As we approached the abandoned shotgun shack, surrounded by a barren overgrown field, I thought that my grandparents may have taken a wrong turn that hot summer afternoon. It was a Sunday tradition for us to go for a country drive, and this trip took me down a gravel road into an area of Lawrence County that I had never been before. In fact, we may have even ventured over into Lincoln County because the town of Brookhaven wasn’t that far away.
You could tell the area was a bustling agricultural community at one time. But its productive years were long gone, and all that remained were barren fields and abandoned shacks that looked like a good wind would knock them over.
If the area ever had any money, it would have been from her farm dirt because the structures remaining looked like something I had seen in my school books...poor country shacks.
“Where are we,” I asked, looking out the car window. “It looks like a ghost town.”
“This is where your people are from,” replied my Paw Paw, taking a draw on his pipe. “This is where Maw Maw and I grew up.”
I must admit, it didn’t impress me at first. My grandparents lived in a brick, three-bedroom home on the outskirts of Monticello. I was kind of surprised to see the humble beginnings of years long gone.
“We would have nine of us kids in that,” Paw Paw said, pointing to a old house that looked like it might have had three rooms at best.
“You didn’t have your own bedroom,” I asked.
“We all slept in one room,” he said, with a laugh. “That helped in the winter when we would all pile together to keep warm. Summer time, like today, we would be scattered all over the place, praying for a gust of wind to come through. Sometimes you could catch a breeze from a hole in the floor or wall. That seemed to help. But we were so tired from working the land, we would fall asleep anywhere.”
“That would be awful,” I replied.
“We didn’t know any better,” he continued. “We were dirt poor, but we didn’t know it. Everybody was in the same shape we were. They said the Great Depression hit, but we didn’t pay it any mind. We already were use to living poor.”
I spent the next few minutes telling my grandparents about the grand plans I had already worked out for my future. I was going to be extremely wealthy, have a huge mansion, so big you would need a map to go from room to room.
“Well, you might,” Paw Paw said. “But your story started right here in this place.”
It didn’t make much sense to me what Paw Paw was trying to tell me. At eight years old, I never put a lot of thought into my family’s history. Monticello was a one-horse town, but a shotgun shack? That was where my family lived? I couldn’t comprehend it.
It was several years later when I uncovered an old family photo album that an interest sparked inside of me to know where I came from. Its tattered pages were filled with photographs that offered a glimpse into my family’s lineage.
There were about a dozen photographs of my ancestors standing beside a gigantic hog, a massive creature that would feed my family for an entire winter. Seeing that made me appreciate the pot roast I had for supper earlier, and to remember all the leftovers in the fridge.
There were several photographs of my ancestors working in fields filled with crops or cotton. Some of the kids looked like they were barely old enough to walk, but they had a giant sack behind their backs. Seeing that made me appreciate the work ethic that had been pounded in my brain my entire life. Do your job, do it well, and do it for yourself and your family.
There were several photographs of family gatherings around supper tables. Some of the people in the photos had on tattered clothes, no shoes, but they were all smiling. That left an impression with me. Happiness is not found within materials. It is found with the love and memories of those in your life.
There were photographs of my Paw Paw in the Army. There was one of my Maw Maw shelling a gigantic bucket of peas. There were a few photographs of kids making mudpies with mutt dogs all around them. There were some of my ancestors sitting on a front porch of a shotgun shack with fiddles and harmonicas.
And although there were no mansions, fine cars, expensive clothes or worldly travels in those photographs, it made me proud of my family.
They grew up tough. They served their country. They raised a family. They fought and loved each other. They worked the land. And they made it.
And it all started in a field with a shotgun shack.
And as I sit on my own front porch today, I look out towards my own children making mudpies. I never got my mansion, but I have a roof, food and my family who loves me.
I guess you can say I am carrying on a family tradition.
