Storytelling...

She said, ‘Say goodbye...it’ll be a long time before you see this skyline again’ as the Greyhound bus rolled out of the Memphis station in the middle of the night.

This was it. My Mom was really doing it. Some say she was taking a leap to grow, others could argue it was sacrifice for survival.

Three years prior my father jumped from a bridge into the Tennessee River only to surface nearly a month later when my grandfather pulled his body from the water. Why he jumped into the river in the middle of a snowy December night is debatable. Sometimes I think he was just intoxicated and brave and other times I think he was running from his life here on earth. I usually just say he drowned and swipe the images from my head.

Mom was young...and so was I. But, we navigated bus to bus and eventually found ourselves at Lemon Bluff.

Lemon Bluff was tucked away from the rest of the world, in a beautiful bend on Florida’s Saint John’s River. Where the alligators and large mouth bass lived alongside the egrets and poisonous snakes. And where the storytelling was usually done with the sound of an acoustic guitar at a Saturday night fish fry. It was alive and all around were the gifts from Heaven- the things God made- not built by man’s hands.

I was seven years old. And it felt like we were running. I suppose she was, but I wasn’t. I was just along for the ride.

It was a few months after NASA’s Challenger disaster. Situated a short drive inland, Lemon Bluff had provided a picturesque view of the historical launch. The children of the community watched the shuttle explode from the sidewalks outside their classrooms. The stories were fresh and every kid knew someone who supposedly had a piece of the spaceship in their possession.

With the world looking so closely near them, they were still so disconnected that it gifted them a childhood of exploration in every way imaginable. I eagerly jumped in with a group of friends that was sprinkled with a few cousins that were blood and a few that were not.

The adults around me would likely describe themselves as ‘common folk;’ however, common they were not. Most influential in my life at Lemon Bluff were my grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw. With roots geographically centered around the very spot where Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama connect- on the Tennessee River- my grandparents were rooted in Southern-ness and textbook poor.

Both, at some point, had been cotton-pickers- a job they each began working as children. My Mamaw told me that those cotton fields are where she learned to chew tobacco and favored the nice man who would deliver her fried bologna sandwiches, RC Cola and a plug of Days Work tobacco for lunch.

She’d met my half-Cherokee Indian Papaw before any other person kissed her and they married young, having six children- my beautiful Mom being the second oldest and the first girl.

I believe it was likely my Mamaw and Papaw who instilled a love of storytelling in me at an early age. With Native American roots and only a first grade education, my Papaw’s stories are etched in my soul by the sound of his voice- not written on paper as he was not gifted the same education he ensured I had.

So, here’s to storytelling in a different way…welcome to my blog.