Southern Ghost Stories - The Moonlit Road

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Headless Woman Bridge, Mississippi

When I was a teenager I lived in a small Southern town that was chock full of history, stories and tall tales. Of course, there was always a ghost story of some sort floating around.

A favorite with the teens was, of course, Headless Woman Bridge.

It was on the outskirts of town in a heavily wooded area.

As the story is told, a woman and her boyfriend were having a big argument driving home from a bonfire outside of town. The woman says that it's over, she's going on with life without him. He gets angry and starts getting physical, shaking her arm hard while driving toward the bridge. She panics, tries to climb out of the car (always an intelligent move) and a limb from a low hanging tree takes off her head right at the bridge. Then the story continues that the man pushes the body into the creek and keeps going. The next day some kids going to their favorite fishin hole find the body. The head is never found.

Then comes the hauntin part. The claim is that this gal wants her head back so she can get on with her afterlife fully intact. She hangs out on the bridge looking for her boyfriend's car so that she can get her head back. (I'm assuming she's assuming he has the head.) Often times you just see her on the bridge looking at passing cars. But once in a while, apparently, if your car strikes a resemblance to his, she JUMPS ON YOUR ROOF! Scary!

So of course what do the teenagers in a small Southern town with nothing else to do but tip cows, make bonfires, make out and drink beer in a circle of truck lights sitting on the tailbed do when they hear about a haunted bridge? Well, all ya'll pile in the biggest truck and head on out there to take a look - meanwhile trying to scare the bejesus out of the girls. (I was usually completely terrified by the time we came to the bridge.)

I will tell ya'll now... I never saw a dern thing on all those trips.

But then, at the end of summer one year, when the leaves are starting to fall and the wind's blowing a little bit and the woods make creeky noises.... Myself and 2 other friends drove out to the bridge at dusk. We were in my Daddy's big ole Chevy, which just happened to have a broken gas gauge. We pull onto the bridge and we're pretty creeped out already, with the wind, the night coming on, the creeking noises, the dying trees. We see something on the edge of the bridge. Slowly I turn off the ignition and we slink out of the truck like we're heading to our immortal doom.

There were three dead kittens on that bridge. We couldn't tell of what. When I think back now, someone probably did a damn poor job of drowning them. They were all lying in a pile and they'd been there a week or two. My friends and I got more scared then before, thinking someone was leaving "a sign" (teenagers!) and we ran back to the Chevy. We climbed in and locked the door before Jason showed up. Guess what? That's right, the truck wouldn't start!!!!!!!!!! (Of course it was just out of gas but we were riding high on teenage hormones and imagination.) We started screaming our heads off and ran out of the truck and across the bridge.

We found a mobile home a short ways down the road and that poor man didn't know what was going on when three shreaking girls starting banging on his door and explaining our plight in between hiccuping breaths of panic. He was a sweet man, saw the kittens, came to the truck, found the tank empty on the Chevy and filled it with a bit of gas for us. Listened to us going on and on and I'm sure he was hard pressed not to crack up in front of us.

We pulled back into town in the pitch black and ran straight to our favorite meeting spot with all the other kids. Well, we were the stars that night! We had a story to tell! We were still full up with the fear. We got the glory and the center of attention. Even the football players paid me some mind!

I will say it was at least 2 years before I went on that bridge again.... and when I did, I was probably going at least 80.

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Do you have a "haint" in your town? A scary spot? Somewhere everyone talks about? I'd love to hear stories of Southern Haunts - send them to the Dew!

The Ghost of Cooter McGhee

Last summer, while I was on vacation from college, I went to visit my grandparent's farm. All day long I sat soaking in the beauty of the magnolias in bloom and did absolutely nothing. Just as my boredom became unbearable, my grandfather walked out onto the back porch holding a box of odds and ends. My curiosity peaked as he sat down and began to assemble the pieces.

"Umm, Grandad? What's that?"

"What's what?"

I pointed to the box.

"This? I call it a catywampus."

"A catywhat?" That was new to me.

"Catywampus. It makes weird noises. We used to make them as kids"

"O…K… So what are you going to do with it?"

With a glint of mischief in his eyes, he smiled. "I'm going to scare me somebody."

"Well, Granddad, you coulda scared me, but now I know. You’ve lost the element of surprise."

