GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE for Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Good Morning all!! Or, should I say, good morning, y'all!? Whichever you wish, all or y'all, or all y'all, or even y'all all, I bid you a good morning. If you are reading this in the afternoon, despair-not that the morning is over, and perhaps you missed it, we will do as we did in our drunken days, when the hour of the day was seemingly too early for imbibing, we always said, "well, it's five o'clock somewhere," and will revive that thought for use for you now, "it's morning somewhere!" And, truly, it is. In fact, it is always morning somewhere, as the sun and moon tussle over this ole world, morning is here, and evening is there, in perpetuity...until Jesus comes and brings eternal light! "Hal-ee-loo-yur," as the old folks once shouted, haliluyer indeed! When I heard our old Pastor, the late "Papa John" Hanna preach loud and with a slamming fist, "Jesus will bust that eastern sky wide-open," and if that don't thrill your soul to the quick, I pray you work to make it so! As he would say, that prospect is enough to make a BAPTIST SHOUT!" A reference to, "the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God," it thrills my soul, so if the mention of it can cause a believer to be shaken with emotion, can you imagine hearing Michael's booming voice declare the coming of the Lord? Think about it! Could the heart of man and the flesh surrounding it hear as if they too had ears, and could his body stand in that moment, or would the weakness wrought by the Joy of God's coming cause his legs to fail? The most hardened non-believer, the most brilliant and gifted minds that refused to acknowledge God, will know in an instant just what is happening as much as the most sainted believer. But oh what a difference it will be to those hearing the doom it means for them. How awful that shall be. Let us be sure that it will thrill our soul, not terrify our very bones. I started out to write about cowbells this morning. Wow. Yessir, and yessum, I was set to pontificate about cow bells and bellwethers, even planning to toss in Christopher Walken, Will Ferrell, along with the Blue Oyster Cult in the famous SNL skit, "I need more cowbell."

Here, more cowbell that you asked for...

I reckon I got sidetracked...reckon who made that happen? I betcha it wasn't Lorne Michaels! I would like to finish this morning with a topic that we rarely discuss, but was very important at the time. We mention sharecroppers and tenant farmers very often, but almost always in reference to the time in their lives when they were engaged in farming. But never with what came after they were too old to work. Some did manage to stay on in the landlord's house they had lived in while working, but too often they would not be allowed to or if they did, they had no farm income, nor access to a mule or horse, or a wagon, so living out on a farm no longer made sense for them, or was not possible for the reasons I mentioned here, and others too. After WWII, mechanization made legions of younger, able-bodied farm workers no longer needed, and they, especially blacks for obvious reasons left the south and migrated to northern cities in search of good paying jobs and a better cultural life. But I am speaking here of the older ones. The majority of them did as my grandparents did, as well as great-uncles, they moved to town. They could draw a bit of social security, and were able to live frugally (something they had done for their entire lives of necessity) in modest dwellings, and live a better life. Many had indoor plumbing and telephones for the first time in their lives. They no longer had to walk miles to town, or to a church. I never recall any of them bemoaning having made the move. It would have been different if they had left farms of their own, and had been able to have provided a better life for themselves and their families without ever leaving the farm. Moving to town was likely the best time of their life, and sadly, as a result of hard work and deprivation since birth, that easy time was all too brief, as their overworked bodies let them down early. Again, thank you for stopping by...

Numbers 6: 24-26, KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me