I WONDER AS I WANDER

Murphy NC is a special place for me, though I never spent more than 15 minutes there. It is located 80 miles from my doorstep. It is the closest North Carolina town from where I live in Georgia. When I enter Murphy I give a shout, blow my car horn, and take a deep breath of sweet fresh air ... back in my home state again!

I have lived in Georgia over 20 years, but I still feel like an alien, or a pilgrim at best, whose heart is still in NC. I am a Tar Heel by birth, and though I have lived the majority of my life outside of NC, it will always be home. As James Taylor sings, “I’m Going to Carolina in My Mind.”

At Christmas time I am reminded that Murphy, North Carolina, has a special meaning for a beautiful tune of the season. "I Wonder as I Wander" has its origins in a song fragment collected by folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles while he made a stop in Murphy.

Niles wrote, “A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins.... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song.”

The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea." He never saw her again even though he tried to find her.

Ronald Himler illustrated the moment in this drawing. Charles Johnson (vocal) and Bob Ravenscroft (piano) perform this Christmas favorite in the video below.

SC to NC to GA to FL

Cissy and I have had an active and good week thus far, in spite of us being bothered by a cold and some type of stomach bug. We started off the week at The Reserve in South Carolina where I was the guest minister at ReserveWorship.

We spent the better part of Sunday afternoon with our first visit to Table Rock State Park. We were impressed by the beauty of the place with lakes and hiking trails along streams, besides cabins and camping available. Being outside in February on a sun-drenched day of 70 degrees was nice.

Travelling on a curvy road that led to North Carolina was an interesting jaunt. The road was filled with scores of motorcycle riders. A big surprise out on this road, seemingly “in the middle of nowhere,” was motorcycle cops. They seemed to be doing a brisk business of stopping bikers, apparently for traffic violations.

It is indeed a mountain top experience for a NC native to be back in his home state, even if only travelling through it for an hour or so. The air smells fresher, the scenery is more beautiful, and my spirit soars.

Back in Georgia, on Monday night we had an edifying experience to attend a Walk to Emmaus team meeting. As we build community among our team, we plan and prepare for a Walk to Emmaus retreat the end of March. This retreat is one of the best tools I know to revolutionize a person's life.

Tuesday night was an awesome outing to see “Kooza,” a production of Cirque du Soleil. We had front row seats that afforded an up-close view just a few feet from the performers. At one point one of them reached out to shake my hand. During one of the crazy skits, two clowns pulled me out of my seat and tried to “shake me down” to find a crown that had supposedly disappeared.

The whole show is spectacular, but the most incredible part to me was the “Wheel of Death.” The video gives somewhat of an idea, but does not really convey the size and height of the wheel and the acrobats' amazing stunts.



This week we have yet two meals to celebrate birthdays of two sons. Hmmm … at least with this intestinal bug we should not gain weight. Next week we head to Florida for a taste of the beach, and of course, alot of seafood.

F-WORDS

As I prepare for Thanksgiving Day celebration, I think of three F words --- Family, Friends, and Faith. Several events of the last week remind of the importance of these F-words.

Last Thursday my granddaughter Olivia was surprised when the “mystery reader” for her second grade class was me. I sat in a chair while her classmates sat cross-legged on a rug. I read a few books, “Mittens,” “Olivia and the Circus,” and “A Really Big Hug.”

Then I picked up Olivia’s three-year old sister Merrily at home to take her to lunch at Chic-Fil-A, while her mother finished preparations for their family’s departure that afternoon to Texas. Later five-year old brother Ethan got home from kindergarten to join us in play.

That evening Cissy and I met six friends from Big Canoe to eat some Mexican food for supper. It was a great treat to see some dear friends for the first time in several months.

Last weekend Cissy and I travelled to The Reserve at Lake Keowee in South Carolina to lead the worship service. On Saturday afternoon the remaining fall leaf colors glowed as the day ended, and a beautiful sunset lighted up the sky.

Worship on Sunday morning centered on the theme of ThankSSSgiving. The three “Ss” stood for Shout-Serve-Sing from the opening words of Psalm 100.

We took the long scenic route back home by swinging through one of my favorite sections of the North Carolina mountains from Cashiers to Highlands, with a stop at Whitewater Falls. There were a few patches of snow to be seen.

I am ready to celebrate Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. Meanwhile Cissy is busily preparing a feast to feed 19 people. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

TALL TALES

Last week (March 8) when I blogged “Carolina in My Mind” I opined (or whined) about relieving my homesickness for my home state. Another way I visit back home is receiving in the mail my monthly copy of “Our State.” Their website gives an overview of each copy and other notices. http://www.ourstate.com/

I started reading the magazine when I was a boy. Perhaps in another post I will share a story I read in it over 40 years ago that made a big impression on me. Over the years the magazine has become slick and has beautiful photography of North Carolina scenes.

