The back screened porch was cool and inviting and the late spring day was clear and warm. We sat in cane-back rocking chairs on the back porch and we both drank a glass of cold sweet iced tea with lemon.
I went on that visit as an errand for my parents. "Take our friend a bowl of this nice fruit I cut up this morning and I made too much pound cake for us, take half of this. She will enjoy this."
She greeted me at her front door with a smile and a "Come on in, it's good to see you." We hugged. I told her what my mother sent for her and she thanked me. "Let's have a piece of that pound cake right now," she said. "We'll sit on the back porch. I just had a new ceiling fan put in. Nice and cool."
She moved very slowly and deliberately as she poured our iced tea. She brought it out on a little tray and set it on the table. Like many people who are young, I didn't think I would linger too long, but as we visited, she told me stories that were really a history of the place where I lived.
"There in the back yard," she pointed, "we had a big grape arbor when I was a young girl. Some of the sweetest grapes during the summer you can imagine. We loved those grapes. Next to the grape arbor was a big pitcher pump and we pumped water there for everything in this house. Her smile suddenly changed, "My mama was pumping water there in 1911 when the Town of White Springs burned to the ground. Mama had a stroke and fell by the pump. She never got up. I was off at nurse's training school."
"Later, my sister and I became nurses and we were nurses in World War I. That was something for young, single women to go off to help our boys in the military in France. We couldn't vote, but we were part of the United States Army Nursing Corps."
Another day, I recall paying a visit to another dear friend and, on that Saturday, she and I practiced for a song I was singing the next day at the Methodist Church in my hometown.
"I really enjoy my church family," she said to me. "My mama always enjoyed her work in the church. We got up early on Sunday when I was a child and we walked to the church and Mama made sure the wood stove was ready and the sanctuary was warm. My mama went through a lot. My father's death, our first house burning and my birth happened within a few days. Later, my mother lost my oldest sister to heart trouble and, within a short while, my next to the oldest sister was thrown from an automobile and killed coming home to visit from college. Tough times. Despite all that, my mother kept a positive attitude. She kept on going, kept on serving the church and she made my childhood and early adulthood a pleasant one."
Another time, I recall talking to my daddy about another family friend. "He doesn't talk too much, Daddy," I said. My daddy replied, "He does when he has something to say. He's a good man. A hero. You remember that. You always show that man nothing but the highest respect. When I think what he went through so we could walk around here and enjoy freedom," my daddy was not prone to emotion, but he turned his head and looked out the truck window in the opposite direction. "He's a good friend and he was in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines during World War II. He nearly died. He's our postmaster and he's a great American." I never forgot that lesson and I'll never forget the gentleman. Our post office in White Springs is named in his honor.
He sang each year for over a half century at our annual Easter Sunrise Service in White Springs at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center. He was a hard worker. He took joy in his singing. He had a speech impediment and stuttered when he talked, but when he sang, he sang clear and strong and with joy. That joy spilled over to everyone who had the privilege of watching and hearing him sing. He was a blessing, singing: "Blessed Jesus. Take my hand." Jesus took his hand and led him home a couple of years ago. Our last community Easter Sunrise service in 2019 at Stephen Foster before COVID-19 was dedicated to him and justifiably so.
Each community around us has stories. Each community has treasures that are in the hearts and memories of the people who live there. It's just one of the reasons I love newspapers. Newspaper reporters often uncover these treasures for us. We think they are far away, but sometimes we don't even have to dig, all we have to do is scratch the surface where we live and there are riches untold.
A college professor once told me, "Seek the story in the stranger." There's always a story there. It doesn't have to be a stranger. It can be someone you have known forever and, yet, there is a lot you may not know. You can learn a lot by listening. You may be amazed at how much you will learn and how much value what you learn can add to your life.
From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs, wishing you a day filled with joy, peace and, above all, lots of love and laughter.