rural life – Words Not On Paper

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

The Old Man, the Chihuahua, and Jesus in the Woods

May 12, 2022by rayclifton4 Comments

As a side note and for your education in the intricacies of forestry parlance, anyone associated with the timber business refers to a parcel of wooded land as a “tract,” as in “that’s a nice tract of wood.” It is pronounced “track,” and I suspect a good many of them would spell it that way.

But I digress. Reckon I got off tract.

I had just moved a logger onto the tract when the owner drove up. He was an old man dressed in old man work clothes: khaki pants, matching khaki shirt, red and black plaid hunting jacket, and a cap with ear flaps. Looked like he might have just stepped off the cover of a 1957 edition of Outdoor Life. His car was also from the ’50’s, a Rambler I believe, and it was as neat as the creases on those khaki pants. I initially thought “bless his heart, this poor fellow has come today because this land is dear to him. He probably inherited it from his father, who managed to scrape up enough share-cropper dollars to buy it just before the Great Depression. Now he wants to take a last look at the trees he and his poor old daddy planted together right after he got home from the Big War across pond.”

I would later discover that he owned a couple of thousand acres of land and had more money than Carter had little pills (Google it, youngsters). I have more imagination than sense sometimes.

He motioned me over to the passenger window. “Hop in, young fellow, I want to show you some things before you get started.”

Now at this point in the story I should mention that there was a chihuahua in the back seat of the Rambler, who looked to be about as old as the man (in dog years, of course). I should also mention that he was in a rage, barking and snarling and flinging himself against the rear passenger window.

I am not a person who has any fear of dogs. But I do have a healthy respect for a snarling one with a murderous look in his bugged-out eyes, even if he does weigh 15 pounds and barks with a Mexican accent.

I hesitated. “Is your dog going to bite me?”

“No, son, get in. Jasper, hush that up now, you hear.”

Jasper was apparently bilingual, as he did calm down slightly. But as soon as I got in he jumped to the top of the front seat, where he hunkered-down facing me.

We rode around in that Rambler for twenty minutes as the old man pointed to this and that. We bounced down roads and pig-trails that I wouldn’t have attempted in a four-wheel drive pickup.

I said “Yes sir” a lot, but my eyes were straight ahead and I was trying not to flinch. That chihuahua’s nose was one-inch from my cheek, and he was growling the entire time — one of those breathing, inhale/exhale growls. I knew if I made one move my left ear was gone. I was focused.

We eventually made it back, my face still intact.

The next day I called the logger to see how things were going. “This is some good wood” (more forestry parlance), “but I’m afraid we’re going to accidentally kill that old man. He stays out here all the time watching us work. We’ve had several close calls. He just appears out of thin air beside the machines. I almost cut a tree down on him this morning.”

I promised I would come by the next morning and talk to him about the dangers of logging equipment. Make sure he understood.

Let me digress again and tell you a little about this logger. Tony had found Jesus at a Pentecostal tent revival a couple of months before, and he was as excited and sincere about his new-found faith as any man I had ever met. Within a week, his entire crew had joined the flock as a result of his preaching. Tony had invited me to his church, the “West Georgia Assembly of Signs Following,” where the Spirit was working. People were speaking in unknown tongues, being healed of various afflictions, and sometimes were “Slain in the Spirit.” No timber rattlers were being passed around, so I guess all the signs following were not yet on display.*

Once Tony asked me if I had ever been Slain in the Spirit.

I said I didn’t think I had.

“Well, you ought to come to one of our Saturday night services. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It was like being hit by a bolt of lightning. Knocked me slam out of my shoes.”

I smiled and nodded. Didn’t say anything. Never had any desire to be struck by lightning. Try to avoid it most days.

Back to the story. The next day I came out to talk to the old man, but he was nowhere to be found.

I stopped Tony and asked if he had been out to the job that morning.

“Oh yes, he left about an hour ago. I asked him if he knew Jesus, and he said ‘No, I don’t want any part of religion,’ so I radioed all my men and got them to come in. We formed a circle around him and prayed for his eyes to be opened by the Spirit, but he just jumped in his car and left.”

