If you wanna sing out, sing out!

I love music of all kinds…on my iPod and Kindle I have worship music…Adele…Jimmy Buffet… Weird Al…my music tastes are eclectic and tend toward older stuff.

My favorite is Alison Krauss, with or without Union Station. I saw AKUS years ago. Clint bought me 4 tickets to see them in Branson and I took my friends Carolyn, Sherry, and Toni. We had a grand time. I drove and I discovered something about myself. When we would exit a parking lot onto the infamous 76 strip with its terrible traffic, I would nose my black Expedition out onto the road. I would make eye contact with who ever was driving toward me. Often it was a man and I would smile and say under my breath “he’s gonna let me in, he just doesn’t know it yet.” Then I would smile even bigger and wave my fingers at him and he would stop and let me in. Then I would pull out onto the road, smiling and mouthing thank you and getting a smile and wave in return. This caused great laughter around me. I didn’t see what was so funny, as this is the sort of thing I do all the time. I do the same thing when I’m walking into Walmart or the mall..I look toward a coming car and I smile and they slow and let me walk across. But it became a staple saying that weekend, every time we pulled out of a parking lot..”he’s gonna let me in, he just doesn’t know it yet.” we would say in unison and he WOULD let us in and we would smile and wave. Tis a fine thing to be a southern woman. I haven’t been to many other places. I wonder if it would work up north or would they think me a loon and honk at me and perhaps give me the finger. I shall try it someday and report back to you.

I think I like Alison Krauss because I can sing harmony with her. Her voice is so high, crystal and pure. I cannot sing as high as Alison, when I try it comes out shrieky and weird. My voice is low and untrained. My Preston side of the family can all sing or play instruments or both. The first time I went to a church as a child of 8 and a woman got up and sang and just BUTCHERED the song, just yelped and screeched and caterwauled as sometimes people do…no one will tell you not to sing if you are willing to get up there and do it..…I looked at my mother in HORROR and whispered “what is WRONG with her voice?”. She shushed me and I sat and listened, feeling almost sick to my stomach and embarrassed for the lady up there just a yelling away. I didn’t understand that not everybody could sing, not everybody sang with their sisters and brother while hanging clothes on the line or doing dishes.

I sing harmony along with Alison. It’s really my favorite thing to do, sing harmony and blend and make that sweet sound. I told people for years I was an alto and then I started singing in the choir at my church and realized to my chagrin that I do NOT sing the alto, I sing what I HEAR and it’s not the alto, it’s the tenor part OR the bass and baritone an octave up. This makes for a hard time for me singing in a structured choir, as my voice tends to be soulful and unruly and does it’s own thing. How do you know there’s an alto at the door? She doesn’t have the key and doesn’t know when to come in, goes the old joke. But I soldier on and fake my way thru the alto part, working very hard during choir practice, only to forget it due to nervousness and sing what I hear in my head. Sigh. Tis my lot. Sorry, Bro. Tim.

My children and I would sing whenever we drove anywhere and when you have young teenagers you drive them EVERYWHERE and so we would sing. “Jesus Freak” was a favorite and Casting Crowns…Tara doing the lead, Trevor doing the tenor, me intoning my weird, low harmony. We would get up and sing at church and people marveled at our harmonies and sound. Trevor hates to sing and will just about refuse to even practice with us. He’s content playing the drums with the band at church. But…his wife Mykka has a gorgeous voice and sang at Tara and Daniel’s wedding. I’m working on her now….she’s gonna let me in, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Tara can sing higher than me, I suspect that’s from her youth and practice. She sings with her husband Daniel. He plays guitar and leads our worship at church. The thing I like about worship songs is they are free-er, I can throw my head back and just sing my harmony like I want to. I can’t hit the notes I used to..not that they were all that high, but I could at least hit them. I can’t now, my voice seeming to get lower and lower on the register. I remember hearing my Granny Viv sing and she had that strange, low, beautiful sound. Perhaps that shall be me and someday my grandchildren will write about Granny Lichea and her weird voice and penchant for reptiles and all things sparkly.

