Reunions

'Tis the season!

Reunion season, that is. Between now and the end of September I have a family reunion (my husband's), a church reunion, and a class reunion (my husband's) to attend.

The concept is old school. Get together with friends and family. Catch up on the news of their lives. See how much the children have grown. Pack a picnic basket with a dish overflowing with food to share. Come hungry. Leave full of good food and good feelings.

The church reunion is actually termed a "homecoming." 

Church homecoming from the early fifties

We worship together. We set up a huge tent with tables and chairs from the Sunday School classrooms. The food tables are in the fellowship hall with the air conditioning...food safety. That's now. These photographs were taken well before air conditioning was even considered, back when it was a luxury that few congregants enjoyed.

Another church homecoming, this from the late fifties

After the last amen had been proclaimed, the wives and mothers hurried to their baskets and started the spread. And my what a spread I'm talking about. It was August, when fresh vegetables were plentiful. These were country housewives where recipes didn't count, only handed down knowledge. 

By the sixties, recipes with a jello base started creeping onto the table. And then green bean casseroles, squash casseroles, sweet potato casseroles. Then came more elaborated cakes and pies, well, sort of, because first came the cake mix cakes, then the dump cakes, followed by the bundt cakes with their odd shapes. The plain jane apple pies sat uncut. So did the southern favorite, pound cakes. 

Photograph by Brett Nelson, Lenoir News Topic
Family reunion time in the south
Different family, different times

Now we're in a new century and guess what, the food trend is coming full circle. We're back to basics with much prized home grown tomatoes, corn on and off the cob, pound cake, pecan pie. Not even a green bean casserole in sight. 

As for me, today at the Griffith family reunion, (not the one in the photograph above) I'm taking a salad with lettuce and tomatoes straight from our garden. But on the way down, we're stopping at Ted's Kickin Chicken in Wilkesboro and picking up a bucket of wings. I just can't compete with the family cooks.

Ted's Kickin Chicken, best chicken in western North Carolina
Photograph by Johnny Turner

I know about this restaurant because it's in my Wheels and Moonshine book, page 63. Author tasted and approved, which is why, today, the extended Griffith family is in store for a treat.

Happy reunions, everyone.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Cecil the Lion

Cecil, I'm heartbroken.

The world weeps for you.

 

When tragedy arrives, the musician turns to rhythm, the writer turns to words and the poet turns to rhyme. I wish I were a musician or a poet right now to be able to use my talent to express my deep sadness at the senseless killing of this majestic animal. An ode would be appropriate, but all I could come up with was a couplet.

 

Cecil, I'm heartbroken.

The world weeps for you.

 

I'm not going to add my words to the online rant against the man who killed him. Plenty others have accomplished that. Instead I want to address this to the guides behind this cowardly act and to those who are in the guiding business.

 

Since I began the fly fishermen project, I was introduced to a whole new subculture, the hunters and fishers of the southern Appalachians. The men I met and wrote about were outdoorsmen who found solace and comfort in roaming the backwoods. They are the very ones who recognized the need to preserve what they love most, nature. They organized. They advocated. They pushed legislation and they supported the laws that were designed to defend the forests and the animals that are dear to their hearts.

 

The guides they spoke of were equally passionate in the love of the outdoors, whether leading hunts for elk in Colorado, for the elusive trout in Tasmania, or for the hidden, known to no one but themselves, fishing holes in the depths of the cloud shrouded Smoky Mountains. I have confidence that they are trustworthy caretakers of what has been handed to them. I have to have that confidence, because, if they aren't the trustworthy caretakers who follow professional ethics, there will be more Cecils in the future.

 

Cecil, I'm heartbroken.

The world weeps for you.

 

Integrity counts, even in the backwoods.

 

Catch of the day,

 

Gretchen

 

A Visit to Charleston

Last week I posted about my plans to travel to Charleston, SC.

Been there.

Done that.

We stayed at the Hilton Embassy Suites, downtown on Marion Square, the original barracks for the Citadel Cadets. It's luxurious now, so I had to stretch my imagination to picture life as a cadet a century and a half ago.

