Dirt Road Wisdom: The Gift of Grandparental Grace

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THIS COLUMN MARKS THE OUR 25TH ANNIVERSARY IN SOUTHERN STYLE

“Thank you for all the years of allowing me to share my thoughts with you!” Randall Franks

As I stumbled along the dirt road, I would occasionally reach up and slip my hand into Grandpa Jesse‘s. When an independent streak struck, I would pull it back, managing my steps all on my own—at least for a few feet—before repeating the process once again.
No matter what I did, I could look up into his face and see a smile beaming back at me. What an amazing gift is the special bond that grows between a loving grandparent and a grandchild.
They can give so much love, and many—like mine—had the desire to share a lifetime of experience. I thank God that mine gave me the insights at a young age to listen and learn.
I think one of the greatest lessons shared with me was how to handle yourself when you realize you’ve wronged someone. It could be as simple as a misunderstanding or as serious as a downright disagreement.
From their example, I saw that one should admit a mistake and apologize to move the relationship forward. If you’re the injured party, take the first step: express your concerns and give the other person an easy opportunity to make amends.
If they choose not to, then you’ve done all you can to mend the fences.
Unfortunately, folks aren’t always in the same place at the same time.
Although Christianity teaches us to forgive, that’s an area where I’ve seen loved ones and friends struggle throughout my life.
I struggle with it myself. Oftentimes, I fall back on hardened lessons passed down through generations, rooted in centuries of tribal or clan conflicts and feuds.
I’ve watched loving, caring people—who would give you the shirt off their back—get up on their hind legs and growl when a situation involved an ancestral enemy, an ostracized family member, or a former friend.
While I received these lessons through oral stories, I’ve worked to distance myself from carrying such disputes into my own life. Some even go back beyond written records. They do add color to the stories I share, but for me, the feuds are long past.
As time passes in my life, I find I have to work harder not to add to the list with my own experiences.
It would be easy to simply write someone off—as was often the practice—and have no more to do with them once they’ve done you wrong and won’t apologize or admit a mistake.
But unless continuing that relationship is destructive, I’m striving to avoid falling into the footsteps left by my mountain highland kin through the centuries. That’s not to say there might not be a situation that calls for their approach, but I don’t know if I’m up for a good sword fight, pistols at ten paces, or gathering the clan for feudin’ anytime in the near future.
So, I think the approaches mentioned earlier might be best for all concerned. Of course, the other person does have to be concerned. If they’re not, they probably shouldn’t be that important to your life anyway.

Read more about Randall’s experiences in Appalachia in his books such as A Mountain Pearl, and Seeing Faith. Visit www.RandallFranks.com/Store

