One of the things I appreciate the most about growing up in the South was being raised amongst some of the best storytellers in the world. People who do not have this privilege are really robbed of a tremendous heritage. There is a reason so many of the world's greatest such as Eudora Welty, Harper Lee,Truman Capote, Flannery O'Connor and so many other writers come from the South.
Rumor has it that back in the day, before the South had air conditioning or color television, folks would congregate on the front porch, drink sweet tea and tell stories by the hours. Many of my fondest childhood memories are not far different from this.
My grandparents lived on the main stretch of road going into town from the highway. The traffic flowed day and night and on many occasions we would sit on the front porch after dinner, watch the cars go buy, and listen to the adults reminisce about what we kids referred to as the old timey days. The family had lived in the small town of Pearsall, Texas, some 50 miles south of San Antonio, as far back as anyone could remember.
Our family was acquainted with a good number of people whose heritage in the area extended as far back as ours. There were so many names mentioned throughout several lifetimes of stories, which I can still recall to this day even though we are now separated by decades and hundreds of miles. I came to know childhood friends of both my father and grandfather through tales and personal meetings.
As a child, I walked the same streets of atleast three generations before me so that the sandy, red dirt of Frio County, Texas became a part of me, and I a part of it. The local businesses we frequented were owned and operated by lifelong friends of the family. The sapphire and diamond ring I purchased with the money i was given as gifts when I graduated from high school was purchased from a jeweler in Pearsall, as had been the tradition. My school clothes every year came from the local dress shop of another Martha, and woman who had who had been a classmate of my father's when he was young. There was a memorial stained glass window at the Methodist church which was bought and paid for by atleast on of our relations years before I was born. When country crooner George Strait hit it big playing his guitar on the radio, locals, who remembered him from his youth in town, still referred to him as "that Strait boy" and probably still do to this day, even though he is old enough to be a grandfather.
My own grandfather, born in 1900, had never known another town as his home. He had been a lifelong member of the local Baptist church and Masonic lodge. When he died, at the age of 85, the gentleman, and fellow Mason, who conducted his graveside service was exactly one year older and had literally known my grandfather his entire life. And, i must mention, still spoke of him as an honorable person, which I consider to be amongst the greatest accomplishments.
Dad was born in 1932, grew up during the Depression and World War II, and used to say his family was so poor back in the day that they had to eat butter instead of margarine. Unlike today, when margarine first came on the market it was more expensive than butter, came white in color and was accompanied with a packet of yellow coloring which was mixed in at home to give it the yellow appearance. My dad's family, who could not afford such a luxury, had to rely on butter churned from milk from the family cow.
There were two enormous pecan trees in my grandparent's front yard. We freely ate whatever pecans we cared to pick up off the ground and shell ourselves. My uncle was a rancher and farmer and gave us a free calf every year as well as an abundant supply of peanuts, watermelon, corn and cantaloupe. It would be many years later that I would come to realize what a luxury this had been when I had to actually purchase these favorite foods from the local grocery store. To this day, it pains me to actually have to pay good money for any of these goods which were so readily available, and most importantly, free to harvest with my bare hands.
When my father died, some eleven years ago, he was buried in the family plot next to several generations of his own family. His funeral was attended by many who had also known him his entire life, and some who had known the family even longer. Several attendees were from families who had been acquainted with my own family for just as many generations as were buried in the family plot.
I live in a different world than the one in which my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were raised. People don't stay put in one place long enough to put down deep roots like they once did. My generation is much more mobile. We think nothing of moving 1,000 miles across country for no other reason than a change of scenery or a new job. We are not connected to the land like those before us once were. While my grandfather was born, raised and died in the same town, my father's generation eventually left to make their homes in nearby cities and towns. My generation of cousins are far flung across the country from Connecticut to California. Instead of congregating on the front porch after dinner to watch the cars go by and tell tales late into dusk, we communicate through the internet and are all friends on Facebook.
The last generation of my family to remain in Pearsall died during my senior year of high school. This was a traumatic time for all of us, as it was not just the passing of our relations from this life to the next, but it was very much the passing of an era, a changing of hands from one generation to the next . Suddenly, for the first time in generations, we had no reason to go back to the place which had been the center of our family for so many decades. Generally, the passing from one phase of life to the next is a gradual process, often as easily to detect as paint drying or grass growing. For me, the door slammed shut with a thunderous thud.
My grandparent's house, which had been like a second home to me practically every weekend, holiday, and summer of my youth, and the surrounding yard where my cousins and I played countless hours on end, is now the parking lot of the local McDonald's, with, as one of my cousins said, "no sign that children once played there."
Sitting in the car, after the last family funeral of that year, my aunt turned to me and said, with tremendous sadness and longing for the past, "Our roots run deep in Pearsall." And that they did.
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