The good thing about staying downtown, everything is right there, and if it isn't, it's a free trolley car ride away. That "everything" includes Mother Emanuel AME Church that was in the block off Marion Square on Calhoun Street, the scene of last month's tragic shooting. We visited it twice since the walk was only down the block and across the street. Both times we were greeted by church members. And tourists. And flowers. And signs. And police barricades.

I can't even begin to tell you my emotions.

One word kept running through my mind. Senseless. There is no explaining a senseless act.

And this week it's Chattanooga's turn for yet another senseless act. One of the men killed there was from Burke County, NC, the location of my Lessons Learned book. My heart breaks.

This time Peter Seeger's song from the war torn sixties ran through my mind.

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Gone to graveyards everyone.
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

The Confederate Flag

I'm heading to Charleston soon, Charleston, South Carolina, for a quick visit with my cousin and her husband as they tour the city. Since our son went to school there, graduated from The Citadel in 1998, we know the places of interest enough to be guides. Well, at least we know the can't-miss restaurants that serve shrimp and grits and other low country cuisine with fried fish and hushpuppies. Yum. They are in for a culinary treat.

But I wonder how different Charleston is today from the almost twenty years ago when we first dropped our son off at his barracks for his "knob" week. Or how different Charleston is today from a month ago, before the horrific shootings. More than that, how different Charleston is today from yesterday morning.

Yesterday the Confederate flag flew on the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.

Today it doesn't.

The flag is a symbol I am just now realizing.  I have no ancestral connection to it, being born in Pennsylvania to northern parents whose ancestors, I'm sure, fought against that very flag. We moved south when I was five years old and my mother tried her best to fit our family into the culture.

But, contrary to what many may think, that never included the Confederate flag. Never. I saw it rarely, if at all, during my early years. It's just not part of my past. These were the years before color TV and cable news channels and social media. We were busy growing up southern and learning to duck under desks in air raid drills and protesting the Viet Nam War and riding in buses that passed by black children standing on the side of the road, waiting for their buses to carry them to their separate schools.

The graveyard at the church I attend is the final resting place for soldiers from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, on up through Viet Nam. On Veteran's Day every year the cemetery committee places flags on every veteran's grave. American flags. Every veteran.

As I researched the Pilot Mountain School story, I ran across a newspaper article from the early fifties. The Daughters of the Confederacy had donated a Confederate flag to every school in the county. So in my interviews, I asked, "Do you remember seeing the Confederate flag at the school?" To a person, the answer was "No."

In fifty years, when an author interviews people who were the children of today and asks that same question, to a person, the answer will be "No."

My heritage and faith is to look to scripture for guidance and in the first letter of Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 13, Paul writes, "So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live, for I don't want to cause another believer to stumble." That verse on not offending others could be paraphrased to fit this situation as well, "So if what I fly causes another believer to sin, I will never fly this again as long as I live." 

Powerful words.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Honoring My Father

I watch the ads on the television set for Father's Day gifts, smiling fathers cooking in the backyard, busy fathers playing catch, fishing.

I see store fliers in the newspaper full of Father's Day gift suggestions, mostly shirts, few ties.

I walk through the card aisle and see the possibilities, humorous, sappy, nail-on-the-head perfect.

Madison Avenue makes it all seem so peaceful and rewarding, and it is. My husband proved that over and over. I'm thrilled with the card I selected for him this year.

But now I want to direct your attention to this man:

Hiram Glenn Holsopple, Sr.

Isn't he a handsome dude! He's my father and I'm guessing this snapshot of him was taken before I even came into the picture. There's no date on the back, but given his suit coat and the location in Pennsylvania at his mother's, and the lack of color, I can sort of date it to the early 1940's. He was born in 1912, so he would have been in his thirties.

Me in his arms, my brother (Glenn, Jr.) at his side

I would love to run out and purchase a barbecue grill to give him this year, but it's too late. He died in 1981. What he's missed since then, I can't begin to list. Fortunately, he knew his grandchildren. They meant the world to him, yet he missed watching them grow up. He missed taking my mother on trips abroad, although they did their fair share. He missed new cars and talking politics and Mad Magazine issues.

He was a tinkerer. Our basement was crammed with his cars and his machines and his latest projects. Video games were just appearing on the scene in his final years. He connected a table tennis video game to an old television set and played it for hours. I can only imagine his reaction to the games now. I know he would have them ready to play when his grandchildren came over. If he'd only had the chance.