"Oh no, it isn't for you," he stretched a rubber band over the small box, "No, I have someone in mind. Someone very deserving."

He rubbed his hands together with an evil laugh. "Can you keep a secret?"

Of course I can keep a secret. Does kudzu climb trees? I nodded eagerly and sat up in my rocking chair.

"I'm going to scare your Uncle Bill."

Uh, oh. Uncle Bill must be in some mighty big trouble. "Why?" I asked.

"Well, I can say this now that you are grown up, but he's messing around with another woman."

I was truly shocked.

"Don't you tell your aunt what I'm doing here. She won't like it." He went back to stretching rubber bands.

"Granny won't like it either, Granddad."

I paused.

"Can I help?" I asked eagerly.

"Naw. You just take it easy. It won't be until tonight anyway."

I knew that I just had to see this. "But, what are you going to do?"

"Well, you see, your Uncle Bill is mightily superstitious. You know how he is always claimin' that the ghost of Cooter McGhee is hauntin' the woods behind his house?"

I nodded. Uncle Bill was one shot short of a margarita. Everyone knew Cooter haunted the local jukejoint.

"Well, I'm gonna introduce him to ol' Cooter with this here catywampus. I’m gonna hide in the woods and if I'm lucky, Bill will think it's Cooter."

I shook my head. Granny was gonna send him to the old folks home when she found out. And of course I told her all about Grandad's plans. When she said she would take care of it, I promptly forgot about the whole mess.

Later that night, a noise woke me up. I peeked out and saw Granddad tiptoeing down the hall, holding the box. A minute later, a white ghost passed by in his footsteps – a ghost with blue bunny slippers shuffling under the white sheet?

Oh Dear Lord.

"Granny? What on earth are you doing?" I whispered loudly.

The ghost that was my dear, old Granny turned around. "Shhhh. I'm going to help your Granddaddy. Your Uncle Bill has shamed the family and deserves to be horsewhipped. Here. I have an extra sheet," she said, holding out a light yellow twin size.

Oh right, like I am going to dress up like a ghost, go trouncing out in the woods at midnight to scare my uncle. I paused again. There ain’t no way I was staying behind and letting them have all the fun.

"I’ll just be the ghost of a squash," I said, grabbing my new costume.

So off we went, walking through the woods to Uncle Bill’s and Aunt Marlene’s doublewide trailer. Granddad hid behind an old willow tree and began plucking the catywampus, making an eerie noise. Almost immediately, Uncle Bill poked his head out the back door.

"Who’s thar?" he asked nervously.

That was our cue. Granny and I stepped out from behind the bushes and began to glide around with our arms outstretched.

"Oooooooo!"

Well, it was just plain shameful the way Uncle Bill screamed like a girl and slammed the door shut! Granny and I were laughing under our sheets so hard that we almost peed in our pants. Trying to be quiet while laughing isn’t easy, you know.

Then Granny slipped in the mud and fell, all tangled up in her sheet. I could still hear Granddad’s eerie music punctuated with quiet laughter. Then the door opened up again. Uncle Bill and the lady from the Piggly Wiggly stuck their heads out like prairie dogs out of a hole.
I snorted and started gliding again, but Granny was laughing so hard, she gave up and just lay there in the mud in her sheet. I kept on doing my ghostly boogie and Granddad was still plucking away.

Then, I saw something that I can't explain. Right behind Uncle Bill's trailer was an apparition floating down. He must have known something was wrong because he slowly turned and saw what I saw: a white ghost howling and waggling its arms frantically as it careened towards him.

Stunned, I just stood there and watched the thing come closer as Uncle Bill and his fancy lady took off running. It had to be Cooter McGhee! The tales were true! Our woods WERE haunted! I don’t think I have ever been that scared in my life!

"Roger, stop that infernal strumming!" Granny yelled as she struggled out from under the sheet. The music stopped. "Ok, Marlene, you can come down now."

The ghost landed with a bump and an "Ooof!" on the back deck. It threw off its sheet and revealed itself. The ghost was Aunt Marlene!

"Just what in tarnation is going on here?" I asked, puzzled, as she hung from a wire.

"Heavenly justice, darlin’. Heavenly justice," she answered as she unhooked herself and fell to the deck with a grunt.

I just nodded, quite bemused. I guess every southern family has its ghosts. I just wish I’d have gone to the bathroom before that one came flying out.


© 2005 Dana Sieben
www.southerngalgoesnorth.blogspot.com

The Man Who Shot Stonewall Jackson

The Man Who Shot Stonewall Jackson

It happened once before, when I was a young man. The newspapers clamored for war, self-appointed know-it-alls told us why we had to fight and everyone believed them, especially the youngsters like me who got all fired up to join the army. So now, when those big headlines screamed ‘Remember The Maine,’ there wasn’t any more doubt that there would be war with Spain. And off they went to enlist, just like they were going to a picnic, as irreverent and ignorant as we were back in 1861. My eldest son told me he had to join up and I tried to discourage him. I told him how crazy it was for two groups of men to stand and blaze away at each other, but he wouldn’t listen. All he said was: "War’s not fought that way anymore, Pa ."
So I held my peace and watched him go, like my pa watched me go. When he died of yellow fever, before he even fought in a battle, it was another terrible affliction that I had to accept. But I guess he was right about it being a new kind of war, because it was over pretty quick and we got all these new places; Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Philippines and Guam. I never even heard of Guam. So I kept on farming and doing my chores but I was pretty much empty inside. I had been that way ever since the surrender at Appomattox, which ended my daily suffering, but left me a hollow man. I went through all the motions of the living and tried my best to be a good husband and father, and I never told anyone how I felt. How could anyone who hadn’t been there understand? Sometimes, when I went to town and saw the few old hands who survived the entire war, like me, there was nothing we could say. We just looked at each other for a moment, nodded in recognition that we were still alive and moved on.

Then one day, long after Spain surrendered, I saw a soldier who had just come home from the Philippines. I was buying something in Dahlgren’s general store and his pa brought him in. He had that look that I hadn’t seen since the war with the Yankees. His flesh was sagging on his bones and his uniform hung on him like a scarecrow on a hard luck farm. He walked as if it was a great effort to put one foot after the other. Old Mr. Dahlgren kept prodding him to tell us what it was like over there, but he refused to talk, until his pa urged him. Then he looked at everyone for a moment and said coldly: "You want to know what it was like? I’ll tell you. I watched my buddies die in ambushes, or of tropical diseases, or in battles with savages who just kept coming at us, even after we shot them. I watched my friends butcher women and children!" A look of absolute horror ate his face. "All I saw was death and suffering. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Then he turned and walked out. I couldn’t get him out of my mind the rest of the day.
That night I thought about the war with the Yankees, which I had shut out of my life a long time ago. I remembered how I had rushed to join up that spring of 1861. I ignored Pa when he told me not to go, just like my boy ignored me. Then Pa told me how bad it was when he fought the Mexicans in ‘46, but I didn’t believe him. Everyone I knew was hurrying to the colors and I wasn’t about to be last. We were going to whip the Yankees good, then go back home with our chests full of medals. Once I was in uniform it didn’t take long for me to wake up. Almost half the boys I joined up with got killed or wounded in our first battle at Manassas. Maybe the Yankees finally ran off as fast as they could for Washington D.C., but not before they put up a mighty good fight. We fought up and down Virginia for the next two years and got leaner, hungrier, tireder and sicker. The more we ran out of ammunition, food, or shoes, the more the Yankees kept coming. We learned everything about the horror of soldiering the hard way.

One day we were camped somewhere near Chancellorsville, after a tough battle where we whipped the Yankees good. Of course it wasn’t like when the war first started. Then we knew we were better men then the city folk and immigrants they were going to send against us. Before First Manassas, most of us talked about beating them proper, then going home. If anyone thought it would go on and on for years, they didn’t say it where I heard. Anyhow, we had been resting because it had been a long, hard fight and these Yankees weren’t like the rabbits who used to run when they were beaten. When these Yankees lost, they retreated resentfully and we knew they’d be back. Then the word raced through the camp. Stonewall was dead. Rumors, like disease, travel swiftly in an army, especially when it’s bad news. This hit me and the old hands particularly hard, because we were the 31st Virginia and we were Stonewall’s men from the beginning.

We rushed to colonel Barstow’s tent, but he didn’t know any more than we did. Messengers kept arriving, each one with different news. The only thing they all agreed on was that Stonewall had been shot. The colonel finally got tired of our pushing and shoving at the messengers and he sent us back to our bivouac area. But he promised to let our company commander, lieutenant Rambeau, know as soon as he learned anything. We thanked the colonel, who was one of only three officers left in the regiment who had been with us from the start. All the others had been killed or invalided out. Colonel Barstow had started as a young lieutenant, full of fire and noble speeches. Now he was as old and tired as the rest of us. We snickered about lieutenant Rambeau as we walked. He was a moma’s boy, a blonde-haired stringbean with a mushy face that always looked ready to cry. He had reported to the regiment a few days ago, but he disappeared somehow before the fighting started. The joke going around the camp was who would shoot him first, us or them. Soldiers deserted other regiments before a fight, but not in the 31st Virginia.
We waited for news, but didn’t relax much. A couple of the younger boys babbled about beating the Yankees again, but the old hands quickly shut them up. By now we knew we could beat them and beat them, but they would still keep coming. We were sick, tired, cold and hungry and we didn’t have much hope left. The gossip around the campfire was no longer about victory. A few diehards still kept trying to convince the rest of us that massa Robert and ole Stonewall would find a way to defeat the Yankees. Most of us didn’t buy it. Now Stonewall was dead. One of the kids asked what would happen if General Lee got killed, but an old hand kicked him a few times and the kid slunk off, leaving the rest of us to brood about things. I couldn’t help thinking how lucky that kid was to get off so lightly. We had just lost our father and that dumb kid was talking about losing our grandfather. We didn’t need any more bad luck.

Later that night we found out that Stonewall wasn’t dead, he was just badly wounded. He had been returning from the battlefield in the dark and a nervous sentry, thinking he was a Yankee goblin or something, shot him. After two years of hurry up, then wait, it wasn’t a hardship to wait for news. We lost so many men at Chancellorsville that I guess they forgot about our regiment for a while, so we loafed in our tents. Once we packed up all the dead men’s belongings, they finally remembered us. They even gave us some food, probably pilfered from the Yankees endless supply of everything. Then the word flew around camp faster than wildfire. A new recruit named Billy Rawlins had shot Stonewall. They didn’t rightly know what to do with him, so they sent him home.

After Stonewall died, the war went on and on and the Yankees kept us on the run. When it was finally over, those of us who survived went back to our homes. I was one of the lucky ones. Pa had kept the farm going somehow, despite the voracious armies trampling back and forth across poor, battered Virginia. I had only been home for a couple of months when I heard that the man who shot Stonewall Jackson, Billy Rawlins, had hanged himself. It seems his pa kept telling him that he killed the man who could have won the war for the Confederacy. I guess the damned fool kid must have believed him, because he went into the barn, threw a rope over a beam and ended his life… But that was a long time ago.

I hadn’t thought about Billy Rawlins for many years. Seeing that soldier in Dahlgren’s store reminded me about what had eaten so much of my soul away. It all came back to me from a distance, like hearing a voice on that new telephone invention: the useless waste of young men, the suffering that devastated so many lives, the ease with which we forgot the dead. All I could think of was that if I knew then what I knew now, I could have gone to see Billy. I could have told him that what he did was just one more crazy mistake in a succession of terrible events. That Stonewall couldn’t have won the war. Hell, it was lost way before that. Only fools believed that we could win after the first year or so. The Yankees had everything. We only had pride and courage. Once they wore out our pride, courage just wasn’t enough. But my understanding of things came much too late to help poor Billy. I couldn’t help that trooper who lost his soul in the jungle. And I sure couldn’t help any of the other innocents who don’t start wars, only rush to fight them.

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Author: Gary Beck

Gary Beck's recent fiction has appeared in Enigma, Dogwood Journal, EWG Presents, Nuvein Magazine, Babel, Vincent Brothers Review, L'Intrigue Magazine, The Journal, Short Stories Bimonthly, Bibliophilos and many others. His poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Press and another chapbook 'The Conquest of Somalia', was published by Cervena Barva Press. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' is being published by Skive Press. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced Off-Broadway. He is a writer/director of award-winning social issue video documentaries.

garycbeck@yahoo.com

Coming Soon to the Recipe Section!

I would like to Welcome Chef Rick to the Dew. He's about to become a frequent contributor to the recipe page with a fantastic selection of personalized recipes.

His bio is below. Please visit his site and look for his recipes at the Dew!

