Remembering Who I Am And Where I Came From!!!!
My Place In The South
Written by Tracye Wynne Malone Prewitt
Being born Southern, I have had an almost inborn love and reverence for family, tradition, and the land upon which I was raised. My fondest memories are of the time spent on my grandmother’s farm in Franklin, Mississippi. You know those kinds of memories, the kind that is so vivid that when you close your eyes you can hear the doves cooing in the distance on a warm summer afternoon, the bleat of calves in the early evening of spring and the lowing of heifers in response. You can feel the crisp coolness of an early winter’s morning being hustled into the house and into a bed full of handmade quilts. You can feel the cool respite of the fan in the blistering heat of a summer’s day; as you waited for the homemade ice cream to freeze. You can almost see the seasons as they head on their relentless march through the years. You also have smells that never leave your memory, like the smell of freshly sliced apples as they hit the salt water bath at your grandmother’s feet as she sits at the end of the hall as a cool breeze seeps in the back screen door. My memories of Franklin and of my childhood there are very cherished to me. The summers of fishing on the little pond with Nannie, Cooter, and Lennie, the expeditions over the pasture and leaf filled gullies, “getting lost” and the subsequent pick up truck rides home again. Picking blackberries in the warm sun, and the shelling of butter beans, peas, and the snapping of string beans were some of my favorite memories. Then there were the quite times that seem now the most precious of all when we all just sat on the front porch and watched as the summer sun, blazing in a magnificent orange ball, silently slide down in the afternoon sky as the doves cooed, the cattle lowed. God was in his Heaven, and all was right with the world. I can still feel the winter’s chill on my cheeks, the smell of hay in the barn, and the eager cattle awaiting their winter supplement. There were the warm space heaters and the ice-cold bathroom. Spring brought daffodils, roses, and baby chicks. Nannie chasing down a chick for me to cuddle and admire is one memory that still brings a smile and sometimes a tear. Easter was filled with cousins and egg hunts. Summer, with the exception of Christmas, was the best season of all because it brought puppies, calves, watermelons, homemade ice cream, and tomato sandwiches. There were often crop dusters overhead and cotton growing in the adjacent fields. The place as we called it was a mixture of pasture and woodlands. There were two actual ponds and then there was the frog pond. The gullies that ran through the woodlands were to me as a child Franklin’s version of the Grand Canyon. There was a special place that only I knew about, it seemed almost spiritual to me, there was a dogwood that stood all alone in a clearing just beyond the little pond, and when the sun shown on this tree and it’s thousand of blooms it seemed to glow. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. The barn even though it wasn’t a natural phenomenon was the center of the place and to the cows in winter it was their Mecca. The barn was where I bottle-fed my calf Twister, where I saw a paralyzed cow walk again with a little love and encouragement, and where several litters of kittens were born. The people who paraded through those slamming screen doors of the place also fill my heart, memories, and soul. They are who made me who I am today. There was a host of relatives and friends that graced Nannie’s door too numerous to count or list here. I always loved visitors another Southern trait taught to me by my grandmother. Nannie was the most memorable character in my life and she shaped me more than anyone else has or will. She had a quiet, poised, dignity about her. She loved without questions or limitations. She believed in me with all of her being and believed that I could be or do anything! The kind of unconditional love and faith she showed to me comes along very rarely and I feel blessed to have been given such an amazing gift, as her love for me She wasn’t a physical beauty but her ways and soul made her beautiful to me. She did all things well from making doll clothes, to quilting, to cooking but most of all she was my best friend, who else would make me homemade soup or homemade French fries for breakfast. The death of Nannie caused the death of a part of me as well as the death of the place as I had known and loved it. Every time I drive by the ole house and see it in disrepair my heart aches for the way my life was then, for my innocence, for the simplicity of life on that ole hill, and for my place in the South.
Written by Tracye Wynne Malone Prewitt
Being born Southern, I have had an almost inborn love and reverence for family, tradition, and the land upon which I was raised. My fondest memories are of the time spent on my grandmother’s farm in Franklin, Mississippi. You know those kinds of memories, the kind that is so vivid that when you close your eyes you can hear the doves cooing in the distance on a warm summer afternoon, the bleat of calves in the early evening of spring and the lowing of heifers in response. You can feel the crisp coolness of an early winter’s morning being hustled into the house and into a bed full of handmade quilts. You can feel the cool respite of the fan in the blistering heat of a summer’s day; as you waited for the homemade ice cream to freeze. You can almost see the seasons as they head on their relentless march through the years. You also have smells that never leave your memory, like the smell of freshly sliced apples as they hit the salt water bath at your grandmother’s feet as she sits at the end of the hall as a cool breeze seeps in the back screen door. My memories of Franklin and of my childhood there are very cherished to me. The summers of fishing on the little pond with Nannie, Cooter, and Lennie, the expeditions over the pasture and leaf filled gullies, “getting lost” and the subsequent pick up truck rides home again. Picking blackberries in the warm sun, and the shelling of butter beans, peas, and the snapping of string beans were some of my favorite memories. Then there were the quite times that seem now the most precious of all when we all just sat on the front porch and watched as the summer sun, blazing in a magnificent orange ball, silently slide down in the afternoon sky as the doves cooed, the cattle lowed. God was in his Heaven, and all was right with the world. I can still feel the winter’s chill on my cheeks, the smell of hay in the barn, and the eager cattle awaiting their winter supplement. There were the warm space heaters and the ice-cold bathroom. Spring brought daffodils, roses, and baby chicks. Nannie chasing down a chick for me to cuddle and admire is one memory that still brings a smile and sometimes a tear. Easter was filled with cousins and egg hunts. Summer, with the exception of Christmas, was the best season of all because it brought puppies, calves, watermelons, homemade ice cream, and tomato sandwiches. There were often crop dusters overhead and cotton growing in the adjacent fields. The place as we called it was a mixture of pasture and woodlands. There were two actual ponds and then there was the frog pond. The gullies that ran through the woodlands were to me as a child Franklin’s version of the Grand Canyon. There was a special place that only I knew about, it seemed almost spiritual to me, there was a dogwood that stood all alone in a clearing just beyond the little pond, and when the sun shown on this tree and it’s thousand of blooms it seemed to glow. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. The barn even though it wasn’t a natural phenomenon was the center of the place and to the cows in winter it was their Mecca. The barn was where I bottle-fed my calf Twister, where I saw a paralyzed cow walk again with a little love and encouragement, and where several litters of kittens were born. The people who paraded through those slamming screen doors of the place also fill my heart, memories, and soul. They are who made me who I am today. There was a host of relatives and friends that graced Nannie’s door too numerous to count or list here. I always loved visitors another Southern trait taught to me by my grandmother. Nannie was the most memorable character in my life and she shaped me more than anyone else has or will. She had a quiet, poised, dignity about her. She loved without questions or limitations. She believed in me with all of her being and believed that I could be or do anything! The kind of unconditional love and faith she showed to me comes along very rarely and I feel blessed to have been given such an amazing gift, as her love for me She wasn’t a physical beauty but her ways and soul made her beautiful to me. She did all things well from making doll clothes, to quilting, to cooking but most of all she was my best friend, who else would make me homemade soup or homemade French fries for breakfast. The death of Nannie caused the death of a part of me as well as the death of the place as I had known and loved it. Every time I drive by the ole house and see it in disrepair my heart aches for the way my life was then, for my innocence, for the simplicity of life on that ole hill, and for my place in the South.
posted by Auntie Tracye @ 1:43 PM
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