Whispers and Memories…today

Les and I attended the annual Home Coming at Mt Tabor, at Jackson Creek.

Mt Tabor was started as a Methodist Church in the 1840’s. Circuit Riders preached there!  The current building was built with lumber saw milled at Wyatt Nance’s  grist mill just 1500 feet down the road from the current building. (Wyatt and his wife are buried in the cemetery and he was my Great, great, great, grandfather on my Grandma Delk’s side)

The benches we sat on for the service were hand made and are the original ones!

They came to me… last night as I cooked for dinner today. A spoon hitting the side of a pot…Corn brought out of the freezer Deviled eggs being whipped up…little insignificant things called them to me…

As I cooked the fried chicken (my Mother’s recipe) I thought of all the times she had fixed chicken for us and how good it was!

We all brought food and placed it for everyone’s enjoyment on tables out under hickory trees. Right were the table has all ways been for this sort of event! We have a concrete table now! and the old out house still stands but we use a modern port a potty (thank you Uncle Henry) …The Ghosts, memories and whispers…of long ago…

Of being a just a girl and helping Grandma get things ready for today. What a big event this sort of occasion was!

Grandma all ways cleaned the church for this event, (and I helped! 🙂 we would sweep the wooden floor, dust the benches, place the song books out, and hand fans, Clean out the pulpit, and rake up the yard of sticks and hickory nuts.  I could see Grandma and me doing this together.  Course Grandma had to sweep out the old out house! (She was afraid of snakes  and I was afraid of bees!)  I remember one time there was a wild hive of honey bees in the out house!

As I cooked Grandma’s recipe for green beans and corn I could feel her presence beside me and all the times we had spent together cooking came flooding back into my mind. Wait for the butter to melt before you stir it in! “That  is the secret!”

We gathered round the table and as we did it seemed a much larger crowd was there. Besides all the new young faces…There were voices and faces from long ago Home Comings. Aunt Ocia, Aunt Ruth, Great Aunt Grace, Uncle Robert and Clayton, Cousins by the dozens, Grandma and Grandpa…So many but only in my memory.

We enjoyed wonderful food and plenty of it! Pleasant conversation abounded!

As the afternoon service began and I walked in and sat down on a pew with Les… Carol Ridge was playing the old piano so beautifully as she has done for 50 plus years (I guess) I could hardly stand the feelings and memories. My ghosts were everywhere! While they made me smile… the sheer power of their presence moved me so I had to go outside… for the tears and emotions I felt could not be contained in my being. Tears hot and wet stung my face, as I cried from my soul it released some tension and I was able with Daddy’s words in my ears “Girl get hold of yourself and act like somebody!”. I had no idea attending this would affect me like this. Most likely I would have stayed away if I had known. But then I would have missed the best blessing  I have had in a very long time and I would have not experienced the healing that clearly I needed (but was oblivious to the fact) !

We had a family, The Stills Family come sing. They are a Momma on the base, Daddy on the guitar, daughter age 9 on fiddle and son age 6 on the banjo! What A talented family! They made String music (as Grandpa use to say)  and sang. what beautiful old hymns! “Amazing Grace’, “I’ll Fly Away”, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” to name a few… I could see my Great Grandpa “Shouting Benny Nance” ( a good fiddle player I am told though he passed 10 years before I was born) Up running the isles and shouting to the Lord! I even let a Woo! Hoo ! out several times! and my foot had a mind of its own! He came to the Lord latter in life and that Fiddle of his he sadly destroyed it is rumored for he thought it wrong to play it after he was saved! at least the way he played it…..

My Great Aunt Grace was there all dressed up and looking beautiful and she all ways had a few things to say. Memories to share. Uncle Robert had a joke or two and a boyhood story to tell. Like how he warmed his hands on the rabbit on the way to school in the rabbit gum and then on his way home he took the rabbit and it became supper!

As I write this I have a big smile on my face and in my heart. How so very lucky I am and how good God has been to me to give me such a rich heritage of family, love, memories and to have lived in this wonderful place called Jackson Creek!

What a good Grandma and Grandpa I had and how they taught me about family, life and love, and LIVED it all in front of me! I now understand the LIVED part is what I really remember and got!

One of the songs the Stills Family sung was “Id rather lie in a cold dark grave than live in a Mansion of Gold…” Not sure of the title but how apporiate for today and my life. Money and power and fame and nothing …nothing … would I take in place of all my love and heritage  I was given by my Grandparents Lyde and Astor Delk in this little wide place in the road called Jackson  Creek.

I really enjoyed the day and the fellowship of all the folks! I especially enjoyed my memories!  So many I did not share here. But what a wonderful happy pleasant day! I would say they were more a feeling and a presence than an actual list of memories per say.

An interesting side note to all this…The Stills Family live in my old house! The first home I built for myself and lived in for 19 years! And THAT is as it should be! What a wonderful place for a family to grow up in! Yeah, It is hard to get this smile off my face!