The Last Vestige of the South

I never understood why my father felt the way he did about the Blackbelt until today.  This is when my emancipation began and the part of me that I had lost touch with, the place that I once was, had at once come running back to me.  Up until now, I was mostly a city boy who identified with the ramblings and frantic hurriedness of Big City U.S.A.   But that was before I was fully indoctrinated into the gospel of Alabama’s most authentic place, and the last vestige of the South. 

I got my first taste of the Blackbelt when my parents were fortunate enough to purchase an antebellum home in Canton Bend, far into the piney woods and thicket of “L.A.”—lower Alabama.  I was but nineteen and green as a turnip when they moved into the Bethea-Strother house, built circa 1844 and just a few miles west of the Alabama River.  It was a charming homestead on a quiet stretch of farmlands on Highway 28, a two-lane road that you’ve probably never been on. 

To accentuate the home, my dad quite naturally began to decorate it with period antique furniture, distinctly representative of his own personal eccentricity, yet resolutely loyal to Blackbelt life.  He vowed to buy nothing but American-made furnishings—the work of John Henry Belter of New York was his usual preference.  He dove headlong into the history of the region, reading coffee table books and listening to old sages tell stories of their unique way of life.  And he was fascinated. 

The doors of my curiosity remained shut, however, and I failed to appreciate with as much fervor as my father how meaningful this way of life truly was.  What I did realize was that there was something different about the Blackbelt than any other place I had been to in my life.  There was a drumbeat that was all its own—a slower, more purposeful cadence—and the people there were unique.  They left their doors open, sat out on porches, and hummed old Southern songs. 

They talked different, acted different, and appreciated more.  They noticed the small things— the hawks flying at night, the calming sounds of the cicadas echoing in the blackness of evening.  They told stories of haunted houses and the ghosts that occupied them.  Their houses creaked and brought back memories of antebellum life and the Civil War. Many of the houses had majestic names: Gaineswood, Sturdivant Hall, Rosewood, and Thornhill, to name but a few.  There was a certain history and identity there that was present in the here and now.  There was always a story to tell about the house, about someone who lived and died there, who grew their crops there and raised children who, too, toiled on the land.  There was a certain openness, a freedom and a calmness to the land that was unexplainable.  Tragically I failed to appreciate it, because I was just a city boy. 

My parents lived in the Bethea-Strother house for four years, until they decided to buy Kirkwood, another antebellum home in Eutaw, Alabama.  I believe it was there, at Kirkwood, that my father found his soul and the one place he could truly call home.   As I continued to enjoy city life, I shared neither his enthusiasm nor passion for the Blackbelt.  It was a place that was boring, mundane.  All of the action, I believed, resonated in the city and thus I remained a stranger to this place, allowing myself only superficial glimpses into its true integrity. 

As my dad puts it, the Blackbelt is a stretch of plain that swoops down like a sickle from just beyond the Mississippi line to the edges of Montgomery.  It is named such for its black, fertile soil that dominates the landscape.  But as it is unpacked, it is much more defined by the people and places than it is by its geographical limitations.  It is a place for artists and writers teeming with talent, of storytellers and fisherman and hunters.  It is an open range set in the middle of a wilderness.  It is a place where you will see deer, or even a raccoon or opossum.  It is a place where people still make things with their hands and grow things and start businesses.  Quilt-makers from Gee’s Bend and catfish farmers are the most famous of them all. 

It is a place that welcomes and invites.  People write letters to one another, spend time together, and swing in hammocks.  “Town” is scattered with small businesses—a hardware store, a soda shop, or an ice cream parlor.  It is the home of the small town lawyer, the town doctor, and the apothecary.  Yearly events might involve a pilgrimage of old homes or a gathering at the river.  It is a place where Christmas still means something and where one can hear the echoes of children singing Silent Night in the halls of an old church.   It is a place where faith is important and where the preacher might miss you if you are gone. 

After selling Kirkwood in the fall of 2009, my parents bought a turn-of-the-century farmhouse in Marion.  It was the third home of its kind that my parents owned, but it was not an antebellum.  Being antebellum requires that it was built before the Civil War, which commenced in 1861.  Yet there was a certain feel about the place that felt more right than ever before.  Maybe it was because I was older, I told myself, but there was something drawing me there—a force that I could not seem to stop nor that I cared to. 

A couple of weeks ago, they invited me attend a shrimp boil that was held at the Perry County Historical Society Building in downtown Marion.  I drove down from my home in Birmingham that Saturday afternoon, and as I began my journey I could not help but notice how differently I suddenly felt about the Blackbelt—how its story was becoming alive and palpable.

I pulled into my parents’ house just off of Highway 45, and as I circled to the back of the house, the sun was illuminating through the pecan trees as if it were speaking to me.  I parked my truck and sat and thought about how perfect a day it was.  I strolled around and peeked into the dilapidated barn in the backyard that looked like it might fall if a strong wind picked up.  I walked past the well that provided drinking water for almost one hundred years.  I opened the screen door and knocked as my mama yelled my name in a way that told me she hoped it was me. 

Slowly, our friends gathered together at the house and we sat and visited for a little while before it was time to go.  We loaded up the cars and caravanned to the shrimp boil around four-thirty. 

When we arrived, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.  We were early, and thankfully I had the opportunity to drink in the surroundings as they came at me like a charging wind.  Just off the foyer, to my right, was the main dining area, where tables and chairs had been set up for at least one hundred people.  As I entered the room, the smell and feel of the South took me over, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was home again.  I saw the American flag hanging on the wall, and I paused to reflect on how much the South helps to define our country as the greatest place in the world. 

It was as much about the place itself as it was the feelings it evoked in me.  The ceilings were at least twenty feet high, and the walls were made of plaster.  Old pictures in antique frames were hanging proudly on the wall.  I thought for a moment about all of the memories I missed at the Bethea-Strother Home, and at Kirkwood, and how I longed to see those houses once again. 

I noticed that a small Bluegrass band was readying itself to entertain us and my heart began to leap in anticipation.  The smell of the place was a mix of shrimp and potatoes and corn on the cob and the oaky aroma of old houses. 

When we finally sat down to eat, the band started playing as people began to shuffle in and take their seats.  As I listened to the music, I slipped off into somewhat of a trance, nodding but not really listening to what anyone else was saying. While the music hummed and I set myself into its rhythm, I could not understand what I was feeling, but I knew that it felt good and that this truly was the South.  It was like mama was calling me in from the fields for supper.  It was as if the whole aura of the Blackbelt had grabbed hold of me and swore to never let me go. 

As I drove home that night, I sat in calmness as I barreled up Highway 5 between the pine trees that lined the roads like Confederate troops on the road to Appomattox.  I thought about the South, and what it means, and how much I am thankful to be a Southerner.  I hoped that it wasn’t lost, that these last vestiges of the people we once were would somehow continue to live and survive for a while before the city takes over.   

And tonight, as I sit in front of my computer and write these words, I cannot help but think of the Blackbelt and what it is to me now, and how much I want to be there for the rest of my life.