This month’s edition has a story written by Guy Owen that tickled my funny bone. Owen was a novelist, poet, editor, critic, and teacher who grew up in NC. I enjoy reading a story like this one written by a man with a Ph.D.

Our State magazine introduces his story with these words: Owen’s affection for North Carolinans’ expressions and humor is evident in his stories. “One marked characteristic of Tar Heel talk is humor,” he wrote. “Perhaps it’s a spillover from the tall tales of the frontier, but the humor is often wildly exaggerated. It makes use of some irony, but is seldom subtle, always energetic, and generally optimistic.”

“Uncle Corny and the Coon Monkey” by Guy Owen

Sometimes I think that just as most rural churches during the Depression had mourner’s benches – or pews referred to as that - there should have been a corner in all country stores set aside and designated the Liars’ Corner. At least this would hold true for our crossroads grocery before World War II. If our old rusty cast-iron stove with the leaky flue could talk, it could recall some yarns that would make most modern oral histories pale in comparison and seem as bland as leftover rice pudding.

And if prizes were handed out for pure stretchers, T.J. Wiles, Will Shipman, and Uncle Corny Eller would walk off with a croaker sack full – although my uncle had a habit of topping most of his companions’ yarns.

I thought of this the other day when driving by a filling station with a monkey in a wire cage, which reminded me of Uncle Corny’s talk about hunting with a monkey he’d trained especially to hunt coons. (The chimp wouldn’t pay any attention to possums.)

In those days, there were plenty of caged animals like monkeys, coons, and bears used as come-ons at gas stations, so monkeys were fairly easy to come by. As you got closer to Florida, they favored giant snakes and alligators, and, sometimes exotic birds as well.

Anyway, on this particular Thursday night, Uncle Corny was later than usual, and T. J. Wiles and Will Shipman and three or four young pulp wooders had already got primed by bragging about their coon dogs and favorite setters and pointers. Pretty soon, though, I heard the old duffer hitcher his mule to the corner fence post. He came in out of the cold, wearing his blue lumber jacket, felt hat, and knee-high boots. At the door, he spit out his chew of Black Maria; then he fished a Nehi Grape out of the drink box and commenced eating a box of ginger snaps I handed him. He seemed not to hear the bragging talk as he warmed his gnarled hands at the cherry-red heater in the sandbox.

Will, who was the old-timer’s archrival as dog trainer and coon and deer hunter, was recounting how he’d recently palmed off a crippled hound on a city-slicker from Wilmington.

“How’d you manage to unload that worthless pointer, Mr. Shipman?” T. J. inquired.

“Why, I told the fella that was the dog’s natural gait, that he just naturally rotated his feet like that so one leg would be resting all the time.” The fat sawmill owner slapped his thigh and laughed, and the others joined in.

T.J. admitted that was pretty sharp trading, but then he recalled how his father had swapped off a cripple setter that way once - only he claimed the dog always measured how far he’d run. “And there ain’t but three feet to the yard, you know. That’s why he never put this right paw down, to keep from getting confused about his distance.”

There was a lull in the conversation, and I could hear the wind whistling around the gas pump outside. It was dark, and it would soon be time for me to go home and do my homework for the next day of school.

Next, T.J. took on about what a fine pointer that hound was before his foot got mangled by a steel trap. “Why, you know that old log across Eller’s Branch yonder toward the river? Well, Pa trained that dog - Ring was his name – so he’d drive a whole covey out on that log, When he got 10 or 12 partridges lined up, just so, he’d kill them all with only one shot.”

The pulp wooders agreed that was a dandy trick and would save a lot on shells during a hunting season.

T.J. seemed to get carried away by their warm response, so he added that his father used to do a lot of night fishing there and set a great store by that log. “Why, one night he dropped his lantern in the creek and couldn’t find it to save his neck. Next week, he was fishing there again and hooked what he thought was a big old black fish. But when he finally hauled it up, don’t you know he’d caught his lost lantern - and the wick was still burning.”

He looked up expectantly, but Uncle Corny just grunted from where he sat on his nail keg and never seemed impressed at all. The old hunter did allow that he knew that log well. “Once time back yonder before you young sprouts was born, I caught a mud cat there that dressed at over 90 pounds.”