Funny thing, we never saw that old man again.

Probably just afraid of lightning.

* The Bible, Mark 16:17-18.

This piece first posted in 2016.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

The Good Life

April 23, 2020by rayclifton13 Comments

for Molly

If you live long enough you gain an appreciation for those who came before you.

When COVID-19 hit and everyone was advised to practice “social distancing,” I was indifferent. “Social distancing?” I invented it. Been practicing it for years.

Then came “shelter in place” and “work from home.”

Unlike most, I could not have been happier. Stay home? Well “please don’t throw me in the briar patch Br’er Fox.” I packed my possibles and headed to our farm.

I take liberties with the word “farm.” Not the image the word conjures. Really just woods and a few open acres. The crops are trees and wildlife, not corn and livestock.

Finally, a chance for the good life. The life of my ancestors. A life for which I was surely born.

Now to be clear, I do not have an upper-class pedigree. I did the research. My kin were Irish immigrants and poor white sharecroppers. No royal sap in the family tree. Mostly poor folks who eked out a living with whatever they had on hand.

But I had more. The pandemic did not take me by surprise. The farmhouse was fully stocked before the initial panic hit. While many rushed to the stores, I just sat back and watched from a distance. I am, after all, a smart man (just ask the Redhead and she will tell you “oh yes, he certainly thinks he’s a smart man”). I am forward-looking. A visionary even. I was never a Boy Scout, but I lived their motto — “Be prepared.”

I had food. I had medicine. I had gas and diesel. Masks, antibacterial wipes, and toilet paper to spare.

I might have even had a gun or two.

I also had creeks for water, trees for firewood, and wild animals for meat.

But most importantly of all, I had seeds for a garden.

I was dug-in like an Alabama tick. Ready for the long haul.

The first three weeks were blissful. I was finally able to get my work done. Almost no calls, no emails, and no visits from anyone to break my chain of thought.

My plan was executed to perfection. I put in my office hours, then headed outside to take leisurely walks and tend my tomato plants.

On a gorgeous Saturday morning I climbed aboard the big John Deere and plowed and planted my garden. It was the same kind of worn-out rocky ground that my ancestors plowed with mules, but no matter. I could coax that sorry dirt to yield more than they ever dared to dream.

Then came Sunday morning. The storms hit at sunrise. Hail. High winds. Rain by the bucket-load. The lights flickered, then went out.

No worries. I had candles and flashlights with extra batteries. Who needs television or the internet? I had shelves of good books and plenty of paper and pens with which to write.

Paradise.

That night I laid down in sweet solitude. The bedroom windows were open, and the light breeze and the dripping rain the only sounds. My sleep was deep and filled with contented, peaceful dreams.

Monday morning, I decided to take a stroll to survey my kingdom.

Trees down. Trails blocked. Garden mostly washed away. Creeks out of the banks. Dead battery on the Deere.

Rugged independence? Gone.

That night I blew out the candles and lay in the darkness again. You know you really cannot appreciate true darkness until you are way back in the woods with no lights on a cloudy night. I struggled to find sleep with my troubled thoughts.

As my mind raced through the stillness of that long night it finally hit me. There was nothing romantic about the way my ancestors lived. They could not run to the grocery store when the crops washed away. No cash to buy more seed or supplies or even pay back their shares. No hiding from a pandemic. If the Spanish flu did not kill their children, then cholera just might.

I understand them now. Why they left the “good life” for jobs in the cotton mill towns. Why they traded idyllic farm living for a hot, dusty job where a man might lose a hand in a second or his lungs to the lint in a matter of a few years.

I have no worries. I can start again. I have the means to replant the garden, and the grocery store is only five miles away. I still have my masks and wipes, so I will probably stay untouched by the virus, at least for a while.

I added something to my supplies. Respect for my ancestors.