I've had thirty some years of not buying a card for him. That's the way life goes, I suppose, but even then, one thing remains. I love him no less than I did that horrible day my mother called with the news of his death. In fact, as my children grew and my grandchildren grew, I've grown to love him more.

Love never fails. Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Swamp Fox

Research.

So here I am on a Saturday morning, doing what I need to do to get my Crump Field Baseball project finished. Much of my research is complete and I'm in the fact checking mode today, not a pleasant task for a researcher like me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE researching. I LOVE finding all kinds of interesting facts, which is where the unpleasantness fits in. I find interesting facts NOT related to what I need, but hey, I think, maybe some day. So I spend time dabbling. Fun, but not productive.

Which is why, in writing a rough draft for a 1950's era baseball field out in the foothills of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, I end up spending over an hour (or three) working on something that will end up being one sentence long, maybe just one phrase long.

The original Crump (ancestor to the Crump field Crumps) arrived in America as Johann Krumm, a Hessian soldier in the service of the British Army, a paid mercenary. His early military record is easy to trace. 

Remember this famous picture by Emanuel Leutz, Washington Crossing the Delaware? Well, Johann Krumm was waiting on the other side, maybe not aware that he was waiting since this was a surprise attack, but still, being there counts as waiting.

He was captured and according to ancestry records, held prisoner until he was used as a pawn in a prisoner exchange and sent to Georgia, where he left the British side and fled to Charlotte, North Carolina. Mecklenburg. German. Of course he went there. That's where he found a German settlement. He joined the American Army, fought for them. I know because I found his military record. He was captured again, this time by the British he once fought alongside. He was released. Again. And according to the family records, joined up with a guerrilla style warfare group under the leadership of Francis Marion. The Swamp Fox. Only thing is, that fact I can't find.

From myservicepride.com

That picture might show what life was like with this historical figure, but here's the Swamp Fox I remember from growing up in the fifties and sixties:

From Walt Disney Productions

It was a TV show starring Leslie Nielsen, and as my brother and I watched faithfully, my mother would again (and again and again) tell the story of how she got her name. Frances. Her brother, Marion. Her ancestor fought with Francis Marion in the swamps of South Carolina, she said. I never doubted. I never questioned the fact that we were from Pennsylvania and he was a leader local to South Carolina. I never asked which ancestor.

Big mistake.

Searching and researching for this Crump ancestor to verify his story, I ran across a list of Marion's Brigade, compiled by South Carolina historian Victoria Proctor. No Crump, no Crumm nor Krumm, nor any spelling variation I've run across. A little air went out of my balloon. Okay, so there is a statement that "formal muster rolls were virtually non-existent." This list relied on secondary sources. Would family lore qualify?

It would be more like a history professor told me out of the corner of his mouth, every family in the south claims some unspecified ancestor fought with Francis Marion. And then, much to my chagrin, he went on to remark, every family in the south has a baby named Francis. Or Marion. Now I understand his derision. But wait. Was he talking about MY family?

So today I looked for family last names that could be even remotely connected to me. There it was. Fleming. Eight of them listed. Someday I'll check the connection. Not today because today I'm working on researching other things. But maybe some day...

Catch of the day,

Gretchen 

Quick! Pick the Cherries!

I've been concentrating so much on the Fly Fishing book that I neglected to report on another of my good publishing news. In the June 2015 issue of Highlights for Children, you will find an article I wrote. Page 32.

Copyright © Highlights for Children, Inc., Columbus, Ohio. 
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

It's a short story I based on my father-in-law’s yearly battle with the birds over the cherries in the trees, and my son’s attempts to help. It was published in Highlights for Children June, 2015 issue.

Here's Grandpa Griffith in a snapshot my niece took him while he was doing what he loved, 

picking cherries.

And now the illustration in the magazine:

Copyright © Highlights for Children, Inc., Columbus, Ohio. 

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Thank you, artist Chris Jones, for your interpretation of Grandpa. You nailed it!

He loved being Great-grandpa!

This wonderful man was a part of the greatest generation. I'm thrilled my children and grandchildren met him and learned at his feet.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen