Five Life Lessons in Violet

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About 15 years ago, my writing path took me into the life and times of an amazing woman.

I have co-authored three autobiographies, and with each one I have learned so much. Through other people’s lives and experiences, lessons pile up like cordwood near the axe stump. These lessons can sneak in through a story or a moment—through a waterfall of tears or a bucket full of sunshine and smiles.

 Randall Franks and Violet Hensley

Maybe that is why I drew so much joy out of bringing someone’s life to the page. Through the images created by the words, people may be moved to change their lives and find a new path after seeing how someone else has walked.

I met Violet after watching her electrify an audience when we were both being honored by the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum as Legends in 2010. At 94, she was much farther down that legend road than I, as I was the youngest among the honorees.

More than a year later, circumstances led me to try to convince her to tell her story in a book. So we began, week after week by phone, crafting nearly ten decades of experiences into something I hoped might inspire.

Slowly, Whittlin’ and Fiddlin’ My Own Way: The Violet Hensley Story came to life, page after page.

Early in our conversations I realized her childhood days were filled with survival, but to her that was simply the way it was—you took those things in stride. That doesn’t mean there weren’t smiles and happiness, work, and even childhood games; she’s the first to tell you there were. Her childhood also gave her skills such as fiddling and fiddle-making, along with the perseverance that would serve her and make her known around the world.

Lesson One: Hard work as a child prepares you for living life.

The death of her mother struck me as a lesson I have taken to heart: despite a hardworking, caring mother being taken, one must pick up and keep going.

Lesson Two: We must keep on living for those who leave us behind.

Writing about how George “Wash” Brumley let Violet help and watch him craft fiddles showed how, simply by watching, she picked up the skill herself. Violet would go on to teach what she learned to many others.

Lesson Three: Pass on your skills to the youth. Her life was filled with raising nine children and working to give them a start in life. Along the way, her skills brought her into the public eye, where millions came to see her share her talents as an artisan and a fiddler. It made her one of the best-loved folk artists of the Ozarks.

Lesson Four: Live as Jesus taught by lovin’ your neighbors and don’t get to thinkin’ you are better than anyone else.

She left us recently at 109, with her loving family around her and the world’s media paying homage to the passing of country music’s oldest living artist.

Lesson Five: Choose a path that you love and would love for others to follow, and then stick with it.

I am glad that God let me share a bit of a walk alongside Violet. She was a unique individual, and her amazing magnetic presence first drew the eye, then the ear, and finally—once you focused on her—the heart. Once she attracted you to what she was doing, you were a fan for life.

You can get her story from her family by visiting http://VioletHensley.com.

Have you got something stuck in your craw?

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You’ve probably heard the expression “They have something stuck in their craw.” It’s one of those old sayings that essentially means someone is mad or upset about something.

There’s not a day that goes by when such an occurrence can’t seep into your being and take over your thinking. It might be a passing statement uttered by a relative or friend, an encounter with a perfect stranger that catches you the wrong way, or even your closest people—wife, husband, mom, dad, children—simply getting on your nerves. These little irritations can accumulate in your craw like crumbs over time until eventually you just have to get them out.

What is a craw, anyway? It’s the pouch in a bird where food is stored before reaching the stomach. How this comparison became part of the human lexicon, I’m not sure, but the phrase has been with us since the days of King Henry VIII.

Life, with its many trials and daily experiences, can be either a path of pleasantness or miles of misery—or, of course, a mix of both. As the old Scottish folk song goes, “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye…”

With the exception of unforeseen circumstances such as accidents, illness, and unexpected losses, we largely sit in the driver’s seat. We turn the wheel, press the gas, hit the brake, and decide what gear we’re traveling in. Even when something intervenes, we still have a chance to choose how we will react to it.

I learned long ago that fretting over encounters with people who aren’t a regular part of your life is truly a waste of energy and time. Letting those moments stick in your craw is fruitless—like a barren tree. It’s the moments among our closest loved ones that most often plague the mind and keep the wheels spinning.

Recently one of those hit me and kept my thoughts turning for hours whenever my mind wasn’t occupied with other tasks. Sometimes, no matter how much something sticks with you, you simply have to find a way to let it go. I’ll be the first to admit that is one of the hardest things to do—our loved ones know exactly how to push our buttons.

Life is hard enough without letting flippant utterances steal our time, energy, and focus from what can fill our lives with joy, happiness, and hope.

Learn to let go, take the high road, and find the path to pleasantness.

Read more Randall Franks writings in his books found in the Store.

Frozen Eggs and Hard Lessons on the Trail

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We crawled out of the tent and started a fire. The goals were simple: warm up and cook some breakfast. The chattering of our teeth, despite the long johns and layers of clothes on top of them, wasn’t helping as we tried to endure the freezing cold of the mountains around us.

