Cold up on the plateau today, could be also that these old bones don’t do cold as well as they used to.Great service at church today and some very special music. I won’t try to put the music of these three wonderful ladies in a box… but I will tell you where their music took me. Over the years Pat and I loved to go to the Smokey Mountains, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge which was not all that far from our home in Tennessee at that time and we soon learned our way around the tourist traffic. We learned the back roads and short cuts and saw more of what mattered about these fabulous mountains, minus the lights and hype of those things that were designed to capture the tourist dollars. I must not leave out Cades Cove, a treasure in time gone by but preserved by the Park Service, a winding road through the past that never gets old. There is a saying, I don’t know its origin but it is a good advice for anyone who just wants to savor a part of the past. Take the Road less travelled. Wears Valley Road winds from Pigeon Forge, TN to Townsend, TN. This 15 mile road offers scenic views of the Great Smoky Mountains … The other way is to go through Maryville Tn and take Wares Valley Road as the back door into Pigeon Forge. It has been awhile due to age and health that Pat and I have made the trip, so be sure and check me out on this. From Maryville Tn take 321 into Townsend and I don’t remember a lot but I do remember to Townsend is about 27 miles good road. Now I am sure that things have changed a bit over time… Wares Valley road will turn off this road to the left and if you elect to keep going straight the road will dead end, take a right and your on your way to Cades Cove. You can turn left and go to the Park Visitors Center and you will be just a short drive from Gatlinburg. Back to the singing…and where it took me.

There is an old Church on Wares Valley Road, about halfway up on your right, I think it was a Methodist Church at one time…You know the kind, one of those old white wood plank buildings, with a cemetery behind or beside it. Double doors, four or five windows down each side and an old pot bellied stove in the middle aisle between two rows of wooden pews. I told you before I am eighty years old and because of my age I had the privilege of hearing the old folks recall what to them were the good ole days. Come Sunday the ladies would put on the best dress they had, in the summer time grab a leaf or straw fan, hand made of course and their best bonnet and herd the family to Church or sometimes called Preaching. Now dad was not exempt and would be wearing his best overalls and a clean white shirt over which were a pair of braces. Some of the old folk I talked with told me on special Sundays, like dinner on the grounds, funerals or Weddings, the overalls and shirt were starched. Just a note of interest, dad would do his best to scrape the barnyard off his work shoes. The kids usually went bare foot, even to school if there was one but on Sunday they wore the only pair of shoes they had. Here is another note of interest…If the children didn’t have a pair of shoes they were expected to scrub the feet, even between the toes. Oh that music. If the church had a benefactor of wealth…there would be a simple piano. If not, like in Texas you gotta have a fiddle. There were all kinds if instruments, some home made, but on Sunday they were part of a praise the Lord singing that made you believe in the Bye and Bye. 

“By and by) By and by  (When I reach)  When I reach  (That home)  That home  (Beyond)  Beyond the sky

(Where the)  Wicked will cease from troubling  (And the)  Weary will be at rest  (Every day)  Every day will be SundayBy and by  (2times)  When I reach that city  (oh yes)  City so bright and fair  (oh yes)  Where all my friends and loved ones  (oh yes)  Are gonna welcome me up there  (oh yes)  Put on my long white robe Lay down my heavy load When I reach that city  (oh yes)  City so bright and fair  (oh yes)  Where all my friends and loved ones (oh yes) Are gonna welcome me up there (oh yes)”

It was a time of honest hard work, love of family, land and of course of the Lord, not necessarily in that order. It is the simple things that we remember most, I suppose because they are within our heart and always on our minds. 

jk