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Words can inspire in many forms

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Writing is a constant companion to me. It has been since my early days in school. Perhaps it is something in the genetic make up passed along similarly as in my more well-known cousins whose works have inspired the world – Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, T.S. Eliot, and Edgar Allan Poe.

My efforts to string words upon a page so readers can cast their eyes and evoke a stream of thought or create an emotion, pale in comparison to the least of theirs.

For those of you who have journeyed with me in my 23 years of creating this column, I thank you for sharing your time in my continuing opportunity to reach you with what flows from my heart and mind.

Many of you have delved a bit farther by reading one of my non-fiction books or even my mystery “A Badge or an Old Guitar.” This year I plan to take readers into a new place with my novella “Southern Crossing” and hopefully inspire with a devotional.

My tenth book recently came out and it was my third co-author. I spent a year with 93-year-old former Ringgold, Ga. Mayor Joe Barger and his wife Barbara. My earlier works in this area were with entertainers Ramblin’ “Doc” Tommy Scott and Violet Hensley. A foray into metallurgical engineering, his occupation, was a stretch for me although I easily grasp the area of government and politics he also inhabited for 48 years.

“I worked closely with Randall while I was mayor, I knew there was no one I trusted more to help me chronicle my 93 years and share Barbara’s and my story,” he said in an interview following its release.

Hearing this was uplifting to me. Joe and I served side by side for six years on the city council. I was his vice mayor. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we found the best way forward for our city’s residents and businesses.

As part of the book, I spent weeks at the city hall. I read all the minutes from his 48 years in office and transcribed what I felt he might like to share and then we worked through the years adding context and stories about the people he worked with and those that lived in the town.

He was introduced to Ringgold by joining a college friend on a trip back home in the 1950s. He would later land a job with Combustion Engineering in Chattanooga, Tenn. which began his passion for metallurgy, he said.

Though the North Carolinian loved serving his neighbors, he wanted to write about his professional experiences as a metallurgical engineer to share some of his wisdom with future generations of welders.

“There were so many lessons that I learned as Combustion Engineering allowed me to develop new patents on so many applications to enhance what we did in nuclear energy development,” he said. “And there are many simple aspects of welding that I thought might help other young welders. I wanted to write some of that down.”

After serving in army intelligence during the Korean War, Barger returned to Ringgold to marry the love of his life and regain his position at Combustion, he said.

“My job took me around the world solving problems and sharing the success of what we were doing for Combustion in Chattanooga,” he said. “I couldn’t asked for a better company to work for or a better bunch of people to work beside helping light up the world.”

Working closely with Joe and Barbara on this book has been one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Their story is in many ways, the story of small town America. I think his book will be a great resource for anyone who might like to look back at what Ringgold was and how it got to where it is today.

“Testing the Metal of Life: The Joe Barger Story” by Joe Barger and Randall Franks is a 496-page book featuring over 550 photos and is available at www.RandallFranks.com/Joe-Barger .

The new stove for Christmas

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The family had already gathered in the valley below the Gravelly Spur for an unbelievable feast of ham garnished with pineapple, green beans in a dish surrounded by little pearl onions, mashed potatoes and gravy, and dandelion greens seasoned with just the right amount of pepper and fresh churned butter.
The dinner was topped off with one of Grandma Kitty’s pumpkin pies.
She carefully prepared each item in her cast iron pots over the open flames of the hearth. She never complained about all the work that was involved in keeping the fire stoked and having to keep such close tabs on each item to make sure they were just right.
The days following Thanksgiving always meant there would be some leftovers for the family to enjoy in a variety of creations that she would lovingly craft to give the family the illusion that they were not eating the same dishes each meal.
For years, she toiled to make the three meals a day for her ever-growing family. One day when the family went to town that summer, Grandpa Bill noticed her lingering in Ollison’s General Store around a catalog with pictures of some new wood cooking stoves.
Although she never said a word, he saw in her eyes the desire she had for a wrought iron Home Comfort stove.
He decided then and there that she would have one. So he made an arrangement with Mr. Ollison to buy the stove, paying a bit at a time through the rest of the year to have it arrive just before Christmas.
Grandpa Bill had managed to keep the purchase a secret from the entire family. He even arranged for everyone to be gone to visit Cousin Winfrey Small so that when Mr. Ollison arrived in his wagon on Dec. 23, with a tarp covering the contents, no one could see.
Mr. Ollison and Grandpa Bill unloaded the stove and set it in the kitchen. He had worked all morning preparing the stove pipe so he could get it hooked up and have it ready when she returned.
He was making the last adjustment as he heard the wagon pull up in the yard. He quickly pulled a bit of red ribbon into a bow and set it in the middle of the stove. He sat down quietly at the table with his newspaper in his hand as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
As the kids rushed into the house, they did not even notice the large stove in the kitchen until Grandma Kitty dropped the pail she was carrying with her Christmas cookies inside. She stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, her hand over her mouth, holding back a flood of tears as she saw the stove.
The sound of the pail hitting the floor brought all the kids to the kitchen, and they began hovering around the stove.
Pearl said, “Did Santa come early?”
Grandpa Bill said, “Yes, he said he would be back in a couple of days, but he thought your mother might like to have her present early.”
Grandma Kitty had moved quietly to her kitchen chair, sitting down slowly, never taking her eyes off the stove except to wipe away the tears of joy flowing down her cheek.
Pearl said, “Why are you so sad about getting a present?”
“I’m not sad dear, I am just so happy I could not help crying,” she said.
“So you like the new stove?” she asked.
“I have never gotten a better present from Santa in my life,” she said.
She rose and gave Grandpa Bill a big hug.
“Thank you for telling Santa what I wanted,” she said.
“If he could, he would give you so much more,” he said.
“I have everything I need right here,” she said, as she gathered all her children close and hugged them tightly.