So, today…while puttering around the house, picking up things and putting them back in their places…dusting and sweeping…I am harmoniously singing harmony with Ms. Krauss..



“this old house is falling down around my ears-

I’m drowning in a river of my tears-

when all my will is gone, you hold me sway-

I need you at the dimming of the day”

“Dimming of the Day”



That song is on her latest cd. The first time I heard it, I knew all the words. I really did. I searched my memory, but didn’t remember knowing that song at all. I even knew the harmony, when to rise and fall with her voice. I told Clint about it and asked if that ever happened to him, did he ever hear a song for the first time and know all the words. He looked at me like he always does, bemused… he reminds me of that dog that’s got his head cocked sideways listening to the old Victrola… and said “how would I know all the words to a song I had never heard before?” and I said “that’s what I’m asking! how do I know all the words?” I finally went and looked it up, finding out it came out in 1975. I would have been 5 years old. I found the original version, but it didn’t sound familiar to me at all. But, I must have heard it somewhere, sometime, and along with sitcom theme songs and my old home phone number, it nestled in my brain to be coaxed out by AKUS’s version.

Sometimes, I can’t quite find the note I’m searching for and I’ll try several, cringing when the harmony note I’m attempting is discordant and raw. But eventually, I’ll find one that fits and is pleasing. Tara and I have this thing we do where we start on one note and slide up to another note and we stay in harmony the whole time. We do this without practicing or knowing where we are starting. I can’t do this with anyone else, but I’m working on it with Mykka and we are making progress. I listen where Mykka’s voice goes and I follow. She’s gonna let me in, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Once, Tara and I were watching TV and there was a boring part on the show we were watching. At the very same time, we starting singing the same song, Tara doing the lead, me doing the harmony. It was a commercial jingle…”I am green today, like the cricket sounds” or something like that. It was the strangest, most wonderful thing. We laughed about it later and tried it again several times, always knowing the note the other was going to sing before it was sung. We demonstrated it for Clint. He said we sounded good, but I don’t know if he understood that we were, in essence, reading each others minds about the key we were going to sing in. Tara let me in, she just didn’t know it yet.

I find in my life, I sing harmony with everything I do. I rise and fall in the conversation and mood of my friends, finding the “thing” that balances and soothes and smooths. I shy away from discord, finding my spot to come in, finding the note that goes and makes it sound better. So, that’s me. I want to find a note, a spot, a place to come in and be harmonious to you. There are some people that I’ve tried to do this with and it didn’t work. This always leaves me confused and distressed. Some people refuse to let you sing with them, they WON’T let you in no matter WHAT note you try. I liken this to teaching a pig to sing. You waste your time and annoy the pig. There are so many people who will sing with me, loudly and with abandon. So I keep away from people who’s souls don’t sing with the same joy mine does. So, dear reader, I invite you to sing with me if you are able. Not with our voices, but with our lives, with our friendship and laughter. I must tell you, dear reader, as I smile and wave. You’re gonna let me in. You just don’t know it yet. 

Easter, y'all :)

   I think of Easter…when I was a child. The baskets, the hard boiled eggs we would hide all day, until the shells were cracked and peeling…then we would sit outside and eat them. After hiding them ALL DAY. I doubt we even washed them, I don’t remember doing so, but perhaps we DID. But I doubt it. It is probably one of the reasons I have a strong, hale, hearty immune system. Only the REALLY bad things get thru. I rarely fall to colds or 24 hour tummy bugs. I instead get viral meningitis. See? Only the most nefarious, terrible bugs get through, the bugs that have been sifted and weeded out by weaker immune systems.

    We rarely got gifts or chocolate at Easter…just baskets and eggs and sometimes a new dress, either store bought or homemade. Mom would dress Bobbie and I just alike, like twins. We were the same size even though I was 2 years older. Bobbie was rounder than me..all those years ago…but now she’s not. She’s tall and lean up next to my curvy roundness. Bobbie is 5’11” and we probably weigh the same. I’m 5’3” but my hair makes me taller. I tease it til it takes offense, then laquer it good with hair spray.