All the customers turned to stare at T.J. Wiles, until he got right red in the face. “Durn it all, Uncle Corny,” he said. “If you’ll take 20 pounds off your catfish, I’ll blow that lantern out!”

But the old codger never let on, never cracked a smile, “I reckon I ought to remember that there tree. Before it fell during that twister before the Big War, it was the selfsame oak where I had to quit hunting with my coon monkey.”


Here was something fresh, and it snapped their heads up like a dynamite cap going off. The half-dozen loafers set their drink bottles on the counter as the old man swiveled around on the nail keg, his back to the stove.

Will said, “Did I understand you to say ‘coon monkey’?”

Uncle Corny gestured impatiently. “I thought you fellas knew about how I trained that monkey to team up with my best coon dog.” He explained how, of course, the monkey couldn’t actually tree a coon, since his nose wasn’t any account. The way it worked was he sent the monkey shinning up the tree to get the coon after his dogs had treed him. “That little monkey and my dog Jackson made the best hunting partners ever known in these parts. That’s an iron-clad fact.”

T.J. ventured, “Your monkey would go up the tree and shake out the coon, would he?”

“Why no; Junior there could do that. He’d shinny up the tree with a flashlight and a pistol and shoot the coon out for me. I tell you, him and Jackson was plain death on coons.”

“Hold on here, Corny,” Will broke in, “How would he carry a flashlight and a pistol both at the same time and climb the tree all at once? You answer me that.”

Someone suggested that maybe he toted the flashlight with his tail.

But Uncle Corny waved the objections off like they were so many gnats flying about his lean, leathery face. It turned out he’d bought a cowboy belt and holster at the five-and-10-cent store in Elizabethtown, so the trained chimp never drew on the coon until he had him cornered on a limb.

“That stands to reason,” T.J. conceded.

“Sure it does. But all the same, the old hunter said sadly, “I had to get shed of him.”

“Go on, Uncle Corny, what happened? I asked.

By now the men were getting pretty excited. Things had quieted down so you could hear the drink cooler humming.

As it transpired, his beagle Jackson had treed a coon one night in the big oak that later fell across the creek. Uncle Corny clapped his hands and cried, “Coon!” to the monkey, which as usual was riding on his shoulders.

“Then what?”

“Well, he was off like a shot, and I could glimpse him darting his light all over the top limbs of that big, old oak. He was up there nearly a half an hour with Jackson barking and telling the news under the tree. But there won’t no coon to be found, only a great big knot that looked like a coon. It was a false scare, don’t you see?” He paused as if it were difficult for him to continue.

“What happened then, for goodness sake?”

Uncle Corny shook his head mournfully. “I don’t like to think about it to this day. Directly that little monkey flung out of the tree, and he was riled so he was poison-mad. He never so much as looked at me, and before I could make a move, he snatched out his pistol and shot my favorite coon dog between the eyes. Jackson fell over dead as a door nail.”

“You don’t say so!”

“Yessir, you see, I’d uncovered his only fault. That monkey couldn’t stand a lying coon dog. The next day, I sold him off to a fella that ran a station and grab joint down at Acme-Delco, and he never hunted again.”

“I don’t blame you one bit, Corny,” Will said. “If he got that mad at a dog, why, some night he might take a potshot at you over some trifling matter.” He nudged T.J. in his ribs.

But the old timer never even bothered to reply. He’d already gone out to unhitch his mule in the dark. Naturally, I couldn’t see his face, but I knew Uncle Corny was grinning like a sack of possums.

JOURNEY FROM JUGTOWN

Vance Havner (1901-1986) was one of my favorite preachers. He grew up in “Jugtown”, just about a mile or so from where my brother currently lives, and about 12 miles from where I grew up in Hickory, NC. (My brother is a potter -see my blog entry “Potter Principles” on December 9, 2007).

I did not encounter the name Vance Havner, however, until I was in a bookstore in California after graduation from college. A friend pointed out to me the book The Best of Vance Havner. As I read the chapter “Journey from Jugtown” I fell in love with Vance Havner. He wrote:

I grew up in the North Carolina hills. From our front porch we could see at night the lights of five little towns. From the back porch one could see Grandfather Mountain, Table Rock, and companion peaks standing like sentinels along the western skyline.

My home community was called Jugtown because in the early years there were little shops up and down the road where the potters wrought vessels of clay. I lived the simple, happy life of an old-fashioned country boy. I tramped the woods with a shepherd dog. There was plenty of outdoors, and all the plain joys of rustic youth uncushioned by modern conveniences. It would drive a teen-ager frantic these days but I thrived on it.

