Raindrops Keep Fallin’

I had to drive into town yesterday and it started raining.  Well that’s no big deal, I just turned on the windshield wipers, adjusted my speed and was sure to flip on my headlights so the other cars can see me in the decreased visibility.    With those small adjustments I continued on my way.  But it did make me think about travel just a few decades ago. 

There’s a big difference in running to town in my car with a solid windshield which is cleaned by wipers and runningto town in, at the very best, a covered buggy (which common families really didn’t have).  More likely they were driving a buckboard wagon, riding a horse or even walking.  All of those options leave you very exposed to weather.

And rainy weather just brings on so many more topics

First there’s your wardrobe.  Start by thinking of wearing long dresses that dragged through the mud when you didn’t have a washing machine, not to mention that people didn’t have very many clothes.

Now we don’t wear hats very much these days – and just as a fashion statement, I like hats a lot and think we ought to bring them back.  But they were a very practical part of fashion – from cowboys whose hat shielded him from both sun and rain to the city dweller who didn’t spend his day on an open range needing a wide brim to shield him from the sun’s glare but still relied on his hat to protect from rain and wind.  With the expansion of the automobile hats became less necessary.  Of course women’s hats were always changing and even though it seemed like women wore them later than men did, they were all about fashion and little to do with function by the 1960’s. 

Beyond head covering, I ran out today in a light sweater, which I often do when I’m just riding in the car.  Sure, if there’s serious weather threatening I’ll have heavier coats in the back lest I should have any kind of trouble and end up walking.  But if I had to climb up in an open wagon for a ten or fifteen mile trip you can bet I’d be wrapped in something waterproof and as warm as I could get. 

And then there’s weather-related health conditions to be considered.  President William Henry Harrison served just 31 days before he died from pneumonia which he contracted after standing hatless and coatless during his 2 hour inauguration speech.  How easily would those conditions be duplicated on any given errand if you drove an open wagon?

Finally, there’s just the simple inconvenience of trying to get somewhere in the rain.  Now the car gets pretty dirty and yucky – mine is dirtier and yuckier than I want to admit – but we have these amazing, automatic car washes.  You pull right up to the front, slide your card and in just a few minutes you can drive away with shining wheels, a hot wax, spotless under carriage and of course a nice clean car.  Compare that to currying the mud out of your horse’s coat after your little jaunt to town.  And you do want to curry him for that horse is one of your most valuable and prized possessions.  Cars today cost more than a home did just a few years ago and I think most of us try to take care of them and make them last as long as possible.  However, American households average 2.28 cars.  Many of you have a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle just for fun.  Maybe you have a pickup that you just use to pull your bass boat or RV. However many vehicles you have, we take them for granted.  And some folks actually live where public transportation is available!

Transportation, or the lack thereof, certainly was a key element that kept earlier generations centered in the home and farm.  Without the ability to run out and grab a loaf of bread, you made your own.  For that matter, without being able to grab a bag of flour or corn meal, you grew a little wheat or corn and took a turn to the mill.  Cows were milked twice each day and butter churned instead of visiting the dairy section.  Hams hung in the smoke house after hours spent killing, scalding and scraping a hog.  Vegetables were waiting in the root cellar or dried and hanging from the rafters.  Root vegetables were stored in the ground so you needed only to kick off the dirt and enjoy a head of cabbage. 

Wow, it all sounds so convenient my trip to the grocery store in the rain is seeming like too much work.   Wait, all that farmstead convenience took an awful lot of work on the front end.  Once again, my drive to town in the rain just wasn’t too bad, was it?

In the Sweet By and By

Now you may be in a more modern church that has done away with paper hymnals but I like my song book in hand.  I play at the piano and my meager skills have been used from time to time in various churches from which I’ve collected a number of books.  It’s funny the difference in songs from one edition to another and I’m often saddened by missing favorites.

Well as you know this blog largely springs from research for my fiction-writing and I’m very serious about historical accuracy – which was what I was thinking about as I noticed the dates of tunes and lyrics this past Sunday.  Did it ever occur to you if you stepped back in time to your very own church 50 or 100 or even 150 years ago what they might be singing?