  But one Easter when I was 6,  mom gave Bobbie and me necklaces from Avon. It was a tiny, cartoonish rabbit on a strangely linked chain. The ears on the rabbit were a separate piece and would move back and forth. I became obsessed with this, betraying my tomboyish ways and paving my future sparkly fascination.

  I wore it to school, carefully touching it through out the day to make sure it was still there. I didn’t go down the slide, or swing upside down on the monkey bars for fear of losing  or breaking it.

  I have no idea what became of our bunny necklaces, it just seemed as though one day they were gone and forgotten. Sometimes Bobbie and I would talk about the necklaces with fondness and think of how sweet the bunny was and how excited we were to wear them to Easter with our mom and grandparents that chilly, beautiful Easter morning. We sang “Christ Arose” a song I still love to hear at Easter. Sometimes, we would have “dinner on the ground” and there’d be potato salad and meatloaf and casseroles. There is nothing like Baptist food, it will fatten you up and make you happy. Several years ago, I read about a study that said people who carb loaded after a stressful event had less depression. Well, DUH!!  says this southern gal. I know something about sadness and I know something about eating chicken and dumplings and green beans and coconut pie and feeling that sadness just wash away. Southern gals have known this for years. It’s in our rich, butter laden blood. After a loved one dies, immediately….the good, church going southern gal knows to bake bread! Bake a cake! Make those chocolate chip cookies you make by HEART and by DOG make them gooey and soft and chewy! A slice of nice pie will sooth some of the pain  of losing a loved one and sadness  is best sopped up with a biscuit.

  So Bobbie and I ate our potato salad and chicken and dumplings in our matching dresses, sitting on the front steps of Union Hope Baptist church, reaching up occasionally to touch the base of our necks for the little bunny with the moving ears.

     That was so long ago. Today is Easter and I think on these things. Jesus, rising. He is risen, indeed. I think of potato salad and peach pie, still warm, the ooze of peach juice and sugar on the crust, the wonderful crust, the hint of whipped cream. I think of bunny necklaces and matching dresses.

  Then I think about, how…back when the kids were small…4 and 6… close to Easter time, Clint stopped at a yard sale as he does sometimes to kill a little time. He saw something that made him think of me. He bought it, paying almost nothing for it and bringing it home and handing it to me. 

  I’m looking at it right now.. the strange chain. The moveable ears. The tiny, cartoonish bunny.  I had never told Clint about my necklace from my childhood. He said he wasn’t sure why he got it, as it was obviously a child’s necklace. He said it had just jumped out at him. Yes, he made a funny and yes, I laughed.

  I think of Easter, when I was a child. I think of my own children and “Christ Arose”. Trevor, in the suit I made him. Tara, in the dress I made her, with her hat and lacy gloves and white shoes and a brand new band aid under her eye to cover the stitches from a recent jumping off the bed and hitting the tv face first.  I think of Clint, buying that necklace for me and not even knowing why. I think of dinner on the ground at  the church of my childhood  with homemade rolls and did you try her green beans? they’ve got BACON in them  and did you make this pie crust HOMEMADE? it’s divine and I do believe I’ll have some more okra and a dab more of that fruit salad. Vivian, how do you get your pie to set so well? Could you hand me a biscuit? I do believe this is the best meringue I’ve ever tasted. Meringue can be just a BOOGER, sometimes mine turns out rubbery. But not this one! Oh my! That is SO good!  I can still hear the ladies chatter, standing over the food, swishing at flies, doling out slivers of pie and spoonfuls of dressing. Y’all want some sweet tea?

  I thought of these things in church this morning, as we sang. We didn’t sing “Christ Arose” so I came home today and sang it while I spooned out chicken enchiladas to Clint. He shushed me a teeny bit when I got to the loud, high part, so I sang it quieter.

  “Low, in the grave He lay

    Jesus, my Savior

    Waiting the coming day

     Jesus, my Lord-

        Up from the grave He AROSE!