“The New Stove” is from Randall Franks’s “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes”

The Christmas Doll

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The winter of ’34 in the valley below the Gravely Spur was an especially hard one. A Christmas snow had blanketed the valley, making travel through the mountain passes treacherous, even if taken by foot.
With one false step, even those who knew the routes by heart could find themselves slipping into a snow drift hiding a potential fall.
However, for most of the children of the valley the snow turned it into a winter wonderland. Pearl, Ruby and the Wood boys were finding whatever they could ride to go sledding down Turner’s gorge. At the bottom of the gorge lay a pond formed from Frog Leg Creek which was covered in a thick coat of ice almost strong enough for skating. No one had any skates so they would simply slide across on the soles of the new shoes they received when the crops were sold.
While the children were unaware, most of the parents of the valley knew that the reality of the year had left them all in dire straits.
Toys at Christmas were largely a luxury in the valley. Even the well-to-do families were having trouble this year. The customary apple, banana or piece of peppermint stick candy that most of the children found in their stocking might be missed this year.
Pearl had sensed the concerns of her parents and with six children and four share-cropping families to help, she knew her father was doing all he could that year.
The unexpected snow however made it difficult for anything not already on hand to be brought into the valley.
Still Pearl hoped that she might find a little something for her Christmas morning that she could call her very own.
As she was sliding on the ice, she listened as the Wood boys laughed about what happened to what they got the year before.
“I can’t believe what George did to our present last year,” Woody said. “We got a whole string of firecrackers to split between us boys and he nearly run us out of the house with them.”
“He got up early Christmas morning and found them. They had this long string running through connecting them, so he took that loose and was counting them and splitting them up so we all had the same amount,” he said. “He threw that long piece of string in the fire. That thing jumped back out right in the middle of his pile. You should have seen George when those firecrackers started going off in every direction. They even jumped up in the bed with the rest of us and got everybody up in the house.”
But in spite of the snow, Santa would be making his usual stops at the Gravelly Spur no matter what. Because of the terrain, this year he would only make one stop in the valley and all the neighbors would go by Christmas morning and pick up what he had brought for the valley children.
Santa’s helper in the valley was Rev. Ben Smathers, who waited patiently Christmas Eve for Santa’s arrival. As the families came to Big Lick Church Christmas morning, he would then, one by one, distribute the gifts and the community would then gather for a celebration of Christ‘s birth.
Christmas morning, Pearl was up early, anxious for the trip to the church. In her stocking she found an orange and a stick of candy. When the family arrived at the church, she joined the other children in line at the tree and stepped up to Rev. Smathers. He placed in her arms a little blonde doll in a woven basket lying upon a blue cotton pillow.
“It is so beautiful,” she said. “Is she really mine?”
“Yes, just for you my dear,” he said. “So you take good care of her.”
As she looked in the eyes of her new friend, Pearl beamed with the joy of Christmas.
It was not stacks of gifts which made her eyes glimmer and her face shine with the light of the season. It was one simple gift of her very own given by the heart of a pastor who knew without his help many children would do without that Christmas.

A refuge under the covers

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When I was a little boy, my brother and I shared a room with two maple single beds, a maple night stand, and a maple dresser with six drawers – three on each side with a large mirror spanning its width. The beds had pineapple finials on their posts. My older brother left me behind in the room early in my life after he graduated high school headed off to the Navy. There was 15 years between us. The room was lonely once he was gone. He often had friends over that allowed me to be the annoying little brother! I reveled in all the mischief I was able to cause as a toddler.