From Recess to Real Life: Childhood Friends Shaped My World

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I crowded into the MARTA bus headed toward downtown Atlanta. I grabbed a seat as the bus filled up. A Black woman in a gray dress and heels got on, and I noticed there was no available seat, so I rose and moved toward the back, giving her my seat. As I got situated near the rear door, I wrapped my arm around the bus rail and placed my feet appropriately to keep me steady as the bus stopped and started along the rest of the trip to Central City Park. As I stood there, I started looking at the man sitting near me and realized it was Mr. Olivares. He was heading to his job downtown. I had not seen him in years, and initially he did not recognize me.
I had grown tremendously since I used to run through his living room alongside his children who were near my age—Paul and Vivian.
I met Paul in about third grade after his family emigrated from South America. The family included at least two youths near my age and some older siblings as well. I don’t know what drew me to Paul initially.
Through most of my elementary school experience, all the students were white, despite going to school after integration and during a program referred to as M-to-M transfer, where the county would bus students to schools that were demographically different.
As best I recall, Paul was the first student from a different country or culture that I met—especially someone speaking a different language: Spanish.
We became fast friends and began playing together during recess at school. Soon, I started visiting his home and joining his family for dinner, and he would visit ours as well. I began learning enough Spanish to get by as I visited his home and spent time among his siblings.
I guess it was my parents’ open and caring attitude toward people—whom some Southern whites of that era may have viewed differently because of color, culture, or faith—that allowed me the freedom to reach out and not feel I was doing something out of the ordinary.
In fact, perhaps it was the early boundaries that my own parents had faced as they overcame the “hillbilly” stereotypes while migrating from Appalachia into the city and seeking acceptance in Atlanta society that helped them later form the attitudes that shaped me.
So the fact that Paul was from somewhere else never fazed me as a child; it just made our time together of greater interest to me.
At some point, I lost my friend Paul when his parents were able to move him from public school to private school.
I still remember the conversation when he asked me to see if my parents would consider moving me as well. We did discuss it, but my folks stuck with the public school route, so our diverging paths forced us to focus on new friendships. Sadly, I had no need to speak Spanish anymore until I reached my studies in high school, and by then, it was like starting over completely.
It would be a while before Dresden Elementary would see another student who was not white; the next family would be Chinese from Hong Kong. In my grade was Nin Chung Szeto, and once again, I found another friend. In this case, however, I didn’t learn Chinese, but in two years’ time, I certainly had an impact as I helped teach Nin Chung English. I am sure he was burdened by my Southern accent for years. Like Paul, his path also diverged as his family moved west. We kept in touch by letters for some time, but eventually the practice faded. Still, I knew that Nin Chung—by then, he had chosen the name John—was carving out his own future in America.
When the seat next to Mr. Olivares opened up, I sat down and reintroduced myself, explaining that I was on my way to classes at Georgia State University. He caught me up on Paul and Vivian. I asked him to pass my greetings to them, and Mr. Olivares and I would regularly exchange greetings as we both commuted. It would be years later, in a Winn-Dixie grocery line, when Paul and I would next meet. Now, both out of college and making our own lives, we were miles away from those young boys we had been when our friendship started. Though we said we would get together sometime, we were in different places and did not follow through.
While the paths that life had in store for Paul, John, and me were not ones that would keep us connected, for me those youthful experiences enriched my life and allowed me to continue expanding my opportunities to know more about the people I meet, whether from a world away or just down the street.
Find more stories from Randall’s youth experiences in his Encouragers Book Series www.RandallFranks.com/Store .

Brothers Divided: A Frontier Family’s Revolution Sacrifice

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A Depiction of Joshua Moses engagement at capture.

Imagine fleeing on horseback through the thick South Carolina underbrush, only to feel the sting of a British dragoon’s sword slashing your arm as you deflect a blow meant for your head. This was the harrowing fate of Joshua Moses in 1781, a North Carolina militiaman captured while visiting kin near the Wateree River. Wounded four times—a deep head cut, an arm laceration, a shoulder pierce, and a minor gash—he was bound and marched toward the chaos of battle. But Joshua’s story, like his family’s, reflects the deeper tensions of a war that pitted neighbor against neighbor and brother against the call to arms.

Life on the colonial frontier demanded every hand to tend farms and protect families. When whispers of rebellion against England rippled through the land in the 1770s, they ignited fierce divisions. In Anson County, North Carolina—home to the Moses clan—Loyalists (Tories) were a formidable force. Continental General Nathanael Greene estimated in 1781 that up to half of North Carolinians were Tories, dominating about half the state’s counties, including backcountry areas like Anson. Petitions from the era show roughly 227 Anson residents pledging loyalty to the Crown, compared to about 355 who had earlier protested colonial grievances as Regulators—a movement that often fed into Patriot support. This near-even split made open rebellion risky; many families chose neutrality to survive raids and reprisals.

John Moses Sr. and his wife, Jane, had settled in Anson County by the 1760s, raising likely four sons—John Jr., Joshua, Samuel, and Robert—and two daughters to adulthood before the war escalated. John Sr. likely died sometime after 1763, leaving Jane a widow in a turbulent time. As conflict engulfed the South, the pull to fight tugged at the brothers’ hearts, but someone had to keep the home fires burning amid Loyalist threats. Samuel stayed behind, farming and safeguarding the family stead, while Robert also remained neutral, later settling near the Wateree. Joshua and John Jr., however, answered the call.

John Jr., the eldest, had migrated south to South Carolina by the early 1780s, near the Wateree River. This was the heart of the brutal Southern Campaign, where British forces occupied much of the state, and local militias waged guerrilla warfare alongside Continentals under Greene. As a private in the South Carolina militia, John served 110 days in 1781 and 1782—short bursts of duty that might have included sieges like Ninety-Six or Augusta, or clashes with Loyalist partisans. His service, documented in state audited accounts, earned him a modest indent for pay, though no federal pension followed.

