From The Arbor October's Offerings
Later, and in a fashion that defies a touchstone experience, the seasons took on new meaning. Perhaps, it came about as I learned the science behind God’s plan for our planet and how the earth’s tilt on its axis causes our region to receive varying amounts of sunlight and plays a huge part in not only in the amount of daylight for a given time of the year but also governs the amount of heat received, which affects weather patterns. It may well have been the slow development of my appreciation of the beauty of each season that now allows me to enjoy each season more fully than in my youth. Were I to choose my all-around favorite season, I’d pick spring, because to me it foretells the promise of life after death. However, with respect to beauty, I particularly like autumn and its resplendent colors. I also like to believe it is how God provides in the way of a gentle reminder that in death and dying, one can find beauty, even dignity. In North Mississippi, October may well be the most beautiful month of autumn. We are teased in late September by the beginnings of color seen among certain gum trees, as cooler nights signal trees great and small that it’s time to prepare for winter. Certainly, there’s still a lot of autumnal color to enjoy in November, but the peak of color is in late October. October often provides us our best weather to enjoy football at all levels from high school and college to professional gridiron action. In the South, football is practically a religion with devotees studying rosters and worshiping their coaches and players. And on college campuses, times of fellowship include alumni and fans gathering for pre-game activities such as that enjoyed in the grove at Ole Miss and replicated to some extent by other universities in the region. October’s moderate temperatures help to propagate yard sales and roadside sales with bargains perceived by both buyers and sellers. And, with the current economic climate, I expect to see more than the normal number of such activities this autumn. In years past, October was the month in which small farmers pushed to finish harvesting their crops of cotton before the rains knocked loose too many cotton bolls bulging from their burrs. These days, there may be more crops of soybean and corn than of cotton, but these too must be harvested before autumn’s end. Finally, October ends with Halloween, one of the biggest pre-holiday events in retail sales. It’s hard to pick out the impoverished from the affluent when it comes to Halloween. These days, every child that rings my doorbell has a costume of some sort. Costumes were the exception for yesteryear’s trick-or-treaters. If you get the chance to be in Pontotoc anytime between October 14 and October 31, check out the scarecrows throughout town. The Main Street Association is again sponsoring the event, and this year, the curious will get the chance to vote for their favorite scarecrow. An album of last year’s scarecrows can be viewed at http://rrnews.org/scarecrow/ . Immediately following this article is one by Craig Anderson, founder and host of Our History Project, a radio program that seeks to educate and preserve history. We think our readers will find the program interesting. Podcasts of the broadcasts can be heard online or downloaded to one’s PC, burned on a CD or transferred to an iPod, GPS, or other MP3 player and played at one’s convenience. The Bodock Post proudly supports Our History Project in its endeavor to keep history alive in the minds of all listeners that we may learn from the mistakes of the past in order not to repeat them ourselves. Why not visit our friend Craig and his guests at www.ourhistoryproject.com. In addition to Craig’s article, we are pleased to share other submissions by our readership. Read how the influence of two high school teachers played a part in Jim Arnold’s career decision. You will not have to delve far into Bettye Galloway’s remembrance of Lafayette Springs (just outside the western boundary of Pontotoc County) to be drawn into the scenes she describes in such a way that you’ll believe you’re really there. And who among us doesn’t remember a special tree in our childhood? Russ Russell shares his remembrance in "The Summer Tree." We encourage others to share their remembrances with us, as well. We believe everybody has a good story, perhaps several, just waiting to be told and enjoyed by others. See our guidelines for submissions, right after you finishing reading this October issue of The Bodock Post. ~ By Wayne Carter, Associate Editor & Publisher Note: From The Arbor is a regular feature of our newsletter from which our "Editor of the Month" introduces each issue, season, or theme, as the case may be. In Memoriam: Clyde Wilson 1930 - 2009. Only recently did we learn of the passing of Clyde Wilson, Editor and owner of Tombigbee Country Magazine. Though belated, we send our condolences to his surviving relatives.
Let Me Tell You OurHistoryProject.com
It seems the days of heroes are gone. Well it may seem that way, but grab someone and share a story, see what can come of it. Storytelling by virtue is a southern "art"; we can weave a tale of just about anything. Just ask your friend, neighbor or hang around the breakfast diner and see if life is not all a continuous story. The problem is that we (being humble of course) don’t see anything we’ve done as inspiring, interesting or worth retelling. In that you are wrong. That’s history, your history, our history, family history and the nation’s history. I want to tell you about a new Non-Profit Corporation that is called "Our History Project". It is a radio show that is aired two times a week, and all the shows can be found on our website www.ourhistoryproject.com, I-tunes, Zune or any other place that hosts Podcasts. You can download, them and burn the shows to CD’s to take to the car, put on an MP3 player or just listen while you’re on the computer. The main mission of Our History Project is Preservation and Education. We are involved in schools, historic groups, civic organizations, and everywhere else we can grab an ear or a warm body. We love telling stories, and the ones we are telling; is the story of America. That means you too. As a historian and researcher I am always looking for that diary, daybook or journal to fill in the gaps of our history. We may know what event happened, for instance the War Between the States; we know through books and accounts what battle happened, what the troop movements were….heck we can, most of the time, give you the time when it occurred or who got where and when. What‘s left out though is the personal accounts that truly told us what was happening and how it impacted those who were a part of it. In essence it’s the story of us. While we don’t think we are important nor have interesting enough lives- put it in context of 100, 200 or 300 years down the road. Your relatives, historians and researchers will marvel at what we considered just living. You may be the only link to a piece of the story. Part of our mission and goal is to get those memories, and right now we are asking you to volunteer. Volunteer to collect those memories of the family. A voice recorder cost less than $30 these days and will preserve those memories for a lifetime. Don’t wait, do it yourself, grab a neighbor, aunt, uncle, or anyone. You would be surprised at what pieces of history you can find that is around you every day, literally feet from you. I want to take this time as well to invite you to join us on Saturdays and Wednesdays here at Our History Project ( www.ourhistoryproject.com) where history and fun is the number one goal. We cover Pre-Revolution to the current events and give you stories from firsthand accounts, from authors, from film makers….we cover it all. Let us tell you a story…. Ever heard of Wilbur Kurtz? How about General John C. Vaughn? Kerry Berry? How about Robert Scott? …Everyone has heard of Amelia Earhart but have you heard of Blanch Stuart Scott? And then there is Matilda Moisant. I know everyone has heard of the Donner Party, but what about Mr. Hastings? I’d say probably not. Then there is the story of Christopher Snider a 12-year old who was the reason for bringing people together in Boston so we could have a tea party. How about Sarah Parker, she was the first woman editor of any paper in the U.S...or the heroics of Edward Benfold. Ever heard the story of the Zimmerman letter and how that brought us in to World War One. I could go on and on. Folks, it’s all here and more! There are millions of them. Share with us. Listen with us. Let me tell you a story. ~ By Craig Anderson, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: Craig Anderson, founder and host of Our History Project, is a long time history nut and cartography junkie, Craig always had a passion of history and a love of stories. He found a way to combine both of these passions and now shares them with the world. Craig is on the Board of Directors and is the Web Master of Nash Farm Battlefield in Henry County Georgia. He has worked with numerous historians and researchers and is dedicated to preserving our history.
The Fabric Of Life Of Quilting And Piecing Those who sleep under a quilt, sleep under a blanket of love. ~ Unknown
One time I asked Momma if she was quilting. She said no; she was piecing. Piecing is the process of making beautiful tops with their intricate patterns, such as wedding rings, bowties, bonnets, and many others. No material was wasted. Old clothes were cut up for pieces. Then the pieces were sewn together in squares, then the squares sewn together. Everyone just had to have a wedding quilt with its interlocking ring pattern as a wedding gift. Friends cherished the friendship quilts they made together. Each child and grandchild received an appropriately themed quilt for his or her bed. Quilting is related to piecing but is a different process and skill. It is the sewing of the top to the muslin or flannel bottom with a batten of cotton in between. Many different, beautiful, and intricate designs are used in sewing the quilts together. Some consider this the art form. In her later years, Momma would send her new carefully pieced tops to people who did the quilting professionally. Her skill was piecing the tops. In my youth