      With a mighty triumph o’er His foes

       He arose the victor of the dark domain

       and He lives forever with His saints to reign!

                       He AROSE!!!

                       He AROSE!!!

          Hallelujah, Christ Arose.”

   Have a happy Easter, y’all. I do believe I’ll go get some more chicken enchiladas and just one more of those WONDERFUL chocolate chip cookies and rest a bit before I go back to church, to sing loudly in our Easter program, where my sweet, gentle son plays a vicious Roman  guard, screaming at Jesus and abusing Him …Clint plays one of the disciples, that follow Jesus and love Him implicitly ..…Tara and I sing, soloing on some parts, dueting on others, our voices both  blending and competing, singing “Blessed Redeemer”  during the time Trevor and Clint play opposing parts, one putting Jesus on the cross, one taking His limp body down. They solo and duet, too, but not with music…with acting, each taking his part and playing it to the fullest. Woven and weaving, my family this Easter, singing and acting on this Easter Sunday.

                                            He arose.

                                            He AROSE!

                                            Hallelujah, Christ AROSE!

Ray of Sunshine OR Fish are jumpin' and the Cotton is High

It was hot and sunny last Saturday and after I got done painting the bathroom in Clint’s shop and he got done with fixing tractors and whatever else is broken, we went fishing.

  We have a little pond right behind our house. We’ve never stocked it and yet magically, it is filled with crappie and bream and the occasional bass. I have no idea how this happens, there isn’t water running into the pond from a creek or something that would have fish in it…but yet, there they are, along with the frogs, crawdads, minnows, turtles and snakes. It truly is one of those “build it and they will come” sort of things, much like if you put a basketball court up, you will soon have scads of teenage boys dribbling balls and passing and yelling good naturedly at each other.

  I don’t understand how the fish get there, but I don’t question it. I just fish and throw them back, as they are too small to eat and I would just as soon let them be happy and swim around.

  Clint was on one side of the pond, and I on the other. He likes to fish with complicated lures and poles…I like bobbers and worms and minnows. I also will take the fish off the hook myself, carefully grasping the fish so his dorsal spike doesn’t poke my hand or allowing the fish to wriggle and send the hook into my finger. These are things I have learned over time, from fishing as a small child in ponds and lakes and creeks. Hooks are vicious and deadly, their barbs making them hard to remove. I’ve pushed hooks thru the skin on Clint’s finger and cut the barb off  with pliers to pull the hook out. It’s a terrible job and I hate it. So, best to not get the hook stuck there in the first place.

  I think of fishing past, of catching catfish in Granny’s lake on chicken livers. Chicken livers used for fishing are nasty, stinky things that are often so rotten they’d barely stay on the hook. Ray and I would string the livers onto the hooks, wiping our nasty hands right on our shirt fronts. We would smell so bad, mom would make us ride in the back of the truck all the way home.

  Once, Ray and I were fishing in a pond near our aunt Debbie’s house in Mixon (a rural community WAY out in the boonies) before one of those sudden,  summer storms that pop up, roaring and scary.  The catfish were coming to the top of the water, like small sharks, their dorsal fins cutting thru the brackishness. They were agitated and flopping, breaking the surface with big, wide mouths. Catfish don’t really have teeth, but they have rough, snaggly mouths that will break thru your skin if you pick them up by the mouth like you would a bass. You have to pick a catfish up by the gills, and you will hear the grinding, snapping sounds of their “teeth”. Ray got a bite, pulling his line taut. He fought to get the fish in, the pole bending and creaking. Finally, Ray pulled the creature up on the shore.

  It was the biggest snapping turtle I had ever seen. It’s shell was black, broad and shiny. It was fighting and snapping, the fishing line coming from its mouth. It had swallowed the hook, and dug it’s feet in to keep from Ray pulling him up further. It made a strange, prehistoric sound and thrashed it’s head back and forth, back and forth, trying to dislodge the thing from it’s throat. Ray and I didn’t know what to do, so I screamed CUT THE LINE! But we had no pocket knife or pliers, so I took the line in my mouth, the line that had just been in that swirling black water with  rotten chicken livers, catfish, turtles, and cottonmouth snakes. I took it, Ray holding tension, the turtle fighting and pulling against us. I bit down, knowing exactly how to cut the line with my teeth, having done it hundreds of times.