That room became like a cavern to me. In the dark, there were definitely monsters under both beds, in the closet and walking down the hallway leading to the room. I could hear every creak and pop. Any little thing would have the handmade quilt pulled so high over my head, it was doubtful I would ever dig myself back out again.

When the fears of nightmares were too hard to bear, my parent’s bed was a refuge, and off I would run up the hall, open the door, and jump in between them in their cedar bed. After they calmed me, I would soon settle in warm and snug between them.

As I grew, my bed became also a sick bed, as my tenuous health caused me to take extended stays there. The maple night stand became a regular place for bottles of medicine, damp wash rags would remove the vanish over time as they would hang there between my fevers.

In my childhood, the room had none of those things children have today. There was only one TV in the house in the living room. Only what could fill my imagination with the toys from my closet were what I had to keep me occupied in the healthy times. I also had a candy red tricycle which allowed me some freedom in the back yard and, of course, like many I had my own cowboy outfit, with a cap pistol, so I could chase after the bad guys.

That room was my world as a kid. I knew every flaw, every loose board, and where I could hide from company if they came. Despite being alone, I filled it with lots of imagination.

As the years passed, I remained there until I was in my teens and the den was converted into a more adult bedroom for me and the childhood bedroom became a guest room.

Years later, we decided to sell the suite and it moved along to a family that had a set of twin girls who would then call it their own. I hoped they found as many happy hours there as I did and experienced a few more joint memories as siblings. The bedroom suite was second hand to my brother and I, so I imagine it has moved on a time or two more since then.

While furniture does not carry memories with it, the pieces certainly can leave a memory legacy within each of us. Today, I still sleep in that cedar bed I once jumped in as a toddler. A few feet away are the dresser drawers which served as my bed as an infant. I imagine, if it is the Lord’s will these items will be with me the rest of my journey and then will pass along in the family.

An aisle to the future

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I walked down the aisle between the rows of seats in the Dresden Elementary School cafeteria. On each side were the parents and grandparents of my classmates watching with bright faces as we walked by in our best. Kelly Carter was paired to walk beside me in the procession as we completed seven years of learning before transitioning to high school in the fall.
Within this room, I had eaten five meals a week for seven school years. After I was diagnosed allergic to milk, that was a daily trip into the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice, more times than I can count.
In that room, the Cub Scouts held their Pack Meetings and Pinewood Derbys. As I recall, Mr. Donor, our principal doubled as pack leader. My late parents also served – Mom was a den mother.
We held choral and orchestra performances from the stage of that room and a few childhood plays also made their way to the parents’ awaiting eyes.
We held parts of Halloween events, Spring Carnivals and special programs in that room. Some of my favorite moments were the special Christmas chorales that were held with such wonderful music. All of us had clear childhood voices with which to harmonize and make the music blend.
I recall at least one Peachtree Pickers performance by my youth bluegrass band from that stage, but on this day all of that was coming to a close as we were handed our certificates and bid goodbye to the teachers, we had known from ages 6 to 13.
There were many hopes and dreams that were realized for us that day and many new dreams began.
In your hometown, in your elementary and middle schools, many of the youth will gather to share songs or music during this Christmas season. I encourage you to lend your support to these efforts. Make a difference in the lives of youth who wish to share their talents. Some may be presenting special plays at Christian schools or churches that reflect the story of the season. Please attend and encourage the participants. You never know, you may find yourself uplifted by talents who will change the world in a few years.
I am sure those parents sitting out in the audience at my graduation or at one of those early performances, likely never imagined they would one day see me acting on network television or hear me from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, but that is where those early experiences led me.
You may experience the same, but while doing it be sure to encourage them along the way and support your local charities which make Christmas that much brighter for the young people in your hometown.

Decorations upon the heart

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I crawled up the ladder into the attic and pulled the string illuminating the surroundings.

Only a small area above the attic pull door was floored, and it was covered in cardboard boxes, as were the rafters, except for a space to move around the door.

I knew where I was going. It was my job as a boy to bring down the Christmas decorations which were all stored near the heat exhaust fan in the hall ceiling.

Generally, there were about six boxes including lights, Christmas ornaments, a faux fireplace, our artificial tree, and the exterior lights.

The first week in December was always a time that I looked forward to, because over a couple of days all these items would go up.