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My name is Rick McDaniel and I have the best job in the world. I’m a food historian and writer. I get to spend every day thinking about, writing about, and cooking Southern food! I learned Southern cooking from four generations of cooks in my family, and a friend from Charleston, SC taught me the wonders of Low country cuisine, the delicious blend of seafood and rice from the South Carolina tidal basin.

Even though I’m a native North Carolinian, I’ve always had a special love in my heart for the people and food of Louisiana. Cajun and Creole cooking is one of my specialties, and you’ll find lots of good recipes with a Louisiana flavor in the recipe section.

I love the great variety of food found in my native South — everything from German cuisine to Cajun and Creole to the wonderful spices of Afro - Caribbean cooking .

I have spent time in restaurant kitchens as both chef and helper, including a stint in kitchen hell — cooking pizza eight hours a day while a nearby jukebox blared the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. Yes, that’s how I spend the summer of 1978. I even had to wear a polyester apron! I’ve also cooked in one restaurant where no one I knew made enough money to eat there.

I launched chefrick.com in 1998 as a way to spread my love of Southern cooking and make huge amounts of friends and money. So far, my love for cooking is doing quite well, I have lots of new friends, and I’ve made just enough cash to afford those Gin Su knives I’ve always wanted.

Tennessee Scare Goats

Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly Online

An actual breed of domesticated goats found in North America, fainting goats (also known as nervous goats, stiff-leg goats, wooden-leg goats, and Tennessee scare goats) have a genetic disorder that causes younger animals to stiffen up and keel over. These goats never lose consciousness, they only look as if they've fainted: after a few moments, they pop back up and go about their normal, um, goat-ly business. And,yes, it saddens us to learn that we missed — by just a few weeks — the World Champion Fainting Goat Show in Lewisburg, TN. Maybe next year.

Savannah, Georgia

When Idgie asked me to write an article about where I live, I was thrilled!

Savannah, Georgia has all the charm you’ve heard and read about and hopefully, if you’re among the fortunate ones, you’ve seen the southern charm for yourselves.

I grew up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. I moved to Atlanta immediately after my wedding. My then-husband and I persevered for five years until the constant traffic and growing crowds could no longer be tolerated. We wanted to stay in Georgia and he found a job in Savannah. In all the years I lived in Atlanta, I had never once stepped foot in Savannah and I had no idea what to expect. Oh sure, I was among the many who read “Midnight in the Garden of Good Evil” and heard about all the magnificent homes but words alone cannot paint a complete picture.

Have you ever been somewhere and the second you step foot there you know you’ve been called home? That’s how I felt about Savannah the moment I stepped foot here. Saying that I’m madly in love with this city would be an understatement! I can’t imagine living anywhere else and enjoying it as much as I do Savannah.

We moved here in August of 1999 and the Welcome Wagon came around in the form of Hurricane Floyd and we had to make haste in evacuating. Once we got back and were able to really settle down, we grew to love this city as if we had grown up and spent our entire lives here. Now we understand why people who grew up here and moved away, always find their way back.

It’s not only easy to find your way around the Savannah area but it has so many fun and entertaining things to do here! I’m Jewish so attending the Jewish Food Festival every fall is a given. Our first fall here “The Legend of Bagger Vance” was being filmed here so needless to say chit-chatting with fellow Philly boy Will Smith over chopped liver was and always will be a highlight for me!

Speaking of celebrities, despite the ones who have homes here such as Diana Scarwid and Sandra Bullock, many movies have been filmed here. “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, “Forrest Gump”, “Forces of Nature”, “The Gingerbread Man”, “The Gift” just to name a few. Each year in late October/early November the Savannah Film Festival takes place with celebrities in attendance, box office hits premiering here and students from SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) making their film debuts.

The seasons and season changes are perfect! Indian summers extend well into fall and winter lasts just a few short months. Every few years we get snow flurries that last twenty minutes or so and that’s our snow for the season. Sometimes the winters are so mild, that trees don’t lose their leaves until almost spring and people are caught wearing T-shirts and shorts. The best time of year here is spring when the trees blossom glorious-colored flowers and the scent of spring is everywhere. With the weather as pleasant as it is there is always a reason to celebrate something in Savannah with people gathering in Forsyth Park, the main park located downtown, for events like Shakespeare in the Park, Concert in the Park, Picnic in the Park...if it can be held in the park, they’re there! My favorite is the annual Sidewalk in the Park in April where SCAD students and anyone else who chooses to register, create masterpieces on a designated section of sidewalk within the park with nothing more than sidewalk chalk. Even the youngest children can show off their talents at a select area in the park with free chalk handed out.