My pastor mentioned a song recently – which I’d sung my whole life – that was a “modern” hymn.  I thought, “Huh?”  Modern isn’t an adjective I like applied to the good ole’ hymns I know and love.  But compared to Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress which he wrote in 1529, The Old Rugged Cross is quite modern, being penned in 1913. 

If you arrived this Sunday into 1850, you would not be singing Jesus Loves Me – it would be another decade before that song is available.  Nor would you enjoy What a Friend we have in Jesus which was written in 1855.  You would be able to sing At the Cross (1707) and Amazing Grace (1779).  If you enjoy I Shall not be Moved that song was probably available in 1850, but it was an African American Spiritual, the exact date of its origin is unknown.  Since there were few desegregated congregations in 1850, there would have been lots of churches that would not have included that one on their weekly program.

Fast forward fifty years and the song book has grown.  By then How Great thou Art (1886), At Clavary (1895) and Count Your Many Blessings (1897) would have been added.

But you’ll have to wait well into the twentieth century to begin singing some of my personal favorites: I’ll Fly Away (1932), Jesus Hold My Hand (1933) and Victory in Jesus (1939).  Who ever thought of those songs as “modern”?

The stories around songs are fascinating too and we often sing them for years without knowing their history.  I guess a hymn can minister in two ways, by its lyrics and by its story.  I enjoy Mine Eyes have seen the Glory which was written in 1861 by Julia Ward Howe.  The original printing is “by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments” and includes a verse “I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel”.    The tune was originally set to “John Brown’s Body Lies a’moulding in the Grave” and eulogizes “John Brown was a hero” and “his truth still marches on”.

It is Well with my Soul was written in 1873 by Horatio Spafford following the tragic deaths of his four daughters in a shipwreck.  He had already suffered the loss of a 2 year old son and economic ruin following the Great Chicago Fire.  Still, as he traveled across the Atlantic to meet his grieving wife he was inspired to pen lines that I can barely hear without a tear springing to my eyes.  “When sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul’”.

And perhaps the most famous backstory to a hymn is Amazing Grace – all the more well known after the 2006 film.  John Newton had captained a slave ship before he came to know The Lord and he was later inspired to write a number of hymns.  Amazing Grace was picked up in America by the Second Great Awakening and has touched an untold number of souls in the past 238 years.

The Flu

From VeryWell.com: https://www.verywell.com/deaths-from-flu-2633829

I have the flu. Ugh. Growl. Moan.  Let me just first say that I don’t have time for the flu.  I am so angry at my body for harboring this bug and letting it get the best of me.  I don’t like to be sick.  I pray my children don’t get it- the flu is much harder on little ones.  What if my husband gets it?  He’ll have to miss work - I’ll have totake care of him!  Okay, I’m done with that pity party – well sort of.

I awoke in the middle of the night cold, shivering actually.  I could hear the forced air blowing into the room maintaining a constant 69 degrees. I had plenty of covers on the bed yet I was getting colder.  My fever was creeping back up and I knew it wasn’t time for another dose of the Ibuprofen or Acetaminophen – that would help the aches I could feel beneath the shivering. But I didn’t want to get up; why did I leave those things in the kitchen instead of conveniently at my bedside?  Well I needed more cold water anyway; it’s so important to stay hydrated when you’re sick and my body was craving that life-giving liquid.

Finally, I talked myself into getting up – this was only going to get worse unless I took care of it.  I put my feet down, where are my house shoes?  Ugh, did I leave them in the bathroom?  I padded across wall-to-wall carpet, flipped on the electric light and sure enough, there they sat.  With my feet protected, I made my way into the kitchen where I had a ready supply of pain reliever and cough syrup.  A few hours ago I’d already taken the dose of Tami-flu prescribed by my doctor and filled at the local pharmacy which had a plentiful supply carried in on the daily delivery truck. 

Fill up my water glass with a push of a button on the fridge and crawl back into my warm bed.  By the way, why is the inner-spring mattress and memory foam combination not comfortable tonight?

I am complaining a lot here but I know I’m going to be fine.  Maybe the prescription will shorten the duration of the symptoms.  Hopefully no one else in my household will fall victim to the virus. But heaven forbid one of us takes a serious turn, there’s an emergency medical facility just a short drive away and an ambulance that can arrive in moments to help along that drive.  But that’s not always been the case, has it? 

The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was the most serious international epidemic in history claiming 50-100 million people.  Compare that to the more recent flu pandemic of 2009 which claimed at most 150,00 lives.  Okay that’s a lot of human life, but it’s an awful lot less than fifty million.  And think about how much larger the world’s population is since 1918. 

As counties across Tennessee have closed schools this week to curb the spread of flu, it begins to feel like an epidemic now.  However, the Center for Disease Control reports that doctor’s visits for flu-like symptoms were only at baseline levels (2.2%) until the last week in January when it jumped to 3.9%. 

Then there’s just the comfort factor.  Have I ever told you that I do not believe in pain?  Have you ever thought about the ease with which we relieve pain today?  I asked Google when was Acetaminophen invented and my jaw dropped as I read Wikipedia’s history section.  Those first analgesics packed some painful side effects.  Still by the late 1800’s inventors were working hard to patent pain relievers for the populace.  It wouldn’t be until 1955 that Tylenol would release their first elixir and Ibuprofen wouldn’t be discovered until 1960.  In the meantime, numerous headache concoctions would be available both commercially produced as well as local pharmacists’ versions.  And of course there are any number of home remedies both for pain relievers and fever reducers. 

Why is it such little comfort to realize that I don’t suffer as many other have?

Rock Walls

Rock Wall at The Henry Home in Sequatchie Valley

I recently had occasion to drive down I-40 from the Plateau into Nashville.  A book I’d read had me thinking about the land around Nashville as it would have been in the 1800’s so I guess I was a little more aware of the farms and scenery than normal.  Couple that with my Daddy in the passenger seat evaluating every farm we passed and mourning the cleared land that “they’ve let grow up” in scrub woods and you can see why I would notice a low rock wall running into the woods among saplings no more than ten years old.

Excepting some natural coves, every inch of farmland on the Plateau and surrounding areas had to be wrestled from nature with a broad axe, horse-drawn plow and abundant sweat.  The land produces rock more abundantly than any other crop and if you want to win the battle you’re gonna’ have to do something with those rocks – nothing grows very well alongside them.

You may remember a story I shared here way back in 2015 about a homestead in the Sequatchie Valley and I included a picture of one of their rock walls.  My Uncle Hollis Henry told us that those walls were built as they carried rocks out of the fields and I imagine that stray wall along the interstate originated the same way.  A wall like that would have a dual purpose of getting the rocks out of the way and fencing off the crop land from roaming cattle.  It was more permanent than the split rail fences and who wants to split rails if you’re already picking up rocks.

Whew, does this line of thought not give you enormous respect for the people who first settled our Tennessee home?  Honestly, I might sit down among those rocks and just give up.  Yet day after day they returned to the field and must have walked hundreds of miles back and forth to their growing wall. 

Example of Schotland's ancient walls.  Photo courtesy of www.ghgraham.com

This is certainly not something unique to Tennessee.  It was undoubtedly a practice the immigrants brought with them from their homes in Scotland and Ireland.  The walls there are ancient. 

Central Kentucky has the most of America’s stone walls.  The Irish built miles of beautiful rock fences there but sadly only about 10% of the original walls remain.  And as those walls need repairs, special masons are often sought to do the work.  That dry stone technique wasn’t necessarily employed on these Middle Tennessee farms and I don’t know whether that was because the farmers here didn’t take the time for the formal construction or maybe they didn’t really possess that skill, being farmers rather than stone masons.  Learning how many of those formal rock fences have been destroyed in Kentucky makes me wonder if there were more of them in Tennessee. 

A well-kept old home I've been admiring in Sale Creek complete with a rock wall.  I wonder if that's original to the house?

I also can’t help but wonder why there aren’t even more rock walls surviving here.  We certainly have had plenty of rocks, although I suspect the sandstone of the Plateau didn’t lend itself so readily to this work.  Once again, I find myself with more questions than answers.  I suppose if I keep asking I’ll keep finding a few answers along the way.  When I do, I’ll be sure to share them.