As I look down at the flour on the floor and the straw of the broom as it meets the floor at the edge of heap, I swiftly move it through the white powder. In the motion, my mind sweeps over my memories and I find myself standing beside the table in my boyhood home.
My Grandma Kitty is standing at the end of the broom sweeping flour that I had managed to spill as we were preparing biscuits and getting ready to bake a batch of cookies.
The waves beat rhythmically against the shore in an endless pattern that seemed would never stop.
I had stretched out in the back of my white Ford stationwagon near the shore and the sound lulled me quickly to sleep.
The hot summer sun beat down on the back of our necks as we moved along the rows of okra with a knife in hand stepping inch by inch between each stalk and cuttin’ off the pods from the bottom up and placing them it in our tow sacks.
My mom was up ahead in the next row and dad was a few rows over as we worked to harvest the pods before they grew too hard to eat.
Cuttin’ okra was never one of my favorite things to do largely because of the itch brought on by the hair of the deep green leaves of the plant but it had to be done every few days.
I have been told there was a time when a person was judged upon the words that emanated from his mouth.
A person’s character could be seen in his deeds and by what he would say and sometimes what he would not say.
I have met many people in my life. Some, I would not trust them as far as I could throw them, while others — if they say it, it will be done.
One of the early influences that impacted my musical and spiritual life were those emanating from the legacy of the Sullivan Family of Alabama.
When my career in bluegrass was beginning I often found myself appearing on shows with Jerry (1933-2014) and Tammy Sullivan, carrying on that legacy but forging a new path of their own in the gospel and bluegrass music scenes.
The sweet smell of honeysuckle lightly drifted over the back porch steps as I sit at the top of a thirty-step descent to the ground below. At three-years-old this was a surmountable achievement to navigate these without tumbling to the bottom. And in reality my mother was always watchfully standing by looking through the porch door as she ironed to make sure I did not rush beyond my abilities and go scampering down the steps.
I stood at the edge of the mountain and looked down at the green of the fields below.
The fields were cut neatly into the shapes that the farmers had cultivated them in for years. The blue sky around me seemed to almost envelope me as I stood amongst the rocks and trees listening to the wind whipping the bark of a pine tree nearby creating a faint whistle.
I am walking across what seems to be an endless stretch of desert, with each step I hear my feet sink further and further into the sand. Each step is harder to make. The heat is unbearable as I stop and wipe my brow and replace my hat as I look up at a cloudless sky.
I am walking towards a mountain range. I don’t know where I am headed but I know the journey is one of life and death. If I don’t make it to where I am going I will simply fade into the sand that envelopes my feet never to be seen again.
Lightning flashes streaking across the sky eerily lighting the night. The wind blows swaying the tree limbs whistling as the rain beats intermittently in rhythm against the wall outside the window.
The sounds and sights beckon the opening scene of a television mystery or an old black and white horror film.
How many times a day do I reach over and hit the squirt top of an antibacterial and rub down my hands?
As I think on this practice, I wonder sometimes how I ever survived my childhood? How did any of us?