How could I talk about Savannah without mentioning the dining? Of course you can find any type of food here that you can find in a large metropolis but the ones that are really worth it can be found in the heart of the downtown area. Elizabeth’s on 37th Street is fine dining for the truly established palate and for someone with a very full wallet! The restaurant
is in an old plantation house, impeccably lit at night to bring out its true beauty...which is good since the rest of the neighborhood is pretty shoddy and a police officer is there to walk you to your car! You shouldn’t let that be a deterrent or you will never get to experience such a culinary treat.

It’s fun walking up to the Olde Pink House which is one of the beautiful downtown homes renovated and painted bright pink to match its name. Gottlieb’s and Il Pasticcio are also moderately-priced but well worth it. Of course it goes without saying that Paula Deen’s restaurant, The Lady and Sons, is the most popular with the tourists. What used to be a small one-floor restaurant is now a three-story extravaganza. Most people go for her daily dinner buffet which consists of all the downhome-cookin’ your stomach can endure like fried chicken, creamed corn, collard greens, biscuits and gravy, mashed sweet potatoes and MUCH more! In all the time I’ve lived here, I have only eaten there twice and that was only because my parents were visiting and willing to deal with the two hour wait and the line that draped around the entire building like winding Kudzu. One time, my father ate eight pieces of fried chicken, came home to my house and passed out in a food coma for three hours! Nothing was gonna’ wake him and if he hadn’t woken up on his own, I probably would have called for the paramedics to revive him! If your digestive system can tolerate that, bless your heart, you won’t go home the same person as when you arrived! If you really want to show off your cooking talents, plan ahead and register at Paula Deen’s popular cooking school located in the same building as her restaurant. If you’re a seafood lover like I am, you can enjoy low-country boil at numerous wonderful seafood restaurants in and around the Savannah area. Low-country boil are potatos, corn-on-the-cob, smoked sausage, mussels, crab legs, shrimp and crawfish all compiled into one dish and it is DE-LICIOUS!

I haven’t mentioned the beautiful Spanish Moss that drapes over all the oak trees as far as the eye can see and the magnificent homes that grace the numerous squares of the downtown area but words alone cannot describe the beauty that you can see firsthand. If there’s one place you should visit during your lifetime, Savannah is it. It’s a smaller town way of life and
it’s perfect.


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Written by: Patty

Taking my Wife to Work - A Poem

Danny P. Barbare
barbaredaniel@yahoo.com

Taking My Wife to Work

It is dark, early in the morning.
In the Mercury, I'm taking my wife
to work because her car is in the
shop. I'm driving on a two lane
country road. I see a doe on the
right shoulder of the road. The doe
is facing the road. I tap on the break
and swerve a little to the left. The
doe turns around and leaps into
the night. I drive another mile or so
and drop my wife off at work. I tell
her to have a good day, as the
best thing about her goodbye is
her hello like the sunset spilling
across the autumn sky.

Southern Festival of Books

I first became acquainted with true history of the written word while exploring the Southern Festival of Books years ago with my friends Marti and Sally. We stayed in the nice historic hotel within walking distance of the plaza where the book festival is normally held. That was the year I flat out fell in love with the southern way of reading life and Clyde Edgerton in particular. Didn't hurt a bit that the writers were also artisans of every sort. That October I came home with several books signed by their original authors to tuck under the Christmas tree for loved ones.

This was the year that I met devoted authors live and in person. Lewis Grizzard. Nordan. Ann Patchett. Larry Brown, bless his heart. All of them came together in Nashville for a weekend that has become an annual celebration of story telling as a lost art. I hear that Clyde will be back next week, along with one of my all time favorites Ricky Bragg and a slew of other accomplished authors.

More info here ya'll:

Southern Festival of Books

A Southern Fall

Fall in the South.

Wondrous.

The oppressively hot weather starts to recede. The leaves start to change. Folks who hid in the house to escape to heat are suddenly seen again... walking, BBQ-ing, setting up the decorations for the Fall holidays. The mosquitoes and yellowjackets go away.

