lake City, the Army Quonset hunt on the banks of Alligator Lake. As a disc jockey, Lewis was able to garner free entry to concerts, along with back stage passes.
Twitty at the time was twelve years beyond his great hit of "Hello Darling" and in 1982, looking a bit on the tired side after some fifty chart topping songs.
As Lewis and I made our way backstage to meet the legend, I did not quite know what to expect, meeting the man who had just came out with the hit, Slow Hand. A few of the select who were thus honored to meet him in the little room sat and waited. Emerging from the side door, not what I expected to see, but a Harold Jenkins type of guy, in an ordinary, non-sequined jacket with "Conway" simply embroidered. Hair of gray in disarray. Cigarettes and lighter. Wrinkles. Low, raspy voice. Could this be the same man to whom the women in Elvis Presley fashion threw their clothing to?
We talked a bit, the moment awkward in talking about the wife and kids kind of things to a legend.
I took the photographs for Lewis and we shook hands, thanking Conway for the time and made our way to our seats.
The lights lowered and from the back of the auditorium, the deep, romantic voice was heard, "Hello Darling". It was Conway, adorned in a black sequined suit, trim, fit, hair of jet black, not a wrinkle in sight, strolling down the slow aisle, being mobbed and sobbed over, by adoring ladies and jealous men.
I could not believe this to be the same man we had just met.
Like his final album in 1993, Final Touches, I suppose it was the final touches applied to him backstage that transformed a normal Mississippi boy into Conway Twitty.
Harold Lloyd Jenkins died in June 1993 in Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri from an abdominal aortic aneurysm, aged 59.

Beyond Marah

Beyond the bitter waters of Marah we journeyed
striking the rocks in anger to quench our thirst
longing for the onions and leeks of Egypt
coming to the twelve springs of Elim
camping under the seventy palms
and on the fifteenth day of the second month
we came into the wilderness of Sin
between Elim and Sinai
and we complained
longing again for the pots of meat
the onions and leeks
It was upon the day bread like rain
from heaven came
the glory of the Lord
appearing in a cloud of quail
and upon the ground
covered all around
small and flaky and fine
as hoarfrost on the ground
the manna
and we gathered an Omer each
 just enough
for that which we did hoard
by morning bred worms and
stank unto the Lord.
And so we had our dinner upon
the ground
In  the plain of Sin under the shadow of
Mount Tabor.

Imagine Then

Each time I pass by the old church on Price Creek road (252 and 245) in Columbia County, sitting in the pecan grove next to the pond, I always think what must have been. Purported to once being a Presbyterian Church, moved to this location by the Dicks years ago for restoration, built without corners, to keep the devil from hiding in a corner.
Today it sits and sits, daily catching the rising sun on its entrance that once had a porch, in the evening the back windows seeing the setting sun. Used now for a storage barn for feed and hay, it is a sad testament to our lack of respect for the old buildings, few ever restored.
It would be grand if every community had funds and land set aside where these old buildings could be moved and restored, like the Tifton agra-rama, or the Perry, Florida homestead.
But, in our age of bordering upon the edge of depression, mental and monetarily, these projects are far from the forefront.
Only the starving artists can afford to photograph, paint and sketch them for future generations.

Lost in Florida in Williston

Yesterday, I began a Facebook page titled Lost in Florida, at the suggestion of Melissa Lord, and so I told her my first post would be Frogs, of which she detests. Little did she realize I meant Frogs BBQ. And so Melanie and I traveled down to spend the day with her mother Billie and step father Gerald, esteemed Mayor of Williston. 

 

so we loaded in the car and first went through town to the Sunoco station for gasoline around 3.40. I recall the day taking a photo of this station from our parsonage with gasoline being around .94 cents. Pumping gas into a SUV in front of us was Warner Morgan, my old maintenance supervisor when I worked at Williston Memorial after graduating from WHS. We had a few good laughs.

arriving at Frogs out on US27 through East Williston, we were greeted by the two cooks, Ethel here and Crystal below. They were quite friendly and we enjoyed kidding about while ordering.

Crystal was nice enough to give me a free bottle of the secret recipe sauce for simply coming from so far.