The “good life” is all high cotton and buttermilk cornbread when you are playing a role in the theater of your mind. But when you live off the land to survive it is not all it is cracked-up to be.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture

Life from the Porch

April 9, 2019April 9, 2019by rayclifton18 Comments

porch

“This is Catherine Hinds. Buddy wanted me to call and let you know that he seen a turkey this morning come out across the road from our house, a gobbler, and he went back in the woods going toward your place. He wanted me to call and tell you. Seen his beard hanging down. I thought I’d call and tell you. This is Catherine Hines and my phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. It’s uh…What time is it? It’s 12:03, is what time it is. Thought I’d call and tell you. Bye.”

This was on my voicemail last Friday.

Catherine and Buddy are my neighbors. The live in the next to the last house before the last house on a rutted-up red clay road.

She is 89, he 92. They are porch-sitters. Neither can hear well, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with their eyesight. Nothing comes down that road without notice.

Needless-to-say, I don’t have a security system. Be a waste of good money.

The last time I stopped and visited (which was way too long ago), we all sat on the porch and talked turkey. Mostly the lack thereof. I bemoaned the fact that the wild turkey had disappeared in the last couple of years. Every Fall for 20 years I watched droves of hens pass through green fields and oak flats as I waited for a glimpse of a deer. Every Spring, gobbling like thunder on ridges all around. Now I can’t even find a track. Buddy, who has lived on this same plot of ground his entire life (except for the War, of course), was just as perplexed.

Thus, the reason for the voicemail — turkey sighting.

The Redhead and I stopped and visited the next day to thank Ms. Catherine for the call. The ladies chatted while Buddy and I hashed-out our theories about the mysterious turkey decline.

The conversation soon turned to the community.

Catherine said we have new neighbors in the next house back up the road. They keep to themselves. Looks like they’re going to be good neighbors.

Wednesday is her “go to town” day. The grocery store is a good one. It used to be a Food Town. Now it’s Renfroe’s, but she said she still calls it Food Town because that was the name for so many years. She knows everybody that works there by name and they know her too. It’s not a big store, but they have everything you need. Meat’s good too.

Buddy said the timber on the Nelson place just up the road was recently cut. Billy Dennis cut it. Buddy knew his daddy. He was a fine man. Lived about three miles up the road. Died about ten years ago. The lady who owns that land now lives up north somewhere. She was a Boone, you know, before she got married. This country used to be just slam eat-up with Boones. She stopped last time she was down. Wanted some red berries off that bush out back. Told her that she could have the whole damn thing if she wanted to dig it up. Her land, now, they sure skinned that place, but Billy said they were going to set it back out or seed it with pines or however they do that stuff next Winter. He couldn’t remember it looking so “clean” since they used to farm it.

This goes on without pause the next thirty minutes, a seemingly random conversation, but really a chain of thoughts, each link leading to the next topic, all within a few miles from the house.

We eventually excuse ourselves. Our dogs are in the truck and we need to “get on down the road.”

Buddy said what he always does. “You’ll stop again next time you pass.”

We have to pass to get to our house.

I tell the Redhead that Buddy and Catherine have a better life than us.

She doesn’t understand my thinking, can’t see how I could believe such a thing. Just two old folks living in a little house on the same plot of ground for the last sixty years.

I see it differently. No computer. No cellphone. No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. No Fox, CNN, MSNBC. No Left, Right, Center. No Trump, Peolsi, Biden, Bernie. No Venezuela, China, North Korea. Not much interest in the workings of the world more than a few miles from home.

Really not much interest in anything that can’t be seen from the porch.

All they have is each other. It’s their world, and that suits them just fine.

I think that’s about as good as life can get.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, metaphors, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

Funeral for A Friend

August 21, 2018by rayclifton21 Comments

smooth stones

The Irish call it a wake. People in Alabama call it visitation.

It is a ceremony for the living, held in the presence of the dead. A family stands like deer in the headlights as others shuffle by, hands extended, hugs offered. A surreal numbness. Asleep and awake. Time pauses, hesitates, hovers like a feather on an imperceptible breeze.

It is early and the line is long. I expected that. He was well-known and well-liked. I take my place behind a friend, a friend of this friend. We swap stories between starts and stops. Stories are the life, after all. Tales true and untrue, embellished or plumbed on the mark. They keep the memory for as long as they are told. Longer if someone takes the time to write them down. A life is brief. Words are the substance of eternity.

I turn over the words in my mind as we approach. Lift them like smooth stones from the creek bottom. Feel their heft. Discard some. Put a few good ones in my pocket. Keep one or two of the very best in my hand.

First, the wife. A natural Southern beauty who has lost a partner she has loved since high school. Built a business. Raised a family. Maintained a quiet gracefulness throughout all these last months-weeks-days-hours-minutes-seconds. She thanks me for coming. Her eyes radiate weariness in waves like heat from Alabama asphalt in August.

“I’m very sorry,” I say.

The son is a big strapping guy, broad-shouldered and handsome. Strong handshake, pretty wife. Recently passed the Bar. The future will be much brighter than the present.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I say.

Then momma. I have met her on a few occasions, but I don’t recall ever having a direct conversation with her.

I am not prepared for momma.

“Ma’am I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m –”

She stops me cold. “Of course I remember you.”

And then a remarkable thing. This sweet little lady I hardly know puts her arms around me and lays her head on my shoulder.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I told him, ‘you can’t go before me.’ It’s not right. It’s not supposed to be this way.”

What does a man say to such as this?

Should I quote some cherry-picked Bible verse suitable for the occasion? “Let not your heart be troubled…”

Perhaps a platitude. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” or “God must still have something important for you to do.”

Maybe something just downright stupid, like “I know how you feel.”

I am at a loss. A man who places such value in words is without a good one. Hands empty, pockets turned-out.

“Yessum,” I say.

It’s the best I can do in the moment. It’s the best I can do now.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

Toughness

July 1, 2018July 2, 2018by rayclifton9 Comments

summer heat

I spent some time today in the seat of my John Deere, mowing pasture that has been mowed twice and will likely be mowed again before the end of August. It is hot, dusty work, but I like seat-time because it is think time. Not worrisome thoughts, just mental meandering through the uncut meadows of my mind.

Today I did some thinking about the heat. Specifically summer in Alabama. Not for the faint of heart.

The weather apps I have on my phone and the television weather people advise that it will be 92 degrees at two o’clock but it will actually feel like 105 degrees.

Well thanks for that. Blesses my heart to know that I should be feeling hotter than I already do.

My thoughts turned to the last few weeks. I spent my days teaching some young folk a little about forestry and logging. They are “millennial” or “Gen Xers” or “Gen whatevers.” I can’t keep up with all the classifications. I could Google it, but it doesn’t interest me enough to bother with a few key-strokes to even do that.

I thought they were a bit whiny. Actually, a lot whiny.

“It’s too hot out here.”

“You walk too fast.”

“Can we stop at the store?”

I rather liked that. I am tough. They are weak. Can’t keep pace with the old man.

My generation’s view of the next. Spoiled. Can’t take it. The “I got a trophy for showing up” generation. Comes out quickly in the Alabama sun.

The tractor and my mind turn down a new trail. It’s old ground, but sometimes my thoughts need to cover old ground to be put right.

My daddy worked outside most of his life. The cars and pick-up trucks he drove never had air conditioning. So far as I know, he bought the first air conditioner he owned when I was about five, a “window unit” that we ran until bedtime. Electricity cost money, and we didn’t have an abundance of that.

His daddy was a carpenter who worked outside all of his life. Had a house with high ceilings and a floor fan with blades roughly the size of a Cessna propeller.

His daddy had no electricity because it hadn’t made it to the country. High ceilings, shade trees and rain the only respite.

His daddy had nothing. I have a list of his net worth when he applied for his Confederate pension at age 69. It included 40 acres, one log cabin, four hogs, a clock, household furniture, and a few farming tools. Total value $130. Maybe some shade in the yard. Hopefully a cool water creek on that 40 or at least not too far away.

Toughness is relative, by summertime heat or any other gauge by which we use to measure.

Supposed to be hot again tomorrow, but I don’t feel so tough tonight.