A Southern Lament

Sometimes you can drift far enough off the main highways of America to suddenly find yourself in a different time, confronting a different reality. This morning I was driving near enough to Mt. Airy, North Carolina (made famous by the Andy Griffith Show) that I was able to pick up a classic country music station on the radio.

Now in the big city, where country music is enjoying broad popularity, classic country - the old stuff - includes the likes of Garth Brooks and Charley Daniels. To most country music fans today, anyone older than Kenny Chesney is from the distant past.

But the past around these parts has a much longer memory. This particular radio station was playing rural music in its classical sense. Ballads. Gospel. Folk music. Classical bluegrass as only mountain musicians can perform it. The kind of music that takes your mind off of the day's trials and tribulations.

There was one recording in particular that captured my attention this morning. It was a ballad originally sung in the 1940's by someone whose name I didn't catch. It was a song about a young native southerner lost in a war fought many decades before. It was of interest to me because, even though the Civil War ended 140 years ago, the playing of this particular recording reminded me that the war's toll and aftermath are still being dealt with by the people in Carroll County, Patrick County, and Smyth County, Virginia, Goldsboro, High Point, and Pilot Mountain, North Carolina. And Mt. Airy.

The disappearance of so many young men from every town and village across the south is still a wound that hasn't completely healed.

People in the mountains, even today, take time out - a brief moment - to mourn the loss of a generation of kinfolk. Some think of grandfathers and great grandfathers they never knew. Others their great-uncles who went off to war and were last seen moving forward, face toward the enemy, weapon in hand, on the field of Shiloh, Tennessee on a beautiful Spring day in 1862 ... and were never heard from or seen again. Vanished, like so many thousands of other young southerners in the day. At Fredericksburg and Manassas. Gettysburg and Cold Harbor. Petersburg and Slaughter Mountain. Not a word ever made its way back to let relatives know of their fate. They simply, cruelly, vanished from the face of the earth. Forever.

Even today, tens of thousands of the south's finest and most promising young men who disappeared in the years 1861 to 1865 are unaccounted for. No gravestone marks their last resting place, save for plaques in cemeteries in such faraway places as Perryville, Kentucky and Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee that read, "Here lie the mortal remains of 300 Confederate dead." Nothing more.

If there is the occasional feeling of remorse coming out of the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina after these many years, imagine what the all-consuming sense of loss must have been in those years when the war was still raging, as well as in the many years that followed. It didn't simply involve individual families who were touched by tragedy. Entire communities were devastated by the tragic losses. So many young men.

I was able to find the lyrics to the ballad I heard on the radio. Here they are, for your edification.

Rebel Soldier

In a dreary Yankee prison

Where a Rebel soldier lay

By his side there stood a preacher

Ere his soul should pass away

And he faintly whispered Parson

As he clutched him by the hand

Oh parson tell me quickly

Will my soul pass through the southland?

Will my soul pass through the southland?
To my old Virginia Grand
Will I see the hills of Georgia?
And the green fields of Alabam'
Will I see that little church house
Where I placed my heart in hand?
Oh parson tell me quickly
Will my soul pass through the southland?

Was for lovin' dear ol' Dixie
In this dreary cell I lie
Was for lovin' dear ol' Dixie
In this northern state I'll die
Will you see my little daughter?
Will you make her understand?
Oh parson tell me quickly
Will my soul pass through the southland?

Every Muscle In My Body Aches

Well, the plan for yesterday was a good one. It's spring and my intention was to kick back and soak up the sun.

Something I've never been able to do.

Instead, because of the great weather and the fact that there is so much that needs to be done around the estate, I now have cuts and scratches on both hands, aching muscles, and sunburned ears (I forgot to wear my wide-brimmed straw hat).

I spread 240 pounds of lime on my (rather expansive) lawn, repaired some wooden furniture, harrowed (look it up), rolled out the chipper/shredder and got it ready for use next weekend, spread manure, spread grass seed, mounted a bird feeder and a bird house, and took the cages off a number of pine seedlings (If I don't protect them, the deer eat them in the wintertime.)

The only saving grace was in my having time yesterday evening to smoke a cigar, drink a bottle of Zinfandel, and barbecue some delectable chicken breasts (I'd give you my wife's secret marinade recipe but I'd then have to kill you.).

Though I feel the need to stick my head in the toilet this morning and get it over with, all in all, it was a glorious day.

The Teacher's Dilemma

My sister, Suellen, sent me this. I enjoyed it. And there is a point being made.

After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said:  

"Let me see if I've got this right . . You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. And I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits. 

You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self esteem. You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job. 

I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of anti-social behavior, make sure all students pass the mandatory state exams, even those who don't come to school regularly or complete any of their assignments.
Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of their mental or physical handicap. And I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter and report card.  

All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a big smile AND on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps! 

You want me to do all of this and yet you expect me not to PRAY??"

Our thought for the day.