Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Slice of Southern Life - The Old Picnic Table, at The Country Store...
A Slice of Southern Life - The Old Picnic Table, at The Country Store...
If you head west out of Mobile on Old Shell Road, you will ultimately end up on Tanner Williams Road. If you follow it on out, you will wind up in the West Mobile Community of Tanner Williams, AL.
It was named for the families that first settled this area. A quiet neighborhood, where most folks know each other at least by sight, if not by name.
I am blessed to live in an area where the new does not encroach upon the old as swiftly as it does in some places. Each weekday, as I drive westward through our small community, I cross over one of the prettiest places in lower Alabama; the dam across Big Creek Lake. A mile or so after the dam is the old country store, and each morning I witness the same gathering.
They meet and greet each morning, settling around the picnic table outside the old country store. A weekday ritual they have carried on for many years now, discussing over coffee and the daily newspaper, the ups and downs of everyday life. They discuss the economy, the progress of the fields of cotton, peanuts, corn, and soybeans... or at least that is what I think they talk about.
Some of them been planting and farming, nigh on fifty years... They'll tell you quick how things has changed over the years. How it was when they was coming up. Yet, even though they worry about how they are going to survive and feed their families, they laugh at each others jokes, spin tales, and enjoy the
camaraderie
around the old picnic table, at the Country Store, in their southwest Alabama neighborhood. They inherited farming and cattle ranching from their fathers and grandfathers. For some, it's the only life they've ever known. They do what they know how to do best. Raise crops and cattle, be neighborly and survive each day, around the old picnic table, at the Old Country Store.
March 3, 2009 © Susan C Beck aka Justplainolme
All Rights Reserved. No republication of this material,
in any form or medium, is permitted
If you head west out of Mobile on Old Shell Road, you will ultimately end up on Tanner Williams Road. If you follow it on out, you will wind up in the West Mobile Community of Tanner Williams, AL.
It was named for the families that first settled this area. A quiet neighborhood, where most folks know each other at least by sight, if not by name.
I am blessed to live in an area where the new does not encroach upon the old as swiftly as it does in some places. Each weekday, as I drive westward through our small community, I cross over one of the prettiest places in lower Alabama; the dam across Big Creek Lake. A mile or so after the dam is the old country store, and each morning I witness the same gathering.
They meet and greet each morning, settling around the picnic table outside the old country store. A weekday ritual they have carried on for many years now, discussing over coffee and the daily newspaper, the ups and downs of everyday life. They discuss the economy, the progress of the fields of cotton, peanuts, corn, and soybeans... or at least that is what I think they talk about.
Some of them been planting and farming, nigh on fifty years... They'll tell you quick how things has changed over the years. How it was when they was coming up. Yet, even though they worry about how they are going to survive and feed their families, they laugh at each others jokes, spin tales, and enjoy the
camaraderie
around the old picnic table, at the Country Store, in their southwest Alabama neighborhood. They inherited farming and cattle ranching from their fathers and grandfathers. For some, it's the only life they've ever known. They do what they know how to do best. Raise crops and cattle, be neighborly and survive each day, around the old picnic table, at the Old Country Store.
March 3, 2009 © Susan C Beck aka Justplainolme
All Rights Reserved. No republication of this material,
in any form or medium, is permitted
Friday, May 8, 2009
Searching
Searching...
It was just a few years ago, that I was romping and stomping through my youthful years. You know, they are gone before we know it, aren't they. I read a friends blog this morning and he was wondering why, he was drinking and smoking himself into an early grave... I really don't have an answer for that, probably no one but the good Lord can answer that; but it got me to thinking on folks that I have known personally over the years, that did the same thing. Some of em very close and I believe, it's because we are all searching for something. We were born as hunters/gatherers and now we don't have much to hunt and gather. It's a convenient life we have these days. Everything at our finger tips; but that don't mean we still have it easy, because some of us still don't.I'm content in my personal life; well as much as I can be anyway; but I've always been searching...Searching for something to fill that void; the one, that no matter how much I put into it, it still lacks something. I've never in my life, seen any one person, that was completely content with their life. Even my sweet little old grandma that was in her eighties when she died; but I did see something in her, that I hope to be able to accomplish myself when my time comes, and that's acceptance. You have to be able to except what life throws at you.Catch it with both hands and hold onto it, until it's time to let go and when that time comes; let it go! I smoke; and I've hung onto them all these years... I'm just not ready, to turn em loose.As for fulfillment. It's just a word... or is it?When I turned into a teenager; I thought "Yeah" I'm grown! but I wasn't.When I married and had children; there was still the void.When I searched out my ancestors and fulfilled my grandmothers wishes; I was still half empty...I thought, when I wrote these books and poems; that I would be fulfilled. I thought when one was accepted for publication, I would be satisfied and my mind would slow down; but it hasn't...I can't stop writing! I don't want to stop, even long enough to promote my book, which is being released the 27th of June. Even that date, sets my mind off on another journey... it's my g-grandfathers birthday. Is that a good sign?I'm scared; that if I leave it, "what I am in the process of writing;" it will go away... sink deeply into that void and forever be lost, into the emptiness there... that still hungers for fulfillment. Does that make any kind of sense?I'll probably be absent again. I'm still trying to fulfill that quota; write down all these stories, that just won't let me leave em be. Least ways, I reckon; I'll forever be searching...
May 6, 2009 © S. C. Beck aka Justplainolme All Rights Reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author
It was just a few years ago, that I was romping and stomping through my youthful years. You know, they are gone before we know it, aren't they. I read a friends blog this morning and he was wondering why, he was drinking and smoking himself into an early grave... I really don't have an answer for that, probably no one but the good Lord can answer that; but it got me to thinking on folks that I have known personally over the years, that did the same thing. Some of em very close and I believe, it's because we are all searching for something. We were born as hunters/gatherers and now we don't have much to hunt and gather. It's a convenient life we have these days. Everything at our finger tips; but that don't mean we still have it easy, because some of us still don't.I'm content in my personal life; well as much as I can be anyway; but I've always been searching...Searching for something to fill that void; the one, that no matter how much I put into it, it still lacks something. I've never in my life, seen any one person, that was completely content with their life. Even my sweet little old grandma that was in her eighties when she died; but I did see something in her, that I hope to be able to accomplish myself when my time comes, and that's acceptance. You have to be able to except what life throws at you.Catch it with both hands and hold onto it, until it's time to let go and when that time comes; let it go! I smoke; and I've hung onto them all these years... I'm just not ready, to turn em loose.As for fulfillment. It's just a word... or is it?When I turned into a teenager; I thought "Yeah" I'm grown! but I wasn't.When I married and had children; there was still the void.When I searched out my ancestors and fulfilled my grandmothers wishes; I was still half empty...I thought, when I wrote these books and poems; that I would be fulfilled. I thought when one was accepted for publication, I would be satisfied and my mind would slow down; but it hasn't...I can't stop writing! I don't want to stop, even long enough to promote my book, which is being released the 27th of June. Even that date, sets my mind off on another journey... it's my g-grandfathers birthday. Is that a good sign?I'm scared; that if I leave it, "what I am in the process of writing;" it will go away... sink deeply into that void and forever be lost, into the emptiness there... that still hungers for fulfillment. Does that make any kind of sense?I'll probably be absent again. I'm still trying to fulfill that quota; write down all these stories, that just won't let me leave em be. Least ways, I reckon; I'll forever be searching...
May 6, 2009 © S. C. Beck aka Justplainolme All Rights Reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author
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