It had been a long time since I was in Memphis. When I go north out of Florida, I usually go to my Mom and Dad's old place and stay with my sister. It feels like going back in time, back when Mother and Daddy were living, when they made Christmases so special. Everything is familiar, nostalgic, comfortable. There is plenty of quiet time to be had, something that is hard to achieve in my own home. If I try to write here, I bog myself down in whatever is going on around me. I've learned how to navigate this reading, writing with pen and pad, and computer input. That means going away from my house every morning for three to four hours, just like I used to do before retirement. The good part is that I have the rest of the day to do as I please—without worrying about pleasing anyone but me and hubs, of course! Selfish? Just wait until you get to this special time in life. You will love it. Back to my trip! When I travel to Mississippi, Peter and my grandson, Harrison

December 2011 Naked oaks crunchy brown leaves a deck of wood slats and green moss on the north side of things. A hint of yellow left from a Fall that has said goodbye and will not return for yet a little while. A heavy wood gate. Closed. A dog barks in the cold and gray. Cottage bricks rounded and shaped strong and old clinging together with mortar from ages past. Steps to the porch. Cold window panes. Doors ornate with Christmas wreaths. Lighted trees glowing, reflecting. Sweet ornaments with last year's photographs of children's faces framed in delicately knitted circles. Red, green The colors of Winter. There's a welcome here. Chimney smoke the fragrance of wood burning. Sparks on a hearth. Holly Noel—the perfect Christmas name. A good cup of coffee the taste of caramel. A verse for the day. A quiet moment. Fellowship. Joy divine. To lean, depend. Mercy drops and Grace in abundance. And the coveted Gift of Hospitality freely shar

  A Time To Celebrate—A Time For Us My sister, Pat, has weathered the storms of life, physically speaking, that is. She has been challenged with multiple sclerosis for many years. But I have never known a more determined person in my lifetime. She is a real trooper. A model for those of us who may not have accepted with such grace and determination so great an encumbrance. And as God has been the lifter of her head, Dave—well, Dave has been her stronghold, her keeper, her protector. I have seen him lift her tiny body in and out of situations for lo these many years, and with never a sign of tiring or a sigh of disparagement. Forever faithful would be a good word here! And then there are two precious children of this marriage. Our Dewey and Linda. They are seasoned, smart, educated and witty. Engrained. Always steadfast, full of smiles and laughter and love, which they inherited from their parents. And they are faithful to family, incredibly so. While Linda and her family we

It was hot and muggy. Historians declare it was steamy . Such is Mississippi in the summertime. From the banks of the swollen Tishomingo River on June 10, 1864, Union soldiers jumped by the thousands to escape the fire of a burning, raging battle in the Northeastern corner of the Sovereign State of Mississippi, in a little community known as Brice's Cross Roads. Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest pulled out all the stops to pull off one of the fiercest and most strategic battles of the Civil War. He won that battle, hands down. Late spring rains caused the narrow stream of water to overflow its banks. Union troops by the thousands, under the command of Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis slogged the gently sloping hills, their wagon trains pulled by mules dotting the landscape like flies on molasses, covering miles and miles of muddy terrain, until that day, untouched except by a few farm houses, a Reformed Presbyterian church, and an old log house, all set beneat

. . . a thousand words I will not be able to adequately describe the scene in the photo above. And my words cannot express what took place in the last late night moments of the 2011 Bennett Family Vacation. It's a personal moment, but deserves top billing on my blog tonight. I'm sure you have the same kind of bonding with your family. I hope so. After Mother and Daddy went home to be with the Lord, we determined to keep the home fires burning, to stay close, to watch out for each other, and to meet up at least once a year, face to face. Well, this year was my turn to host, and when I was appointed last year at Petit Jean Mountain near Little Rock, Arkansas, I was asked to have it in my corner of the world. Knowing me, as most of you do, I'm a North-of-Florida kind of girl, desiring to head for the Great Smokey Mountains or the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I reluctantly settled on Orlando. I thought we could use Disney as the main attraction. Only six o

John Adams wrote this to his wife, Abigail— "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty." Well, that was a little special to me, since my mother was due to have me on July 4, 1940. I came early. I was born on July 2. John Adams was ingenious in so many ways! "Solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty." Hmmm! He had the intestinal fortitude (courage and perseverance) to invoke the name of God Almighty. My kind of guy! INDEPENDENCE DAY! We should more often refer to this special holiday as such. Somehow Fourth of July just doesn't take it out far enough. What a great country, ours! With all its ills and woes, we are still the greatest on planet earth! But we come short of celebrating all that is tr

... After All These Years! My brother was born on May 28, 1945, the year World War II ended. In August of that same year, the Japanese had surrendered unconditionally. Unknown to my brother, who was less than three months old, the winds of war blew fiercely somewhere else on the far side of the earth as the Japanese occupied a spot north of the sixteenth parallel after the War had ended. In September of that year, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of some 500,000 in Hanoi. But the major allied victors of World War II— the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union—all agreed the area belonged to the French. As the French had not the wherewithal to retake Vietnam at the time, the major powers agreed that British troops would occupy the South and the Nationalist Chinese, the North. On September 14, 1945, Chinese forces disarmed the Japanese troops north of the sixteenth parallel and the British landed i

The Hornets' Nest was stirred at Shiloh and the blood filled the pond that day. It was not long before the North had control of Missouri and northern Arkansas. And Grant was still after the South's waterways. New Orleans was seized, closing the Mississippi River to southern commerce, Grant's best hopes becoming reality. The Confederacy was slowly deprived of manufacturing capacity. And men. They scrapped for food, clothing, and ammunition. Slowly but surely, they became the ragtags. April 12, 1862 ". . . You watch, Henry, but stay close. I love you, son." "And I love you, Papa." With those sentiments expressed, T.G.'s emotions were stirred again. He was gripped by homesickness to an indescribable degree. He turned his back on his son and went inside the tent. His father had said to stay close, Henry mused. A comforting thought expressed by a faithful father. Henry added some logs to the fire, stoked it good to keep his father warm, and pa

John 14:6 I am the way … Jesus sat with his disciples, giving them the most pleasant of instructions—instructions that concerned the state of the heart, though the human heart, apart from Christ, cannot be trusted.  Jeremiah described it as “… deceitful above all things and desperately wicked …” (17:9). But Jesus told the disciples in John 14:1: “Let not your heart be troubled …” He had spent the better part of three years with these men, and for some reason when He began that day to linger on going away and heaven and things prepared, Thomas just didn’t get it. He doubted and wondered and pondered and questioned:              “How will we get to the Father’s House?” and              “How on earth are we going to know the way?”             Imagine being there yourself as Jesus arrested thoughts concerning His departure, addressing two emotions that plague us even now: doubt and fear. He dealt with Thomas’ doubts that day in the same way He deals with ours. He had alread

Southerners were devoted to The Cause during the War years, for the most part. The aftermath was a different story, albeit the South was faithful to that Cause long after it was dead. The Union tried in futile effort to manage a country diametrically opposed to its political orientation, a country as stubborn and proud as its hanging moss that clings and blows in the winds of time. Gray in the gloom, caught up in pink shafts of the sun on a day not so gloomy. The South, ripped to shreds by the War, faced an ideology that challenged its principles and wherewithal, mocked its gentility, and found great pleasure in attempting to clean the carcass of the southern dog.             In the era of Isaac’s House , the South was still outside the Union, still trying to pick up the pieces to recover from four long years of death and destruction. Hope in 1866 and 1867 was that the North would soon tire of stirring in the ashes of the Old South, abandon the travesty of Reconstruction, and

Isaac took his grandfather’s buckboard, hitched Glory to it, and rode to Calhoun City at the end of the day. He had to buy the tin to cover the beams on his roof. He was so near finished with his house it was frightening. Soon he would see Jennie again and try to recover those splendid days, weeks, months he had wasted. That is, if she would have him.             He unloaded the wagon in the dark and trudged to the porch, tired and hungry, though he was sick of his own cooking. He had yet to purchase a wood cook stove for the kitchen, but there were a lot of things that would have to come later. When there was money enough to pay.             Shreds of moss moved ghostlike through the giant oaks, casting night shadows across the porch not unlike any other evening. It was quiet. Again. The lonesome call of a whippoorwill disturbed the otherwise peaceful setting. When she hushed, Isaac could hear the trickle of the water over the rocks in the stream below the canebrake.       

We made the drive to Calhoun County in my brother's "big truck"! I love that truck. It serves as transportation, a drive-in picnic extravaganza device at one of three fast-food restaurants in the small Mississippi town of Bruce, and a proverbial roller coaster ride when my brother brakes for George's Chicken in New Albany. We knew the snow was coming, but it wouldn't have mattered. We would likely have gone anyway, for my brother's truck would have pulled every hill and bottomed out every hollow in Calhoun. It was a windy day. Mike and Gloria are our family genealogists, and they know where all our forebears are buried in these hills of Calhoun County. They also know old home sites, specifically of our grandmother, Mama Smith, where she lived with her family in Sarepta before she and Papa married. That's a great story for later with lots of pictures and memories. I had wanted to be here for the homecoming and burial of Clayton Hell