An Old Familiar Place

Each of my children has given me one grandson. Phyl's Nathan; Angie's Adam; Tracy's Kyle; Joey's Harrison. I love them all with a passion. There's just something about a "barefoot boy with cheek of tan." I loved that poem so much that I made it a permanent part of my American Literature course for external studies students at Bethany Divinity College. I think this photo gives it new meaning. My brother, Mike, took it this weekend after Harrison had just about spent himself romping the banks, skipping rocks, and just having his own private thoughts about the old Tallahatchie River that meanders through New Albany, Mississippi. A delightful spot on the southern map, the place where his great-grandparents lived for many years and where they died. Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! With thy upturned pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill; ...

He dropped the hammer and walked out back beyond the canebrake toward the stream. When there were thoughts to be had, decisions to be made, wrongs to be righted, Isaac had always been able to tramp the woods and fields for resolution. Out where streams of warmth on a sun-drenched day hovered with intensity on his shoulders. Where southern winds blew the slightest breeze to cool the heat of an Indian summer. Where an autumn rain beat against his sun-browned face to clear the cobwebs of this war of love and hate that held him in a vice. He had dashed his own hopes and dreams, leaving Jennie behind to wonder who he was and why she had ever fallen for the roguish Payne boy in the first place. The peaty smells of decomposing leaves atop the damp earth hung in his nostrils. He lingered a moment imagining a garden with the mossy compost subdued, wild flowers of every bloom and color replacing the piles of damp leaves, but no one to share them with. Isaac stumbled under the weight of ...