Father was an austere but devout Christian, the pastor's right-hand man at old Corinth Baptist Church. The country preachers always stayed at our house on Saturday before the fourth Sunday in each month, when they came by horse and buggy to preach the monthly sermon. Some of those sermons were long enough to last a month and sounded more like filibusters - but it was sound preaching. Father always let me sit up late on those Saturday nights, before the open fire, and listen to him and the minister talk about the things of God. It beat all the television that has been seen since.

Father should have been a preacher. Two of his brothers did preach; one as a Baptist, the other as a Methodist. Mother was a gentle, kindly soul content to be a housewife. Her life as a "keeper at home" would be anathema to the emancipated woman of today.

I grew up with a Bible in one hand a bird book in the other. Pilgrim 's Progress, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and a set of good classical literature formed our library. I never knew the day when I did not feel that I should preach and write. I memorized Bible portions, made little Sunday School talks, and sent my first "sermon" to our small-town newspaper when I was nine.

When I was ten, I professed faith in Christ. A revival was in progress at Corinth Church, but I came to Jesus alone in the woods. Always following an unbeaten path, I did not go to the mourner's bench as the custom was, but made my decision in a solitary place. There was no dramatic experience such as some can relate; I came as a child in simple trust. I did not understand all about the plan of salvation. I do not understand all about electricity, but I don't intend to sit in the dark until I do.

I was baptized in the South Fork River and a year later I asked the church to license me to preach. I began with a talk at the First Baptist Church of Hickory, twelve miles from my home. I have been in bigger towns and churches since, but none looked as large as did Hickory that night. Dad and I went over in an early Ford with thirty horsepower - twenty of them dead. I stood on a chair and spoke while the pastor of the church stood on one side and the state evangelist stood on the other: like Aaron and Hur holding up the hands of Moses.

[I grew up in this church. My father told me the pastor of FBC Hickory that stood by Vance was the man that drew my grandfather to move from Petersburg VA to Hickory. See my post “Modern Antique” on February 8, 2008]

For several years I preached on Sundays in town and country churches as a boy preacher. Of course, crowds came out of curiosity. Then I went to a Baptist boarding school called South Fork Institute. I was not a star student, but often sat listening to a bird singing outside rather than to a professor teaching on the inside. I went next to what is now Gardner-Webb College. It was during the First World War. We were singing Tipperary and Over There, and girl students wept as boy friends left for camp and for France to make the world safe for democracy. It hasn't been safe for anything since.

The principal of this school advised me, one day, to blaze my own trail instead of following the prescribed course of ministerial training. He told me that I was no genius, but would do well to follow an unbeaten path. I went on to Catawba College for a year, then to Wake Forest. I was restless and wanted to preach. One day, I packed my belongings and left. A professor saw me at the railroad station and said, "Young man, you'll regret this." I haven't regretted it yet. I am not advising others to follow that course, but I believe it was best for me.

Vance Havner served as pastor of several churches early in his career, but for most of his ministry was an itinerant prophet at church revivals and evangelism and bible conferences. He wrote forty books and was one of the most widely quoted preachers of the last century. With his dry humor and sharp mind he spoke truth that put a smile on your face but pierced your heart.

I heard Vance Havner at various conferences and once in a seminary chapel service. When I heard him preach I was always amazed that such a slight, wiry man could pack such a mighty punch with his delivery and message.

I met him only one time. I was his chauffeur to drive him to a preaching engagement. When he greeted me at the door of his small apartment, he warmly invited me in and showed me his humble dwelling.

As we rode to and from the conference where he addressed several thousand people, I was overwhelmed by his humility and honesty. He spoke with compassion about the struggles of some of his friends who were “household names” in the Christian world. I remembered reading how he stated his mission, “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

Vance Havner was a master of the aphorism, the pithy, proverb-like statement. Here are some quotes from him:

They didn’t hold revivals in those days, they turned them loose!

The Bible is either absolute or obsolete.

In this day people are asking, "What must I do to succeed?" instead of "What must I do to be saved?"

Many people are in a rut and a rut is nothing but a grave--with both ends kicked out.

The church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the New Testament normal it would seem to people to be abnormal.

It's about time we quit playing church in these services that start at eleven o’clock sharp and end at twelve o’clock dull.

If we don't come apart; we will come apart.

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, “Shake well before using.” That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.

It is better to die for a conviction than to live with a compromise. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct, but it is not the most important thing on earth.

Two weeks ago our Sunday School class studied the move of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem by King David. To hear Vance Havner preach on the “Steadying the Ark of God” click on http://www.podfeed.net/episode/Steadying+The+Ark+Of+God+by+Vance+Havner/1036251