We would put the Bing Crosby or Elvis Presley records on the player and start working. Bill Monroe’s “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” or Jimmy Martin’s Christmas album would always be in the mix too.

Our tree went up in front of the living room windows, so the curtains could be pulled and any drivers by could see its lights. We chose the artificial tree beginning the year that I was diagnosed allergic to the trees. Despite losing the smell of the fresh tree and me eventually helping sell them with my Boy Scout troop. I still enjoyed putting the tree together. That was my job. Then mother would guide me placing the ornaments and icicles. The round ornaments included a mixture of red, green, silver and gold colors. There was a sparse number of off shaped smaller ones used in the upper areas of the tree. Most of these ornaments, my folks accumulated in the 1950s and 60s. On the top of the tree, my dad, when I was small enough would lift me up and we would place an angel with a light.

On one wall, near the front door, we would put together the faux fireplace with the electric lights behind the logs, and upon it would go our stockings and the Christmas cards that would come in.

Each window in the front of the house featured an electric candle. While every table in the house was swapped to seasonal doilies, candles, and decor.

On the exterior, that was dad’s domain with my help. All the bushes along the front of the house would be covered with lights, as was the trellis by our door. On the trellis near the door, we placed a two-foot lighted face of Santa. Plugging in one plug would light up the outside.

Once complete, the look and sounds for me meant Christmas was coming. While nobody’s life is all roses, these Christmas traditions helped me as a boy to have a blessed memory to grow upon each year.

Adulthood for me, unfortunately, didn’t bring the pleasant Christmases that were there in childhood. Instead after a certain point of not successfully finding that, I realized my way to create new traditions was by helping others have an amazing Christmas by helping meet the needs of those less fortunate.

Seeing the smiles on children’s faces when they receive a special unexpected gift. Filling a fridge and cabinets with food when a family doesn’t have money for that purpose. These were traditions that I also saw my parents quietly do when I was a child.

Those actions weren’t to make my Christmas better then. But today as I think fondly upon the decorations of old, it was the quiet service to others that I saw my parents do, that’s what really sunk into my memory and resurfaced as what Christmas is really all about.

For this Christmas, continue your family traditions, but add a new one for your young ones to see. That is, if you don’t already, why not help folks in need and let your children take part, maybe those actions will stay within their hearts for years to come.

Special places can connect the decades

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Have you ever stood in a particular place, scanning the horizon taking in all that is in sight?
For my exercise I stepped upon the front steps of the Ringgold Depot in Ringgold, Ga. looking northwards along the route of the U.S. Highway 41.
As you recognize all within your purview, could you imagine how many have stood exactly where you do seeing the same view through history?
The Ringgold Depot was completed in 1849, two years after the founding of the city. Upon its dedication by the Western & Atlantic Railroad, I can imagine the new city commission standing in front of it looking out upon Ringgold.
My cousins George Anderson and Michael Dickson, who were on that commission, may have stood there imagining what their community would become now.
A decade earlier, Cherokee Assistant Chief Richard Taylor stood looking out upon his former domain as 1,000 people began the long journey to the Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. Among them were some of my cousins who would marry his daughters.
Twelve years later in January 1861, two more cousins Joseph T. McConnell and Presley Yates would stand there looking out before stepping up on the train to travel to Milledgeville. Their trip in the coming years would change the vista from the Ringgold Depot. They were sent to vote in the succession convention. One would vote for and one against. The majority chose to leave.
A year later, the stationmaster would stand there watching the General, the Texas and the Catoosa speed by as part of the Great Locomotive Chase brought about by Andrews Raiders.
One more year would pass and the future President Ulysses S. Grant would stand looking out at the town of Ringgold as shots fired down upon him from White Oak Mountain behind the station as his army was trying to beat the retreating army.
In the 1898, thousands of soldiers would stand looking upon Ringgold on their way to Camp Thomas in western Catoosa County to train for the Spanish American War. Seven hundred and fifty two of those soldiers would not look out on the view again for their return trip. They perished from camp diseases.
For years to come, the soldiers would stand and look out one last time at their childhood town, as they would leave for WWI, WWII, KOREA and Vietnam. Many would hold on to that view and the partings with their mom, dad, wife or girlfriend throughout their journey hoping to see it and them again.
With the abandonment of passenger service to the area, the Depot only took on occasional cargo shipments but it soon became simply a fading memory of the past until the city businessmen turned it into a concert venue.
For me I stood there and welcomed thousands while hosting monthly gospel concerts for over a decade and as a council member I helped ease the building into its role as a community center.
One place to stand, one ever-changing view with unchanging elements, thousands of eyes, thousands of stories, 18 decades, I have reflected back upon.
Is there a similar place that you are in daily, weekly, monthly in your hometown? Do you know how it touched people’s lives or do you take it for granted. Does it need some attention, some love, some recognition, or some signage? Maybe you could help make that happen.
Even the simplest place can reach across the years and connect us.  

Echoes of a crash

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Bert and Rawel pulled along the seamlessly endless row of furrows as Granddad held the handles of the plow and the reins that guided the mules.
The year’s crops had been a success and had brought a good price and the second turning was to help provide some extra fall greens for Grandma to can, along with pumpkins to sell.
Bert and Rawel would gain a bit should the crop succeed as they always enjoyed grazing upon a few of the greens that their labor helped create. Granddad always planted a few extra rows just for that treat for the family’s constant companions in the daily work.
When the greens and pumpkins were closing in on perfection, Granddad was leaning back upon the fence looking out across the fields, when the world news wound its way through the mountains and valleys, to the farm as one of the neighbor boys Jeb rode up to tell him about the news of the stock market crash.
This financial news did not matter much in the valley but it was the unusual to hear of rich folks jumping out windows in the face of the losses that helped to carry the news wider than it would have normally went.
The last time really big news came through was during World War I, which news took many young men with it and some did not return. This news would have the similar impact but it wouldn’t come for a few years yet before many of the local farmers would find the local banks unable to finance the next crop and without the ability to make a new crop, those who had mortgages were paddling against the current and some would lose in their effort.
Many of the banks closed their doors and the farms were left unplanted. Bert and Rawel managed to keep working on Granddad’s furrows. Granddad worked to hold the valley together and thankfully, he was able to help a few folks get a new start rather than letting their farm go back to the bank, some sharecropped, some loaded up their truck and went west in search for greener grass.
It would be years though before the greener grass would grow again across the land.
Coming through those lean years would build the characters of the youth of the valley. As they came of age, their strength would fuel the call to stand up against tyranny around the world becoming the Greatest Generation.
Perhaps it was the steady strides of Bert and Rawel that kept growing the furrows of the family farm and the strong hands of Granddad that guided many of the valley youth through the upheaval. Plowing a straight furrow day after day prepared so many for what was ahead. As we face each and every day, sometimes I think back upon those walking barefooted behind the plow in hot sun feeling the dirt rise up through their toes.
As we each look towards what may be ahead in our own valley, if we keep our focus upon taking care of our neighbors, walking a straight furrow, and inspiring the youth, maybe we can inspire another great generation. 

A leaf falls in time

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The sun’s rays offered a great warmth to my cheek as I began my walk along frog leg creek. It had been many years since I eased my feet along the path I had run along so swiftly as a boy. The water in the creek churned up a froth as it swirled over the rocks aiming its strength at forcing the water south ward. A large brown leaf fell with a thump upon my head. Perhaps it wasn’t quite a thump, more like quick poke.

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Getting ahead of the snores

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It had been a busy day or roaming for me around my grandparent’s place.
I am sure much of my adventures had not amounted to much but to me they seemed like I was Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone rolled up into one.
As the evening sun went down and the family gathered on the porch, the evening meal of pinto beans, turnip greens with fatback, fried chicken, and cornbread, was being set on the table and soon we would gather around it, bow our heads and hear grace emanate from my grandfather’s booming tones.
As we gathered in the living room, the black and white Zenith was turned on in anticipation of an episode of “The Porter Wagoner Show.” Grandma loved Porter and never missed his show. Plus, an added benefit, he had one of her mountain kin singing on the show too, a blonde named Dolly.
As the designated antenna holder, I would often spend my time hanging with one hand on the rabbit ears, as I hung around to see a bit of the screen being chided to get out of the way should I ever lose my balance.
As the evening progressed, the family would eventually veer from the screen to talking amongst each other. After finishing my acrobatics around the TV, I would excuse myself and head to bed.
The old farmhouse had two bedrooms each with a double bed adorned in a chenille bedspread, one for my grandparents and one for my folks and I.
You might wonder why a youth would wish to get to bed early. Well, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.
Between my grandfather and my father sawing logs throughout the night, I have no idea how my mother or grandmother rested at all.
If I had not went to bed early in an attempt to beat their snores, I would have spent the night tossing and turning simply hoping to find rest.
On a couple of occasions when I awoke unexpectedly, those were nights of misery.
As I have now years between me and those memories, and they are all gone, I do wish I could go back and endure it once again. I am sure that if anyone is within ear shot of my sleeping, they probably are now finding the same misery, although I have never stayed up to find out myself. Sweet dreams!