GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A Rememberamble for Tuesday, September 02, 2025 ..... Wow, good morning once more! We have come upon yet another day, and it is a fine one for a visit. I am not fit as a fiddle, nor tight as a drum, more like a bass fiddle around the middle, and just about as dumb. I know y'all love it when I write these "beautiful" lines of poetry. If I stayed with the poetry writing, I might just become another Henry Wadsworth Rockefeller, and make a fortune from my rhymes. Y'all know that I love to play with words, and have fun, but I also enjoy being serious and writing things that matter.

I will admit to and acknowledge that I have developed my God given talent for writing, but man is never satisfied. There have been times when I would have traded it for the ability to play the banjo and fiddle. It seems we always want what we have not. I suppose a frustrated writer who plays those instruments may have had thoughts of trading it for the talents of a writer. I don't mean I covet another's talent, just wonder why our Lord did not do more for me in the musical ability category. You may rest assured that there was a reason for it.

That is why we are free to dream now and then of doing the impossible for us that comes easy for another, but never shall we do any less than our best with what God gifted us. A friend said the other day that he detests the term "gifted," used instead of "gave." I sort of agreed and hope he will not see this. I and others may read the works of English writers from the Elizabethan era or before, and marvel at how our language evolved in such a relatively brief period of history. As they say, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Our language is evolving at breakneck speed, with new words being hatched or spawned right and left, and some left and right! The internet and pop culture make and or mangle words, swallow some, then hock (hawk them up, as some rural folks say) them up quite changed from when they went down. I mentioned music earlier and I had a sweet memory or two raise their hands in my brain, asking to be called on, so they could remind me of the wonderful gospel sings of the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies.

It was the era known as BA/C, Before Air Conditioning in country churches. Yessir, those churches were hot, but the GM Scenicruiser buses that delivered those ole time gospel quartets to the church door had a/c galore! Those guys soaked up cold air out there on the bus as it idled quietly, well, as quietly as an old two-stroke Jimmy Diesel could be quiet, and bounded from the bus which disgorged them onto the church ground about one minute before "showtime."

They would almost run and jump as they entered the church already singing, giving the crowd the joy they came for. The singing would make you forget the heat, and paper funeral home fans worked overtime often keeping time with the music. An old time gospel sing from those more innocent days, when getting happy for the Lord was as natural as breathing, was a wonderful thing. We could not ramp up to the level excitement as in those days now, we are too sophisticated and too self-conscious now, to let our emotions run wild for the Lord.

I truly wish I could go back in time and hear the Dixie Caravan "tear down the house," at an ole timey holiness church. Young and old alike could get in the spirit and it was a joy to behold. Nowadays it would likely scare some and scar others as if they had been abducted by red neck aliens. No, if you were to time travel some young folks from today to a nineteen sixties rural Johnson or Emanuel County holiness church's Gospel Sing, they would get up and run. We however, would "waller" in the joy of it.

Gimme that ole time gospel singing, a cold watermelon, a dipper of well water, a knotty lil ole peach, all on a hot and sunny Sunday from those days and do believe I could do like "Precious Pup," and go up a ways and just float and slalom right on down to the ground. Yeah, that is why we love these words written now, but from an earlier time, they take us back, let us remember, and savor, and taste just those fleeting moments that return to us now and again.

Sometimes old memories must be conjured, and I pray I have conjured some for you, if not today, than someday. I try as best as I can to help you remember or if not of an age to have lived it, I want you to feel a bit of it, through our eyes and our heart. I reckon I stayed on course today, so it was more remember than ramble, so-to-speak, but I hope it will do until tomorrow when we meet here again. Numbers 6: 24-26 KJV ..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me