  My teeth cut through quickly , and the turtle flipped backward, line hanging from his mouth. One smooth kick from his feet and he was gone, the only evidence the swirling, dirty water and me with the line still  in my mouth.

  We could hear the storm in the distance, coming swiftly…but we had more chicken liver and the fish were JUMPING now, breaking the surface. So we fished and caught catfish after catfish, stringing them on the stringer. Finally, we could ignore the storm no more and Ray hung the stringer of flopping catfish on the handlebars of his bike and we pedaled the mile back to our house as fast as we could. Lightning struck behind us, the storm seeming to follow us home. Mom cleaned the catfish and rolled them in cornflour and fried them lightly. We ate them for supper, watching TV and listening to the storm outside. We told Mom and Bobbie and Boo about the turtle and the fish looking like sharks as rain fell, coming in sideways from the wind.

  I thought about that as I cast my bobber and worm into my quiet, little pond, sunshine burning my neck in a pleasant way.

  I saw a curious turtle poke his head out of the water and nudge toward my bobber. I pulled it sharply, scaring the turtle and he ducked under the water.

  Then, I noticed swimming toward my bobber…a brown, small snake, it’s back a swirl of patterns. I yelled to Clint “hey! a snake!” and we watched him glide through the water, so graceful. He turned when he got to my bobber and pointed toward me on the bank, his tail gently whipping back and forth, propelling him toward me. I held my breath, not reeling in my line, perfectly still.

  I wanted him to come up on the bank, I wanted to see him closer, his glistening skin, the beautiful pattern of his scales.

  He edged closer and closer. I stood in my flip flops, silent, smelling the fish on my hands I had just released.

 Then he stopped and stared right at me and without so much as a flicker, he was under the water. I watched and watched the edge of the pond, waiting for him to appear. Clint walked over, wanting to go  home and get out of the sun and rest for a little while. I said “I keep thinking that snake will pop up! I’d like to see him!” Clint just laughed and said “woman, what is it with you and snakes? He’s too smart to pop up. He’s hiding.” I stood there for another second, my eyes still searching for a small, brown head. “I might not know where he is,” I stated “but I bet Mr. Snake is watching me right now. I don’t know where he is, but he knows where I’m at.”

  I pulled the leftover piece of my worm off my hook and threw it into the pond and then, doing the thing I’ve done since I was a child, with Ray and Bobbie, something so second nature it was like I was 12 again, the storm coming, the turtle on the line, the string of catfish….I carefully strung the hook onto the pole, securing it so it wouldn’t fly around and hook a finger or a face. It made me thing of the time Ray had walked behind me as I cast, the chicken liver gooey and stinky and heavy ... and as I cast, the hook caught him in the left nostril. I felt it snag and I stopped, freezing in my tracks. I turned to see Ray, the hook hanging from his nose, the chicken liver hitting him on the mouth. I had stopped so soon into my cast when I felt resistance, the barb didn’t break through and I carefully unhooked Ray, my hands holding his face perfectly still. A small trickle of blood ran out of his nose and he wiped it away. We re-enacted this for our family when we got home, Ray hooking his finger in his nose and pulling it straight out to imitate what it looked like, me freezing with total stillness after I felt my hook catch something behind me. I told this story to Clint as we climbed on to the Kubota, hooking my finger in my nose like Ray. Clint listens good naturedly, as he has heard this story, just as he has heard ALL my stories in the last 24 years.

  As we drove around the pond, I saw movement on the edge. A snapping turtle, about 6 inches across, slid slowly into the water as we approached. He watched us for a moment, then with one smooth kick, slipped under the water, the only evidence of him being there a swirl of dirty water, a ripple on the surface.