Billie Earl ordered the Pork plate with corn on the cob and  baked beans.

Melanie ordered the medium Pork sandwich with corn on the cob and sweet sauce with half and half tea. She liked hers so much, she ordered another before leaving, eating it there.

We drove through the Williston Crossings RV park and enjoyed seeing all the arriving snow birds and locals in their very nice RV's. What an innovative idea for an old abandoned lime rock pit!

While at Frogs, we sat next to the band, the Rebounders from Ocala performing that Saturday night at the RV park. 

I had Gerald slow while I took a shot of the United Methodist Church and the spot where the old parsonage we lived in was located.

we went by Bob and Dotty Hughes home up on Mortgage Hill. This was the field across from Mr Kathleen Wheelers home. Gerald exclaimed, when I told him to stop, how do you see all these scenes? Ha.

another stop Gerald stop, taken through the glass of the car. A view up mortgage hill. There was the time I could name every resident on both sides of this road. Not sure who occupies them today. It is still a lovely lane.

It was sad to see Verbenadale in such a state of decay. Someone had posted No Trespassing Signs on about every tree, obviously growing weary no doubt of so many coming to view the demise.

this was a deliberate distortion to accentuate the erosion.

we went on towards Orange Hill, going down Blue Grotto lane. Blue Grotto is again under new ownership and looks as if they are constructing a new building next to the cave entrance. Still $40 to enter. This is the graveside of Melanies father Skeebo, her grandmother Pearl and grandfather Otis, her brother Kelly and sister Melissa.

I took the flag and put it in the car.

a view up the hill of Orange Hill.

my fathers grave stone. We will soon finally special order the white marble marker for him.

we came home to make a fire in the syrup kettle of Geralds, eat pound cake and coffee and take it easy until we had to return to Lake City to put out fires that raged since our leaving. Back to reality.

By Marah Waters

And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured....
Exodus 15:23.

It is a declaration that in our wilderness years of being in the Baptist way that we have heard over and over. Bitter waters and murmuring. If not for the sake of keeping peace and harmony in the family, my wife growing up in the Baptist way, I would have never strayed from the Methodist, Presbyterian or Lutheran way.
We have attended over the years Baptist churches, from Independent to Southern to Calvinistic to bordering upon Pentecostal and all have at one point or another either split, fired the pastor, the pastor quit before firing or got kicked out of for not being fundamental enough(Dispensational).
I fully predict that within the next month or so, the bitter waters will again flow, that is a given it seems in the first church of Marah.
And when it does, and we are left to drift, I can assure you, the next place we land will NOT
be in a factious Baptist church.
I love the doctrines of Calvin, if not taken to the hyper end, I am comfortable in a Lutheran Church, if not of the ELCA persuasion, I would fit right into the United Methodist, though I do shun the Arminius and the extreme liberal policy of the World Council of Churches of which they adhere, I could sit in an Episcopalian, though I would not be too comfortable with a female pastor. If we had a free Methodist or Southern Methodist church, I think that is where I would land.
Presbyterian possibly, if Evangelical and not American. It is a shame that you have to carefully pick the denomination.
What these do have in common is the appointing of pastors by a conference or governing body.
There are no insane Pastor Search Committees, often made up of the very people least qualified to secure a Pastor, likened to drawing lots.
There are no Elders and Deacons thinking they are the Popes with the Pastor and everyone giving credence to them.
And, I do no know what it is with the Baptists, but once you leave the fold, or the fold splits into infinite pieces, the fellowship, the harmony, the communication ceases. Facebook friends are unfriended or given silent treatment, calls, emails, visits cease. Only in the awkward meeting at ballgames and stores is some semblance of former one in Christ recalled, but seldom.
My wife is finally at the point where she has filled of drinking from Marah.
It took nearly forty years, but God is patient in our wilderness wanderings.

Three from Shands

Visited Shands with Melanie to see Dr Randolph. After her check-up we went over to Lake Shore for bloodwork. This was the exact same route we took back in October 2009 when Melanie had the check up with Dr Randolph, then the blood work, then the Scan of her chest, the technician just happening to scan the lower lungs to reveal the cloudiness, then the H1N1 and on....