We broke the ice in the bucket and poured enough water to fill a pan for grits. When the frying pan was hot, we added frozen bacon. We had planned on scrambled eggs, but when we cracked the shells, all we found inside were egg ice cubes. So we simply dropped those into the skillet.

When a bunch of Boy Scouts hit the trail, it’s amazing what the food sometimes looks like after we cook it. Most of the time it’s edible, but the appearance could sometimes sway one’s appetite. That morning we started out feeling as if we were already in a freezer. I can only remember one other time being quite so cold—on a camping trip in the northern part of the U.S.

After breakfast we cleaned up, broke camp, and moved on. Two adult leaders and about a dozen scouts with backpacks headed toward our rendezvous point.

Those monthly camping trips were about far more than getting from one campsite to the next. Their real purpose was to strengthen our survival skills and put into practice what we were learning as we worked through various merit badges. Our leaders were good fathers and great teachers who invested in us. Our lack of skills felt like a constant uphill battle, yet as we climbed the ranks we grew more proficient and eventually could advise and coach those coming up behind us. My late father was one of those adult leaders. He always made the best effort to pass on his skills.

Of course, we still dealt with the same dynamics we faced in everyday life. There were the cool guys and the not-so-cool ones, and we sometimes found our share of hazing among the ranks. I was never one of the cool guys, but I excelled at earning merit badges and rose quickly through the ranks. I learned fast, and after the initial hazing the incidents became fewer and further between.

One year at summer camp, however, the bullying grew heavy. It was one of the few times in my life that I truly lost my cool. Pushed so far that all I could do was lash out, I picked up a three-inch-thick wooden tent pole about six feet long and started swinging it at the boys who were harassing me. In retrospect it was stupid and could have ended very badly. Thankfully I don’t remember landing any blows. Had I connected, I could have killed someone or broken a bone. The one thing it accomplished was that they saw I was no longer going to take it, and they left me alone after that.

I learned a valuable lesson that day about dealing with anger in the face of bullying—a lesson that has stayed with me the rest of my life. I am a much better person for the experience. The cold mornings, the hard climbs, and even the painful moments all taught the same truth: when life sends you an opportunity, seize the lessons it offers and build skills that will help you again and again.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books in our Store.

Getting Things Done That You Really Don’t Enjoy

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Life is filled with tasks that, as time goes on, we can feel increasingly annoyed by.
Who loves doing the daily household chores—cooking, washing dishes, sweeping the floor—or the weekly ones—washing clothes, cleaning the bathroom, working in the yard?

As the world keeps spinning and our days begin to pile up, sometimes you just look at these tasks and say, “No, not again.” It might seem self-defeating. You know it’s simply an exclamation in vain, because the work must be done and there’s no one else to do it. When I walk outside, I see the pressure washing that’s required, the shingle that needs fixing, the painting that is needed, the concrete repairs that should be tackled, the bushes that need to be cut—and the list continues.

I climb the stairs into the attic, and waiting for me is more cleaning, straightening, and sorting.


As I walk through the house, the dust bunnies play on the floor like they have the run of the place, the laundry needs folding, the bathroom needs a scrub, and my, how the piles of work seem to be gaining on my height.

My brother recently decided he was done. He has sold his home, and with it go 90 percent of these tasks. He will eventually gain others to replace them, but for now he sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

I, however, am not that brave. I like the consistency of place and everything in its place. Home is where I lay my head at night. It’s where I do life. One day someone else will make this space theirs, but for now—and hopefully, the Lord’s will—it is where I will pass a few more decades.

So, as the generations before me, I must buck up and just do it. Whatever it may be, it’s not as bad as it seems, and though the doldrums of repeated activity may creep into my psyche, I must persevere.
And so must you. These things we do daily seem unimportant in the scheme of things, but for those of you sharing life with someone else—spouse or children—it’s these shared experiences of doing the tasks that sometimes become the basis of memories.

Doing things together is what stands out in my thoughts of growing up. We did so much, but as Mother would say, “Many hands make the burden lighter.” I do miss the many hands. The tasks I was assigned, always trying to get them perfect, then followed by showing them to Mom or Dad—and the praise, or sometimes the lesson, that followed—stuck with me and helped shape the man I am.

That’s one of the things missing today. I tend to find my own lessons, but it’s hard to praise yourself. You can, and I do, yet the feeling of self-satisfaction from a job well done on daily or weekly tasks seems hollow sometimes. The special projects stick a while, but it’s hard to get excited over a well-cleaned toilet.

Perhaps the best encouragement for the effort comes from God’s “attaboy” through His Word: “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” — Matthew 25:21 (KJV)

So stop fretting the little things. Just do them, move on, and find the tasks that excite and uplift your soul. The sooner these are finished, the more time you can spend doing those.

Read more of Randall’s writing in his books found in our store.