Crews with collard plant
Most folk who know me, know I love flowers. Old-fashioned flowers like ones found around long-abandoned home places and sad, old Plantation places and along the red clay ditches in middle gut Alabama. Flowers like Gladiola, Morning Glory, Easter Lilies, Seven Sisters Roses and Spider Lilies. To be fair, I have to put Crepe Myrtle in the mix. Although it is a shrub with blooms, it gets left behind and dragged down into those ditches by road graders and rains; only to take root and cling to life as a sight to be enjoyed & pondered on with thoughts of who planted it and when.
The CEO and I have given in to rambling those red clay roads of Alabama, looking for things that mostly don't exist much anymore. Don't ask either of us what it is we seek, but we do seek and have found jewels at times. Let me tell about our 'find' recently.
So, daybreak has him out on a walk to the Katy May Harrison turn off just at the top of Godwin Bottom, which is just passed the lane to Wayne and Brenda Bells place. Y'all got that, right? I awake to feel an urge to ramble the roads less traveled. He comes in, I suggest a ride. He asks where. I give two suggestions.
One is to Carrabelle, FL., to see the police chief's office that is housed in a phone booth. The other is to ride up in Alabama to look for Spider Lilies because they should be in full bloom now in early September. He looks thought-y for a New York minute before telling me,
"Carrabelle is a hard day's turn-around from here."
So, off we go to look for Spider Lilies up in Monroe or Butler or Conecuh or Covington counties. All have long-abandoned old home places. All have heart-stopping, but sad-looking Plantation homes sitting behind saggy picket gates with picket fences or crumbling sandstone fences or wrought iron fencing. Some are root-bucked and broken from centuries-old Magnolia or Juniper trees that needed room to grow old and crowded. We ride along and notice narrow paved roads or those red clay roads that simply beg us to ride down 'em. We ponder, look and wonder what lies there.
"Hey take that 'un, never heard of Green Street."
"Me either."
"Must be a community 'cause of that sign back'air."
"What sign?"
"Said, GREEN STREET AME ZION CHURCH."
"Yea, take it."
We turn back...
We roll along a curvy, crumbly paved road that shows a community of homes and a little pure country store showing a rusty Coca-Cola sign with 'GRACE'S GROCERY' painted on a white panel below. The store is fronted with two old, rusting, unused gas pumps with signs showing $1.88 per gallon propped against a power pole. I am stopped in mid-heartbeat to gasp and whisper loudly,
"Oh Lord, look at those collards, let'che window down so I can shoot 'em."
I'm clawing around for my camera without taking my eyes off the tallest patch of beautiful collards I have seen since my Daddy walked the earth. Three other folks in my childhood who grew blue ribbon collards were Mr. John Morton, Miz Mary Barnett, and her daughter Miz Myrtle Mooney, all residents of Barnett Crossroads. All gone now, but still remembered fondly.
We idle on down through the neighborhood and conclude the place is home to loggers. Old broken and parked log trucks, skidders and other equipment was in the mix of newer logging machinery. We turn around to head back. We passed the collards while I begged to stop and ask someone about the ownership of those collards. I see a man and woman coming out of the house across from the garden. My heart lurches.
Lamar stops the truck while I roll down my window to ask if the collard patch belonged to them. Before either of them can respond, I babble out how beautiful the collards are and how I haven't ever seen any collards that tall in forever and may I take some pictures of them. The old man breaks into a wide smile so genuinely welcoming, then says,
"Yes ma'am, they mine and you just come on and I'll open the gate so's you can walk right into 'em." We all gather at the gate, I tell him my name, he tells me,
"Nice to meet'cha Miz. Earline," then pointing at Lamar says, "and he your husband I 'spect?" Lamar sticks out his hand to shake with Mr. Tyler Grace and his daughter Debbrie Grace as he tells them his name is Lamar Crews. Lamar points towards me saying,
"This is my wife, Earline."
Mr. Grace asks where we come from and we tell him, Barnett Crossroads. Mr., Tyler knows exactly where we live because, as he shared with us, he logged all over the surrounding counties all his working life. He is 84 years old; retired now to let his son run the logging business. His wife died in 1994 and now Miss Debbrie keeps house and cooks for him while he gardens and according to him,
"Do a little pidd'lin' about round here."
We discuss his collards while me and Miss Debbrie crop a BIG mess of the most beautiful collards. To top off my armload of collards, Miss Debbrie picks some rooster spur hot peppers for me to make hot vinegar sauce for my collards. We take pictures, swap history, declare friendship while I'm invited back,
"Anytime to take more collards and anything growing inside the garden, don't even need be here if you come." The most genuine compliment I ever got was,
"Now we all friends and my friends share in my garden bounty."
Before we load to drive away from Green Street, the CEO asks Mr. Tyler if the store is still in operation. That jovial old man answers,
"Oh yes, my sister opens and closes between her naps."
We found a jewel.
The Spider Lilies were forgotten.
***Green Street, Alabama won't be found on a map, but may be found on Google.***
You can check out Earline's blog and buy a copy of her first book "Life With the Top Down" at: http://www.earlinesdoins.com