The air in the morning is crisp and clean, little droplets of dew on all the branches.

There is the small hope of snow in a few months in the lower regions of the Southern states, and a guarantee of it in further North.

Sadly, the Kudzu does start to die for the Winter and we will look at nothing but brown weedy strands for the next 5 months.

I know people in the other areas of the country sometimes think that the South is all South Florida and we stay warm the entire year (my husband was shocked the first winter here!), but we too have our full seasons, and we cherish them.

Now.... I have to go rake the yard!

Sudden horror near the campaign trail

I saw this article today and decided to reprint it - it's not about politics, but rather a day in a small Southern town where a community shares in a sadness together.

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By Bob Greene
CNN Contributor

ABOARD THE CNN ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN) -- On the morning of last week's presidential debate, I walked, as I had every day since arriving in Mississippi, along Highway 6 in Batesville.

William "Son" Hudson, 66, was the director of Panola County's emergency operations.

It's a stretch of road with local businesses and chain fast-food restaurants along both sides, and no sidewalks, just grass and gravel. I had gotten to know the businesses by name and by sight: Yolanda's Tax Service, Smith Cleaners, Mary Nell's Blossoms, Mike's Bargains, dozens more.

Batesville is a town of about 7,000 residents some 30 minutes from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where the debate was to be held. By late morning of debate day, the temperatures were already in the 80s, and the sun was unrelenting. I was thinking, as I walked, what a pleasant and peaceful routine this had become.

At the East Oaks Shopping Center, a small strip of shops across from the local Wendy's, I turned down a driveway toward the perimeter of the storefronts, just to make the walk a little longer. As I headed back up to Highway 6, I heard the sound of what I thought was a fender-bender.

Then my eyes became unable to fully take in what they were seeing.

A huge log-hauling truck, at least 45 feet long, was tipping toward its right side. It carried dozens of gigantic freshly cut hardwood logs, each 30 to 40 feet long. Their combined weight, I was told later, was tens of thousands of pounds.

The truck rolled fully onto its side. The logs broke their bonds. One by one, they fell to the earth. They seemed to be tumbling in slow motion. The sound was like terrible drumbeats.

They fell and fell. And then I saw that they were falling onto a light pickup truck that had been traveling the other way on the road.

This was in the heart of the small town in the middle of a lovely day. I ran toward the accident; as I did so, a man in a red T shirt -- the driver of the log hauler -- crawled from the cab of his big truck and, as if in shock, walked to one of the poles holding up the East Oaks Shopping Center sign. He dropped to his knees. He put his face in his hands and then rested his forehead against the pole, as if praying.

People were beginning to emerge from nearby stores. Several of us tried to get close to the pickup truck that had been crushed, to attempt to help. The pickup truck, and much of the road, was covered by the enormous logs.

All we were able to see through the space between the logs was some wording on the door of the pickup: "Panola County Emergency Management."

Some local residents began to say: "That's Son's pickup." Later I found out that "Son" was the nickname in town for William Hudson, 66, the director of the county's emergency operations. He had just happened to be on Highway 6 on this morning.

Police and fire responders began to arrive. At first they seemed shocked by the scale of the calamity that had come to their town.

Within seconds, it became much worse for them: One at a time, they each began to realize that they knew the man in the crushed truck. Many of them were his friends.

They tried to crawl through the logs. They called toward the driver's-side window. "Can you hear me?" they shouted. "Can you hear me?"

Men with chain saws climbed on top of the obscene jumble of massive logs and desperately began cutting at them. The sound was one you would expect to hear deep in a forest. But these logs were horizontal, not vertical, and this was in the middle of a town, and the men were making little progress.

It seemed that every emergency vehicle in that part of Mississippi soon arrived: Batesville Police, Panola County Sheriff's Department, Batesville Fire Department, Mississippi Highway Patrol. And always, the wailing sound of power saws straining to cut through logs.

You could tell that the rescuers feared they had no chance. William "Son" Hudson was dead beneath the Mississippi sun in the town he was devoted to protecting. Up the road in Oxford, a debate designed to help determine the next president of the United States would, after nightfall, be ready to commence. It had suddenly ceased to matter as much in Batesville, a place now wounded and forever changed.

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