Meanwhile, back in Anson, Joshua (1748–1836) volunteered under Captain Williams in Colonel Thomas Wade’s regiment (DAR Ancestor #A082368). His unit patrolled Drowning Creek near the NC-SC border, scouting for Loyalists. In one skirmish on Brown’s Creek, they routed a Tory band without fatalities—a gritty echo of the Carolinas’ internal strife. After seven months, Joshua’s company received parole, sending him home on call.

Fate wasn’t done with him. Venturing to the Wateree—likely to check on John Jr. and Robert—Joshua was ambushed alone by dragoons. Captured and wounded, he was hauled toward Eutaw Springs (September 8, 1781), guarded amid the battle’s roar before transfer to Charleston’s crowded provost prison and then James Island. Nine months of harsh captivity followed. In a daring escape, Joshua and comrades paddled an old pirogue for three starving days, reaching Greene’s forces on the Ashley River. Greene granted rations and leave, with the war winding down after Yorktown’s surrender in October 1781. Credited with 16 months total (including imprisonment), Joshua later drew a $53.33 annual pension from 1831. Post-war, the brothers scattered into the wilderness they helped secure: Joshua to Whitley County, Kentucky, around 1813; Samuel to Monroe County, Tennessee; John Jr. and Robert to Jasper County, Georgia. Separated by miles, they carried shared memories of a divided era, passing tales of sacrifice down generations.

Let us never forget that farmers and frontiersmen bled to forge this nation. Patriots Joshua and John Moses Jr. are the uncles of this columnist, who descends from their brother Samuel of Monroe County, Tennessee who helped keep the home fires burning amidst the Loyalist threats.

The descendants of Samuel are included in Randall’s book A Mountain Pearl : Appalachian Reminscing and Recipes

Snow and the Pot-Bellied Stove : An Appalachian Memory

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As I placed the log into the black cast-iron stove, I watched the orange sparks rise from the burning embers within its belly in Grandma’s parlor.

I often stood at its front, hopeful that it would make me feel warmer. It usually did—at least on one side, until I turned and let the other warm.

Of course, I was usually one in a line of young cousins who had just come in from playing in the snow, each wishing to take their turn at the fire.

Snow could be beautiful as a child, as you looked out the frosted pane while it gently drifted up against the cracks in the side of the house.

I remember my first snowman like it was yesterday: rolling those balls into nearly perfect spheres and stacking them until it resembled Burl Ives’ character in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”No matter how hard I tried, though, I never got mine to sing, dance, or tell any stories—but it was fun trying.

Venturing out in the snow wasn’t an easy task from our home, though, because it always involved being bundled in full winter wear. For my mother, that meant a shiny blue coat that made you resemble the Michelin Man, with layers upon layers beneath.

First came the white, waffled long johns, then your regular clothes—shirt and pants—followed by a pullover sweater that, if seen by any hungry wolf, would send it running for its life. Finally, that puffy blue coat. But that wasn’t everything: You still needed the itchy wool hat and the hand-knitted scarf from our neighbor. The coat’s hood came up over all of it, of course.

So, when you walked outside, you resembled the girl in Willy Wonka who ate the blueberry gum. If you fell down, you’d roll until you hit something to stop you.

This approach to dressing was always a drawback in a snowball battle, because you couldn’t see anything that wasn’t directly in front of you.

Despite the drawbacks, when you did score a snowball victory, it was all worth it. Besides, in that outfit, no matter how hard they threw, you barely felt it—unless they hit you in the face.

The adventure would end when I heard my mother or grandmother calling my name from the porch. I knew then it was time to head in, so I’d stop by the woodpile and pick up a few logs on my way.

Before I could feed them to the stove, though, I’d have to peel off those now-wet clothes.

Once deflated, I’d grab the wood by the door and head into the parlor. Picking up the glove we used for the hot handle, I’d open the door and shove the logs inside, watching the glow of warmth as I warmed my hands in front of it.

Around me were my mom and dad seated on the couch, my grandmother in her rocker, two aunts resting on kitchen chairs near the stove, and a couple of cousins playing board games on the floor. The laughter rose as gently in that room as the snow fell outside, sometimes seeming to cover the howling winds that passed us by.

I always hated to see the evening end, when it was time for the laughter to turn to sleep. We’d trade the stove for a stack of handmade quilts, keeping us warm on an old iron bed as we watched our breath rise while the snow fell outside our windowpane.

Find more stories of Appalachia in Randall’s book “A Mountain Pearl : Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes”