Bullies often influence our life’s directions

/in /by

I rolled down the hill head first, it wasn’t the first time that I gotten myself in a scuffle with the other boys at school. But this one seemed to be tougher to overcome than most.
You would think a peaceable person such as myself wouldn’t get into scrapes with other folks, but I often found myself on the receiving end of bully’s attention. Sometimes it was directed at me to start with, but over the years, I had learned sometimes the only way to stop someone from being bullied was to step in and divert the attention of those inflicting the action.
Early in my life, I had seen my dad and mom step in to help others and one day another boy had stepped in for me in a fight and these things left an indelible mark in my character that I should do the same.
I was never much of a fighter. I was more of a punching bag coming up but I learned quickly to outsmart those who had ill will.
As I hit the bottom of the hill this time, I rolled up on my feet and turned ready for the next blow from the bully. Once I looked up, he was gone along with his band of evil doers. They had moved on to wreak havoc elsewhere.
I brushed myself off, walked back up the hill and picked up my books. The original aim of their actions had evaporated into the crowd. But I had accomplished my objective. I had deflected the harm with little or no worse for the wear.
This childhood tendency has brought me into helping others in a variety of ways in my life, though I have left physical intervention long in the past.
There are still bullies who need their attention diverted from those they wish to torment. Each of us should be mindful no matter where they appear. No matter what they wear or what they claim to be.
Wolves sometimes still wear sheep’s clothing to gain the opportunity to devour their prey.
Sometimes we have to step up, use our heads, so the wolves know we and those we love are not their prey and they need to move on.
May you always defend those less fortunate, and always stand up for the right.

Fear not

/in /by

Fear is something that hides deep within each of us as we walk through life.

I remember as a child, as many of my fellow youth gleefully looked to getting their first bicycle, within me was a sense of dread. I was comfortable with the tricycle and the insecurity of falling and losing my balance as I moved to the bike was such a hurdle to overcome. My father graciously added training wheels to the bicycle which I use for a brief time until the fear and dread faded and then one day, I asked him to take them off. I threw my leg across and soared down the driveway looking back over my shoulder at my smiling father.

The fear was gone. Of course, that did not stop the future mishaps, being thrown over the handlebars head first and sliding down the pavement several yards. Even that did not dissuade my return to the seat of my green speedster.

As we age fear remains but takes different aims. As a teen the fear was of relationships. Not of girls, I liked them plenty but I just did not know how to ask one out for fear of rejection. And boy, did I get rejected. My heart became a revolving door of turndowns. With each and every one that fear of hurt just grew and grew into a monster. One day though, the answer was yes, and off to the races I went.

The fear was gone, until the day that she decided she no longer liked me and wanted to move on.

Then the fear of rejection took on a different form, it wasn’t immediate, it waited a few weeks into the relationship, so I could be vested and feel the rejection with greater amplitude. What a monster that was that I saw grow year by year. Eventually though, I cast even that monster aside with a battle worthy of knighthood.

But fear was not gone, it came forward in the search for success, after failure here and there mounted, the concerns were growing within, “Will I ever find a place in life that I will work and serve and find contentment?”

That fear has been present throughout my life and no matter what successes others may see within my walk in life, I am always that youth out of school trying to find my place in the world that will make me, and others happy. Will I overcome it before I reach check out? I doubt it. But I will keep picking up my sword daily and beating it back as I serve my way through to the Pearly Gates. God has a purpose and reason for what is behind and ahead in my work for Him.

Fear manages to creep into the corners of our life and sit there waiting to pounce. I remember at points in my life, I sat fearful and immobilized by things that were ridiculous, but at the time, they consumed me and my thoughts. I let other influences control my being by their actions, their deeds, their words. Then I realized that I am not their plaything. I am in control of my life and as long as I am able to conduct what I do in an honorable, consistent, lawful, and faithful fashion, I should not be afraid.

I am thankful to my closest friends and relatives who have helped me through the years as I have struggled with various areas where fear has gripped my life, they have been God’s angels walking through my life steering me in the right direction.

Now, though I have seemed to be negative on fear in the words thus far, I am thankful for the spirit of fear that God sends to warn us away from impending disaster, from making the wrong decision, or doing something that might alternatively change the course of our life in a negative way. In those senses, fear is welcomed and in another way comforting.

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isaiah 41:10)

 

 

Looking back to the future

/in /by

Life is something that we should cherish with every passing breath. Often times we do not appreciate the simplest things like the feel of cool breeze on a hot summer day; the taste of a fresh glass of homemade lemonade so cold that the outside of the glass drips; the deep red color of a vine-ripened tomato as its thinly sliced for a tomato sandwich slightly smeared with JFG mayonnaise.
This morning I have pondered along with some of my friends what common ground there is between the generations of Americans that now bind us as a people. At one time it was our country’s deep agricultural heritage, the connection to the soil and what through sweat and hard work it could provide for both the sustenance and financial gain of the family.
Generations of Americans even those that lived in the cities, depended upon family farms to provide what our country needed to survive. In my lifetime, we have seen much of farming shift to larger business concerns and there has been a generation, possibly two, of individuals which have no close connection to the land, they didn’t grow up on the farm or even spend days helping their grandparents haul hay, cut okra, pick tomatoes or pull corn.
So, what does this mean for the future of our country, for the preservation of our lifestyle and the heritage of our communities? Are we destined to one-day build museums dedicated to the preservation of subdivisions? What values of history are we giving the current generation? Will they look back at a tractor and ask, “What’s that?”
With generations of Americans who have little or no practical daily connection to the land, how will they sustain themselves in an emergency such as a worldwide medical pandemic sometimes heralded by the media? What happens when milk can no longer be sent from the far-off mega-farms of the west? I bet there aren’t many households that have shelves lined with canned goods enough to get the family through to the next growing season, as was our ancestors’ custom. What will happen to a generation with no food because there will be no way to move it from place to place?
During the worst period in this country’s history, the Great Depression, even the poorest farmer, who was not devastated by natural disaster, had some amount of food to eat. Thousands of people who lived in the cities were able to receive food in soup lines because many farmers were able to keep working the land and caring people were willing to help those in need. They all had a connection to the land.
If our state, our county, our community was totally cut off from the outside world could we survive? Do we have a plan in place to feed and meet the needs of our population? Could we create the items needed for day-to-day life? Do we have the people who have the knowledge to do that?
While I’ll say that I believe that many leaders have considered the possibility, I do not think that we have a plan in place that could keep our state or county functioning on its own. It will take a joint effort at a local level, community to community, neighbor to neighbor, to see that each family or person makes it through in such a situation.
Will America ever face some catastrophe that will throw us backwards in time wishing that we had a few acres to plant potatoes and a milk cow to provide some milk and a horse to ride to town? I don’t know but even if it didn’t, it probably wouldn’t hurt if everybody knew how to dig taters, which part of the cow the milk comes from and how to get it to come out and just how do you get the key in a horse’s ignition and more important where are the brakes on one of them things. Just kidding, of course I know where the brakes are.
Do I have the answers as to what the future will be like, of course not, that is only in the Hands of God. Do I have a hope as to what I would like it to be? I certainly do.
I see an America that is covered with strong communities of caring and loving individuals who give their neighbors a helping hand when its needed. They go out of their way to help pick up a man when he is down, brush him off and help him along life’s road.
I see an America where greed and crime is something that exists only in the minds of creative novelists and film directors instead of the eyes our fellow man. I see an America where you make choices that are good for all the people not just a chosen few. I see an America where when a leader actually stands up and says something he or she actually believes rather than what the public wants to hear. Where his or her words of inspiration can actually mobilize this country towards a common good of creating a world that will be something our future generations can build from rather than have to pay for.
I see an America where each community is capable of standing on its own using the talents of its citizenry and the abilities of its businesses and industries no matter what the country as a whole may have to withstand in its future.
My friends the future of America is up to each one of us, its not just the job of Washington, Atlanta, Chattanooga, the guy next door, its not just the job of the woman down the street, it takes each of us working every single day improving our community as a whole by stepping outside our comfort zones and reaching out to make a difference.
It is up to us to have our own lives prepared for emergencies and to work with our local leaders to make sure that plans are in place. It is only through preparation that we as individuals or communities can reach out and help others, secure in the knowledge that our own families and communities are safe and adequate supplies are available to meet the needs at home.
Will this generation and those that follow be less because they are further removed from America’s roots? I think as long as our society continues to head in the same direction, each generation will make their way into the brave new world but it’s the what ifs that sometime worry me and make me thankful that God is in control. But even with God’s control, He expects all of us to do our part. Perhaps getting closer to and understanding the role that the land plays in our lives and making sure that that role never vanishes might be one way we can improve our little corner of the world.

Reaching and creating goals

/in /by

Reaching lifetime goals often means it is time to reformulate your life and create new goals. As time passes, these goals seem to race by like fence posts but each one is a marker I look on fondly. I reached a career goal in 1993 that I had pursued since I was a little child.

Since the first time I watched Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs sing “Little Girl of Mine In Tennessee” to “Granny” and “Uncle Jed” on “The Beverly Hillbillies;” since the first time I saw Wayne Newton play a down home country boy who could really saw the fiddle; or since the first time I watched Doug Dillard and all the Dillards entertain “Sheriff Andy Taylor” as “The Darlings” on the “Andy Griffith Show” with his up tempo banjo tunes; I dreamed of walking on network television to pick and grin.

I always figured that such national exposure for a young boy from Georgia had to come through music. There were just not that many other avenues at that time. So I worked and studied to improve my music, working to create and market our youth group, The Peachtree Pickers®, by working flea markets, churches and schools. We began competing at fiddler’s conventions and then moved up to entertaining larger and larger audiences at bluegrass festivals and fairs. The support of my late parents Pearl and Floyd Franks and those of the other group members helped to move our joint goals forward. We reached network cable in its infancy with a children’s show called “The Country Kids TV Series,” essentially a children’s “Hee Haw” which aired in the United States and abroad. Our growth would eventually lead us to performances for the Grand Old Opry ® and some acceptance by the more mainstream music industry.

In 1987, members of our youth act decided to go their separate ways, partially due to new college obligations. I was at a new point in my life, trying to decide what is next. I had not yet reached my childhood goal, but without a group, which was still the foundation of bluegrass and southern gospel music at that time, I did not know what my next step would be. I decided to make some solo appearances pulling together musicians when needed and continued appearing with other acts such as The Marksmen Quartet and Doodle and the Golden River Grass.

I began work at the Atlanta-based MBM records in 1987 helping to guide the careers of several artists signed with the label while still performing every opportunity I had. In 1988, the label changed hands and my job was eliminated. So, once again, I found myself searching. While I had enjoyed doing some minor acting in school, I decided in order to reach my television goal, I would have to begin a more intensive study of acting and take any opportunity, which were not many at the time, I could to get to be on screen in Georgia.

But God seemed to immediately open the doors, giving me opportunity after opportunity. The music talents God gave me seemed to put me where I needed to be. It would not be music that landed me my role as “Officer Randy Goode” on “In the Heat of the Night,” but it would be the many friends I developed from years of touring and recording that would share their exuberance about my presence on the show. After countless requests from those who cared about my music asking for me to perform on the show, Carroll O’Connor wrote a uniquely designed scene in an episode entitled “Random’s Child” which would set up a reason and purpose for “Officer Randy” to be pickin’ and grinnin’ just to frustrate the bad guys in that episode. One of those bad guys was Robert O’Reilly, “Gowron,” leader of the Klingons, from “Star Trek, Deep Space Nine.” I bet that is the only time in my life I will get to aggravate a Klingon.

Anyway, Carroll wrote a little piece entitled the “Sparta Blues” for actor Thomas Byrd and I to perform at the Sparta Police impound yard when the bad guys came to claim their car.

I have always jokingly called it my biggest hit since millions saw and heard it on CBS and millions more around the world have heard it since. I’ve often wondered what it sounded like when translated into Chinese or Italian. Recently, one of our Italian fans actually sent me some Italian performances, they were interesting. I didn’t know I spoke Italian so well.

It took years but the childhood dream was reached, and the goal I had chased for years was accomplished.
Then I had to decide what was next. Life is a constant re-evaluation of where you are and where you are going. We can’t just simply drift or what service will that be to God and our fellow man? He has a purpose for everyone’s life. It is up to us to make His vision for us happen. He will open the doors; we must simply study and be prepared to walk through. But at the same time, as we walk with the confidence He gave us we must always be mindful of whether what we are reaching for is His will or one we have created. Only time will tell.

Striving through the hard days

/in /by

Often in life we find ourselves looking at the calendar and it fills us with emotions of an occurrence on that date somewhere in our past.
On some occasions it is a good memory or emotion. My grandmother’s birthday still sticks in my head for some reason although to the best of my memory, we never celebrated it, nor do I recall ever being with her on that day but each day when it rolls around, I think of her despite her passing being long ago.
The end of August for me marks the passing of my father and the end of May that of my mother’s. No matter how many years have flown by, when I hit those days, the memories still come back. Thankfully, my folks taught me the importance of grieving through the experience at the time and moving on when the process is complete.
I remember my mother saying to me just hours before she crossed “I put everything that was and is in your good hands, my time is done, yours continues. Live.”
Holidays are hard, sometimes due to missing loved ones, sometimes due to lingering memories of what once was or what might have been. I know for me I often found the end of relationships at specific holidays which soured those annual festivities for me. Each year I have to work my way through the days anew.
I work to bring the spirit of the holiday into my life by finding and helping others, thus taking me outside my own head and not letting the past crush the present.
I wish I could say there is a magic pill to take or an easy course to take that will make everything all better for each of us. We all grieve differently. We all move through transitions in different ways. The best approach I have learned is just do it.
Get up. Get out. Find your new normal, add in your bliss, help some other folks along the way and eventually, you look at the calendar a day or two after one of these heavy-laden anniversaries and realize that the day went by and the day’s once significance, didn’t even cross your mind.

A little fig goes a long ways

/in /by

There were several things that folks could depend on in the valley below the Gravelly Spur Mountain, one was that the cool clear water of the Frog Leg Creek trickled its way from the springs upon the mountain and flowed crystal clear throughout the valley insuring that no one went without the liquid of life; the leaves always turned the valley into a patchwork quilt of yellows, reds and a smattering of auburn come fall; and the lovely and interesting and sometimes quirky Lola Roberts will have enough fig preserves to cover every biscuit from Jim Town to Burke and back again.
As young Pearl was coming of age, she spent more and more time with the valley’s elder stateswoman. Her tenacity and her uniqueness set her apart from everyone else. From the squirrels that kept her company by having free run of the house to the birds that roosted next to her porch that she knew by name, many thought she was more than different.
There was no one more vocal about the well-being of the valley and its natural inhabitants, or the welfare of folks who were in need. She often took up the issues no one else wanted to tackle and forged ahead bringing the valley around to her thinking about things.
But when the large bushes on the hillside behind her cabin filled with plump rich figs there was no one that took more delight in picking each of those fruit.
This year was another time that Pearl got to tag along as the two ladies with woven baskets filled them until the could not hold another. Lola passed the time telling stories of the pioneers who first came across the Gravelly Spur and forged out a meager existence in the timber laden valley while fending off Indian attack.
She would point almost ceremoniously at the large black spot on the rear of her cabin below where a fiery arrow had hit its mark only to have Lola’s great grandfather, a boy of eight, to climb out the loft window and detach the burning arrow and dousing the fire with a chamber pot returning to the window safely.
She spoke of how the family brought the first two fig bushes into the valley and from it the entire grove was born.
When the baskets could hold no more figs, the tales would stop and the ladies made their way down the hillside to the garden area below where a large cast iron pot sat over a large wood fire.
Lottie carefully sorted the figs one by one culling those she didn’t like and saving them for her bird friends.
The rest were prepared and dropped into the pot of boiling water above the flames in the garden.
Basket after basket of figs was added until the cast iron could hold no more and then another pot was added.
The figs were cooked and cooked hours on end as Lola reached into a variety of cotton sacks where she stored her individual spices and secret ingredients gathered from her woodland walks until the mixture bubbled with just the right plopping sound.
When it was all just right the savory sugar filled dark brown solution was dipped again and again with a wooden gourd filling Mason jar after Mason jar.
Lola would then carefully tie a ribbon around each and every jar preparing them for her later holiday delivery where she would spread her figs around.
For almost all except Grandma Kitty this was a delectable and joyous gift but for Kitty she could not stand figs but did not have the heart to tell Lola, so she always received them graciously with a smile and added the jar to the collection tucked way back up in the cupboard where they could never be found again.
But Kitty could just not contain herself when she came home one afternoon and found planted next to her back porch three of the prettiest fig bushes that ever touched God’s rich dark soil.
The three were also a gift from Lola but not for Kitty, this time for young Pearl who had helped her steadily.
But Kitty could not contain her frustration insisting on the removal of the bushes banishing them to some distant corner of the far, where only the birds and animals could find them but Grandpa Bill, never being able to resist the pleas of young Pearl defended their placement.
To this day even long after the old house sits in ruin the great great grandchildren of Lola’s feathered friends still roost and peck at Ms. Lola’s figs by the Grandma Kitty’s back porch.

(A story from Randall’s book “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes”)

A chuckle with the Doolittles

/in /by

One of the more interesting characters I have met in my life is my second cousin twice-removed Rufus A. Doolittle. No matter how many times the family removed him he just kept coming back. If you meet Rufus on the street, he will always have on his old blue Bibb overalls covering nearly 300 pounds of his favorite dishes. He always said he was built more for comfort than for speed.

Read more

Answer it?

/in /by

Sometimes in life we have a sense of foreboding, a phone rings and we know there is bad news on the other end of the receiver.
Do we pick it up and find out the feeling is true?
If we don’t, we will never know. If we do and it’s not what we expected, we are worried for nothing.
Perhaps there is the feeling at the pit of our stomach when we are speeding down the highway that makes us place our foot on the brake.
Have we averted a disaster, we wonder?
The answer may never be revealed or it can be bolstered in our mind when we find an accident just ahead of us.
We have been equipped with such feelings, some are innate, some are learned, some are simply inspired by God’s messengers speaking to our soul.
I know there was one night I was driving through the mountains on a road I knew like the back of my hand. Audibly in the cab of my truck I heard “Slow down!” There was no one to say it either in my vehicle or outside in the early morning hours in a sparsely inhabited area of the mountains.
As I rounded the next curve, just after slowing, there standing in the road were more deer than I had ever seen in one place in my life. I would have likely been killed at the speed I was going before, but the audible voice – changed the potential of my future.
Was it only in my head? Perhaps. Was it a woodsman whose voice cut through the speed, the radio, and the closed windows to be so audibly clear? Perhaps. I think it was one of God’s angels helping me thwart disaster.
There are many points in life an inner voice or an outer one could help us to steer clear of a place which will change the life we know in a negative way. I pray that we all hear it, heed it and hopefully make the appropriate choice.
Should you answer the phone? As Franklin Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear is simply – False Evidence Assumed Real. So, answer the phone, it may be good news.

Mountain Sounds from Ralph Stanley II

/in /by

Ralph Stanley II

The sounds of banjos and fiddles have kept my heart singing since childhood. From jam sessions to stage shows entertaining thousands, America’s music has charmed people around the world. One of the greatest stalwarts to forge the genre was the late Dr. Ralph Stanley, who I had the great honor to perform and record with. His son Ralph Stanley II continues the musical legacy with the Clinch Mountain Boys. He will welcome fans from around the world to the 50th Anniversary Dr. Ralph Stanley Hills of Home Festival in McClure, Va. May 25 through 28, 2022. I have been blessed to entertain there and it is a wonderful setting to hear bluegrass played the way it should be.
“The festival is always exciting because it’s held at the home place of the Stanley Brothers,” Ralph II said. “Being the 50th and having Ricky Skaggs returning makes it very special. He is the last of the original Clinch Mountain Boys that was there for the first festival appearing with dad, Jack Cook, Roy Lee Centers, Keith Whitley, and Curly Ray Cline.
“We want everybody to come out and enjoy the festival and help us keep it growing,” he said.
I spoke with the Grammy winning artist as he was doing performances in Florida. He is sharing songs from his latest albums “Lord Help Me Find the Way” and their self-titled album. Ralph has enjoyed three #1 songs in his career including “Beautiful Hills of Home”
“This is our 75th Anniversary Tour of the Clinch Mountain Boys and we are keeping it going on down the line,” he said. “We keep it true to where it began with the Stanley Brothers but I have more of a country feel to my vocals.”
He shared his vocal sound may reflect what the band might have had with his late uncle Carter at the helm without his dad.
In addition to Ralph, the Clinch Mountain Boys, currently includes banjoist Landon Fitzpatrick, fiddler Stanley Efaw, Caleb Shifflett on guitar and Randall Hibbitts on bass. To check out his latest music or other upcoming events, visit Ralph2.com .
“I think Bluegrass will always be around. I don’t think it will ever die,” he said. “As folks get older they go back to their roots and often that’s the music that they want hear.”
The week at McClure, Virginia features a who’s who in bluegrass with performances by Stanley, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Larry Sparks & The Lonesome Ramblers, Little Roy & Lizzy Show, David Davis and the Warrior River Boys, the Larry Stephenson Band, Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers and many more. Weekly passes are $130. Most day tickets are $35 with Saturday being $40. Kids 12 and under are free. College students with college I.D. receive a 20% discount.
If you can make the trip to participate in this historic festival, visit drralphstanleyfestival.com to find out more. 

Strengthen the day

/in /by

Click, click, click, click, emanates from my sneakers as I walk along the hiking path ever hopeful that with each passing mile I am a little more fit and well on my way to losing the few pounds I am seeking to shed.

After opening boxes, and pulling jeans up only to find they will not close and a crowbar will be needed to get them back off. Read more