ladies got together for quilting bees to piece together tops and/or to quilt. These were as much social occasions as utilitarian. They would sew and make something useful while sharing the details of their lives with each other. We men may understand but probably do not appreciate how important relationships are to the fairer sex, and how far and wide is their network of friends, neighbors, and relatives. They know who is related to whom, and how they are related. It is the fabric of their lives. We attended a friend’s milestone birthday party a while back. Many of our dear friends were there whom we had not seen in quite some time. The ladies may have not threaded a single needle or sewed a single stitch, but they were busy piecing together a new fabric of their lives. Relationships were removed as a few friends had gone to their reward. New relationships were stitched in as new friends were met, new marriages were learned of, and precious babies born. And some relationships had to be changed due to unfortunate marriages. Not unlike a quilting bee, the ladies departed with the new fabric of their lives with all its new and changed and removed relationships, something more valuable than a real quilt. ~ By Carl Wayne Hardeman, Editor Find Carl Wayne on Facebook www.facebook.com/cwhardeman
Highway Safety What's Next For MDOT
In my more than fifty years as a licensed driver, I’ve seen a lot of changes with respect to highways. In fact, most Mississippi highways were gravel roads in my childhood. I was a college student when I-55 was cut through Mississippi. Until the seventies, the speed limit on Federal and State highways throughout northeast Mississippi was sixty-five. It took a bogus energy crisis and mandates by the Nixon administration in 1974 to withhold Federal funds for non-compliance to convince many states to lower the highway speed to fifty-five. Thankfully Congress lifted the federal speed limit controls in 1995, properly returning to the states the power to set highway speed limits. As far as I know, there are no two-lane highways in Mississippi with a sixty-five mile per hour speed limit. Never mind the fact all state highways have been improved and widened significantly, the fifty-five limit remains in effect. Yes, I’m aware that higher speeds are permitted on select, divided four-lane highways and the Interstate highways. In mid summer, I began seeing ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) signs along some of the highways I travel. I chafe at the sight of these signs because precious little of the 787 billion dollars was anything but congressional pork. But, when have we known our congressmen to pass up the opportunity to let a good crisis go to waste? For them it’s a spending opportunity, and my problem with congressional spending is it’s my money and your money they’re spending. Apparently, MDOT (Mississippi Department Of Transportation) has found a new way to spend part of the ARRA money. Portions of Highway 7 near Grenada, Mississippi, are getting a new facelift. No, not the ever-so-often resurfacing facelift, in fact it’s more like a surface depression. Yeah, right down the middle of the two-lane highway, they’re carving a warning track. In some areas there’s already a warning track on the extreme right side of each lane, so the one in the middle is now the third warning track. I don’t get it. Why put a warning track down the middle of a highway? Do we actually have drivers that don’t know to keep on their side of the road? Oh, I’m sure it was justified on somebody’s desk as a safety feature to warn an errant driver of his or her being too near the center of the roadway. I can tell folks right now, my wife is not going to like this feature; at least she won’t like it when she’s riding with me. She sleeps a lot, maybe because my driving doesn’t scare her near as much when she’s asleep. Most motorists are driving slower than me, which means I’m passing a lot of them. So, when I’m passing someone and my tires cross the warning track in the middle of the road, the racket is going to wake her up. And, having been asleep, she won’t know if I’m passing someone or plunging off the highway toward a ditch or tree. How can a warning track in the middle of the road be a safety feature, if it gives someone a heart attack? For my money, if MDOT wants to make our highways safer, I’d rather they concentrate on getting the dummies who can’t stay on their side of the road, off the road. Perhaps, I shouldn’t worry about the middle of the road warning track becoming a trend. I’m sure MDOT didn’t get enough money from ARRA to put a rub-board down the middle of every two-lane state highway. ~ By Wayne Carter, Associate Editor & Publisher Find Wayne on Facebook www.facebook.com/ridgerider
The Springs Quietest Place Under The Sun There really is such a place, but when you leave to live the rest of your life in the tangle of a city, it sometimes seems like a dream. Lafayette Springs is located there, just a few miles out of the way, one of those quiet little places where once you could find a gristmill and a general store. The Springs, sixty years ago, was a collection of simple frame houses built on a red clay hill almost a mile north of Highway 6 and northeast of the Yocona River. It was the quietest place under the sun. Sometimes in the still noonday you could hear Malone Joslin chopping wood at his house above the post office, or you could hear the men talking around the store for half a mile. The townsfolk could detect to the instant when a car turned off the highway to come through The Springs, and if it was a local car, they knew immediately whose it was. It was such an insignificant village it hardly existed, but it was a place where a person knew everyone else in the community. Mr. Clinton, who had some land in the valley, would let the kids ride his tractor. Mr. Howard, who had the general store, was always smiling, ready to play a joke, but everybody said he drove a hard bargain. He never minded, though, how long the men sat around the store, smelling the sweet fragrance of the pipe tobacco, or the new blue jeans, or the feed; he was a man among men, then. He would let the kids play around the store for a while, and then the men had to be careful what they said. When Mr. Howard got tired of the store, he would close it and go fishing. If anybody needed anything, he would either have to hunt for Mr. Howard or go down to the house and get Miss Josie to open the store. There was beauty around The Springs, too, and if you knew where to look, you didn’t have to go far to find it. Down the road from the store was a creek where the boys and girls tried to catch crawfish with safety pins on a string. It was a sprawling, shallow creek, with clay bottoms and bare banks coming right up to the edge of the pastures. The four graveled roads branched out from the store and were bordered by growths where the small animals peered over the road edge, curious to that last instant before they scuttled out of sight with a wild chittering or a silent rustle as a car went by. Down the hill in the "Spring Lot" were all the mineral springs that once had made the place famous in the state and perhaps even in the South. The quaint little Japanese-style tea houses set in the peaceful pastures, the little creeks running through the midst of them, the mulberry trees in full foliage—all are so easily remembered. Lafayette Springs did not have a public park, a movie, or a recreation center, but it had a school house and a church. For recreation, there was always a program at the school house or a gathering at someone’s home, and then there were the cakewalks. Most of the time, though, The Springs was quiet, and the only really big event of the year was at Christmas time. Then all the unmarried kids would stock up on skyrockets and firecrackers, pinwheels, and Roman candles, and, as soon as it was dark, they would serenade the whole neighborhood, stopping along the way at some of the kids’ homes to stuff themselves with Christmas eats.
Lafayette Springs has changed much over the years. It now has an even smaller population. The old school house was the victim of a fire, and the post office and general store are long gone. The road grader doesn’t come before the rains because the roads are now paved. Strangers seldom drive through the place, and those who do hardly notice it. There is not much to distinguish it from a hundred other villages in the hill country of North Mississippi, but you can leave your heart in a place like that forever and not regret it! ~ By Bettye Hudson Galloway, Contributor Biographical Sketch: Bettye was born in Lafayette County, Mississippi, and has lived the majority of her life in Oxford. Bettye retired from state employment (primarily at the University of Mississippi) after 30 years and as executive vice president of a drug testing laboratory after 20 years.
Creepy Crawlers To Smush Or Not To Smush Many of us guys, when we were younger, used to chase the girls with all sorts of creepy crawlers; grass snakes, June bugs, grasshoppers, toad frogs, etc. It’s not that we were all that happy to have one of the critters in our hand, but the thrill of the chase was worth it. In this respect, many women are about the same as girls. The other night Peggy had a chore for me. She said there was this huge Brown Recluse spider in our bathtub. "Go kill it!" "Where did it come from?" "Will it have babies in the tub?" "Are there more? "I’ll never take a bath in that tub again!" And on and on it went. The size of this man-eater was somewhat disappointing. From her description it was "The Spider That Ate Tokyo." In reality, a dried pea would have covered its entire body and about half of its outstretched legs. It pretty much looked like other nondescript spiders I have seen throughout my life. Whether it was really a brown recluse or not I cannot say, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. She decided I could kill it anytime as long as it was before dark. Having been outside working and was hot and sweaty, I decided to go ahead and take a shower and kill the varmint while there. While getting my supplies, to our amazement, in just those few moments, that little creeper had disappeared. I looked high and low, but no spider. Well this put her in "panic" mode. She knew that rascal was around somewhere and was just waiting for the right moment to pounce and have her for supper. However, since it did not attack me while bathing she decided it must have really gone away. Next morning as I shaved, there it was back in the tub again. This time I just smushed him and left his sorry carcass for her to observe. You’d a thought I was Tarzan that had killed the man-eating lion.
Dad did not have much love for the black widows either. When he worked for Pontotoc Butane Gas Co., often inside the door where the tank valves and gauges were located, he would find a nest of half dozen or more black widows. When he found one of these infested tanks, he’d tell me to stay away. Bringing the gas hose from the truck, he’d shoot just one small blast of butane into the tight space. There were frosty little black widow icebergs all around, the gas froze them solid. Peggy’s not too crazy about snakes either, they are on her "Endangered List," or should I say "in-danger list." Howard Huey always said there were only three kinds of snakes he was afraid of; live snakes, dead snakes, and sticks that looked like snakes. While building the Pontotoc Elementary School in the 1950s, occasionally a little grass snake would find shelter in the stacks of blocks we used. I would reach down and pick one up occasionally, the other workers scattered like I had the plague, or worse. Some of them would not come near me for several days. In the late 1960s our County Missionary, Rev. Irvin Brown, and I went to a Missionary Convention at Camp Garaywa (Garaway ~ GA=Girls in Action, RA=Royal Ambassadors, YWA = Young Women’s Association), a Baptist Encampment near Jackson, Mississippi. For some reason we got there late and were told that all the cabins were taken that had been "sprayed." Not knowing what to expect, we settled for one of the unsprayed cabins. When we went in and turned on the lights, it was like a herd of wild horses heading for the high country. Roaches were everywhere! Now these were not little ordinary household roaches, these were the heavy duty, industrial strength kind, some approaching three inches long. After the meeting that night we made up our bunks and went to bed, as soon as the lights went out, here came the roaches. We covered up head and ears; however, you could still feel the big ones walking across the sheets. It was not a peaceful night of slumber. I’m not sure, but I think mosquitoes, wasps, and bees, have a thing for women. I can work outside or go to a park and they hardly ever bother me, except for the infernal buzzing. However, I think they use Peggy for dive-bomber practice. When we camped with all the kids, these miniature-flying needles picked out Peggy and our oldest daughter Karen as their targets. Recently I have been setting up a woodworking shop in part of an old barn, down at Peggy’s mother’s house. Many have asked about it. I tell them that I am selecting the tools that I need, plus there are several comfortable chairs, and a color TV. We guys can watch the games there undisturbed, as I have kept just enough spiders to keep the women-folk away. Creepy crawlers and I have a good working relationship don’t you think? ~ By Ralph Jones, Managing Editor Find Ralph on Facebook www.facebook.com/ralphrjones
Physics Explained Classical And Modern Physics Phsics could be defined briefly as the mathematical modeling of God's universal laws. ~ James A. Arnold When most people hear the word physics, there seems to be a wince of mathematical fear or some other negative reaction. The problem is that the study of physics has not been explained or described in a way that people can warm up to or identify with. The nice thing about physics is that it is, for the most part, incontrovertible. It takes a slice of God’s laws and attempts to define them in terms that all of mankind can agree upon. Physics makes no value judgment nor does it attempt to distinguish between good and evil. It simply is man’s attempt to understand what God has put before us in the physical world and quantify it in a mathematical way. The laws were here long before man arrived and will be here long after man is gone. In the meantime, man’s quest to better understand the physical world in which we live, will continue. And, I emphasize, "understand." Man cannot change these laws in any way, form or fashion. One must remember that these are God’s laws. The best man can hope for is to understand the laws and use them to his advantage. Therein lies one of the first dilemmas of new knowledge. A new discovery could possibly be used for good or evil; good or evil being defined by one’s moral base as customarily defined by one of the many organized religions. The Laws of Physics do not address the morality issue. When one speaks of God, it is usually in a religious context. But with Physics, God’s laws are safe from the dogma of organized religion. When physicists disagree, it is most often about theory that hasn’t been proven or disproved empirically. As technology continues to advance, so does man’s ability to prove or disprove theory. Questions are answered and answers lead to more questions and the search continues. The Laws of Physics can be classified into two groups. First there is the Classical group which includes the laws that man can experience with one or more of his five senses. Gravity is probably the most common. Then there are those laws that deal with the physical world beyond the human experience. This group is defined as Modern Physics.
So, what does all this mean? From the day we are born and probably even before, humans experience God’s physical laws. Yet there are so few among us that take the time to understand and appreciate what God has put before us. It is this writer’s belief that there are many "Einsteins" among us that were never provided the environment that nurtures the inquisitive spirit within. It also seems that the study of science in our public schools today is being deemphasized. Young minds have a natural curiosity and that curiosity should be nurtured and reinforced with positive feedback leading to a thirst for more. So, if you are a parent, turn off the TV and get involved in the learning process with your children. Life is much more rewarding and enriching when one understands more about the richness and wonders of the world in which God has placed us. Two people passed through my life that made significant contributions to my academic success at the college level. They are Coach Carl Lowry and the late Mrs. Victor "Estelle" Henry of Pontotoc High School in the school year of 1955-1956. Many thanks go to them for their patience and encouragement. It wasn’t until later in life as a military veteran that I was able to return to college and pursue a higher level of education. The disciplines I chose were Mathematics and Physics. Probably neither of these teachers knew at the time that they were planting seeds that would germinate within me and later grow into a motivating force that provided a much more rewarding life than I otherwise would have ever known. Thank you again Mrs. Henry and Coach Lowry. ~ Jim Arnold, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: James A. "Jim" Arnold and his wife, Juanita, make their home in Easley, South Carolina. Jim teaches at the Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, South Carolina.
The Summer Tree Not Far From Peanut Hill The summer tree was a large old Oak tree with far reaching limbs. It stood down by the hill country cotton field, and was on the part of the farm that the family had owned for many years. My father’s father owned it before him, and his father before that. My father called the area around the tree, "The Cotton Pen." There was no pen there when I was growing up, but apparently in a time gone by there was a pen of a sort where cotton was stored after it was picked, and prior to the time it was taken to the gin. From my earliest memory the shade under the old tree was considered by the family to be the coolest place on our farm. When we would be in the fields chopping, or picking cotton, the shade of the old Oak was a welcome relief. My father told us about the old tree as it had stood when he was a boy. He said that even on the hottest days there was always a cool breeze under the tree. My grandfather owned the farm before us, and my father was born just a few hundred yards from the tree. He was born, lived his life, and died, within a short distance of the old tree. He probably never traveled more than a hundred miles from the farm in his lifetime. Like my father, my two older sisters and I were born at home, only about a half-mile from the tree. My brother and younger sister were born in hospitals but also lived on the farm during their early years. I lived there until I joined the military as a teenager. I often thought that the area around the tree looked like an old house place. My father was born in 1905, and his father lived on the farm before him, but their house was a couple of hundred yards from the tree, and my father said that as far as he knew, no one had ever lived on the site of the summer tree. I once thought the tree might have been on the site of an Indian village because we found many arrowheads around there and in the fields. I asked my father about this once when I was very young. He said that he did not believe there was an Indian village here, but felt that it was probably a part of their hunting grounds. The reasoning on this, I think, was because we never found pottery or other items that would have indicated a village. We only found arrowheads, or partially made ones. I often wonder what happened to all of the arrowheads. I usually just made arrows of my own of them, or traded them for some trinket, usually a pretty marble. We went to summer school during that time. School only lasted until about one or two in the afternoon. Since there was no cotton to chop or pick during the hot months of growing time, we usually had some free time before it was time to drive the cows in for milking. I would always come home from school thinking I was starving. My mother was never one to allow eating between meal times. So when I would ask for something to eat she would always say, "Go down to the watermelon patch and pull a watermelon and sit under the old oak tree and eat it." So I spent a part of almost every afternoon in the summer sitting under that old tree and eating watermelon.
We never seemed to go near the summer tree in the winter months. It was only during the hot summer months, or in the fall when we were picking cotton that we would go there. From the shade of the summer tree you could see a large part of the farm, including the house where my grandparents lived, as well as the little creek bottom where the corn, hay, and beans were grown. We were working the cotton field by the summer tree the day we heard that the war had ended. On many occasions we would take our Dinner (lunch to most people) to the field and eat under the shade of the tree. On this day in 1945, we walked to the house for dinner. The only car that we ever saw was that of the mailman. That day he came by our house while we were eating. He told us that the war had ended. That night people were riding through the community ringing school bells. It has been over fifty years since I visited the summer tree. My mother sold the farm when my father died in 1960. I decided on a recent trip to the area that I would try to find the summer tree. What I found was that what once were our fields and pastures has been reclaimed by nature. The most of the farm was split into mini-farms, and now stands in overgrown scrub trees and underbrush. I at first thought to try to make my way in the undergrowth down to where I thought the summer had stood. Then I decided that it was best if I did not know if it was still there, or had been cut and sold. I simply drove on by, and since I did not walk in to the cotton pen area, in my mind the summer tree is still standing, and that cool breeze is still blowing. Maybe the summer tree waits for another generation to sit under shade of its limbs. ~ By M. G. "Russ" Russell, Guest Contributor Biographical sketch: M. G. Russell is a Pontotoc County native and grew up on a cotton and dairy farm near the Lafayette County line. Memphis has been home for him and wife, Jan, for over fifty years. Russell retired in 2004, after 47 years in the transportation industry. Apart from writing, Russell enjoys running. Photo Credit: The oak tree photo in this article is courtesy of www.fullmoontreefarm.com.
Stress Reduction It's Not Rocket Science You can pay good money to learn how to reduce the amount of stress in your life or you can simply read The Bodock Post. How to Make Your Burdens Lighter
Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
Bubba Bodock Enjoy A Laugh Or Two A recent discussion of seldom heard expressions yielded interesting results. I liked Aunt Estelle’s response. Aunt Estelle, a 90 year old spinster, was asked why she had never married.She said, "Well, I was never went with." Newt Harlan remembers his dad’s use of "took out" as in something of his, like a battery, that took out on him. Newt also recalls his dad never bought a set of tires for his truck; instead he bought "casings." Similarly, Newt remembers that the early automobile accelerator pedal was called a "foot feed," and that a vehicle’s external radio antenna was an "aerial." ** On a different note, it has been observed that when a woman wears a leather dress, a man's heart beats quicker and his throat gets dry. He goes weak in the knees, and he begins to think irrationally. Ever wonder why? It's because she smells like a new truck!
"Anyone with needs to be prayed over, come forward, to the front at the altar."
the Preacher says.
An elderly Cajun man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of
impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite beignets (a
kind of French doughnut) wafting up the stairs.He gathered his remaining
strength, and lifted himself from the bed. Gripping the railing with both
hands, he crawled downstairs. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he
leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen, where if not for
death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there,
spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were hundreds of his favorite
beignets. Stop she said, "Those are for the funeral." ** Used by permission, courtesy of Newt Harlan "Honest Lies and Other Misguided Thoughts."
Our Mission Purpose - The Bodock Post It is our desire to provide a monthly newsletter about rural living with photographs of yesterday and today, including timely articles about conservative politics, religion, food, restaurant reviews, gardening, humor, history, and non-fiction columns by folks steeped in our Southern lifestyle. Copyright © 2008 - 2009 The Bodock Post. Return to home page. Open This Issue with MS Word
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The older I get, the more I regard each season
with nostalgia. In my youth, seasons were but the transitional occurrences
of weather that required little adjustment on my part. Winter was looked
forward to as the coldest, and far more often than not, brought snowfall
in whichever northeast Mississippi town my family resided. Summer, the hottest
of all, was made enjoyable as it provided a reprieve from the past nine months
of school. Autumn and spring were sandwiched between the other two in their
own unique way, without touching one another, and went largely unnoticed.
Momma and Mimi’s momma, Opal
Graham, used to make lovely quilts. Quilting they called it. Among our most
cherished possessions are the quilts they made for us. I prefer the comfort
of a quilt to any bed covering or throw for my recliner. They are just the
right weight and warmth for sweet dreams.
This time of year, it’s not unusual
to see highway repair crews at work. A lot of resurfacing goes on during
the summer. I often joke, that had I known highway construction and/or repair
was a never ending job, I might have sought a career in that line of work
when I was a young man. Concrete highways were the rage in my youth, and
in my mind those would last forever. Who knew?
That was Lafayette Springs years ago. Maybe it
was a simple place to look at, but it was beautiful to live in. It was a
place of peace and small happenings—a place where you could sit by the
light of a kerosene lamp and look at the riches of the world in a mail-order
catalog—a place where baby chicks arrived in the post office inside
cardboard boxes cut like Swiss cheese, with little beaks and fuzzy heads
sticking out the holes and filling the post office with little cheepings—a
place where a boy could climb to the top of the school house and look down
on everyone he knew.
Frankly spiders do not chill me. I have made
an agreement with most of them, "I don’t bite you, you don’t bite
me," and for the better part of seventy-two years that has been a good agreement.
This does not mean that I have no respect for them. Now, black widow spiders,
I give a wide berth. Any spider that makes love to her husband then eats
him is some kind of a mean mother. They are fair game for any rolled up
newspaper, house slipper, fly swatter, or my all time favorite, an eight
pound sledge hammer.
Albert Einstein brought science into the modern
world when he began to look beyond the classical laws and ask some very in-depth
questions concerning light, energy and matter. Einstein was not a particularly
good mathematician, but he did keep one handy to test his ideas and develop
formulas to answer and define the "what if" questions that came to mind.
His most famous of formulas is the mass-energy equation known as
e=mc2. This simple yet elegant equation led to the development
of atomic energy and has helped explain many of the observations man has
made peering into the depths of the universe far beyond our solar system
and our galaxy. The equation also deals with the minutest of particles that
reside inside an atom’s nucleus. This equation’s impact is massive
and it took scientists into a whole new realm of thought that up until that
time was beyond human imagination.
