Shakespeare for Anne

Shakespeare for Anne on a Gray November Morning With fairest flowers Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten’d not… Read More »

“This is Horseshit!”

Anne and I, and occasional friends, went frequently to decrepit Bill Meyer Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, to watch the Knox Sox play baseball.The stadium and the team are described in my old blog post. ttps://www.lettersfromleipersfork.com/fabled-fred-norton/?fbclid=IwAR1mJVEKebwLIHGEKC4BzJ79gOb7_i3nRwmvWsQx5jpnOkeAZj5gbf0Hg-Q There was usually plenty of room in the stadium, so we sat anywhere we pleased. Some nights we perched on… Read More »

I Ain’t No Fortunate Son

Remembering George ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY, 2023.    It was 1966, and only one of us died in Vietnam.  BY WAYNE CHRISTESON | MAY 28, 2018 On Memorial Day I always think of my friend George Mangrum of Lauderdale County, Alabama. Here is his story. It needs to be told. In 1966, I graduated from a modest… Read More »

The Fury

Here is what Tennessee state representative Justin Jones of Nashville said upon being expelled from the state legislature by the Republican “Super Majority.” He was willing to put himself on the line for the sake of the voiceless people of Tennessee. “There comes a time  where people get sick and tired of being sick and… Read More »

Didn’t Nullification Die In 1865?

According to “The Tennessean” yesterday, the Tennessee legislature is poised to REJECT ALL FUNDS FOR EDUCATION FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The reason, according to its sponsor Speaker Cameron Sexton, is “to free state education from federal restrictions.” We all know what that means: giving power to our Republican “super majority” to control the way school… Read More »

Draggin’ With the Governor

“He’s a charming combination of misogyny, racism, bigotry, & stupidity!” That’s my friend Patty talking about our Tennessee governor Bill Lee.  The occasion for Patty’s eloquent outburst is the chronic, mindless effort of Tennessee’s Republican legislative “super majority” to suppress, and in some cases criminalize, the behavior of Tennessee citizens who happen to be LGBTQ.… Read More »

Hog Killin’ Weather

When I was a boy, and the winter temperature fell far below freezing, as it has recently in Leiper’s Fork, people would call it “hog-killin’” weather. That was the time when farmers would bring their hogs out to be slaughtered, since the cold weather would keep the pork from spoiling as it was cut. I… Read More »

Halcyon Days

[ Halcyon  \”\ adj   : pleasing or idyllic; calm or peaceful or serene; happy ] The weather has been cold here in Leiper’s Fork, and the forecast is for even colder weather to come. Nevertheless, my darlin’ Anne says we are living in “halcyon days” for the next two weeks. We will continue to feel the… Read More »

A Matter of Courage

Vanderbilt’s 2022 football season came to a dismal close last night at gloomy and rainy Dudley Field. The evening’s torment was dealt out by the University of Tennessee, which chose to run up the score on the exhausted Vanderbilt defense, long after the the game was well-decided.  That hurt. The loss was particularly painful for… Read More »

The Bard and the Bonfire

[Today is Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th, when bonfires are lit throughout England. The Day celebrates the failure of men plotting to assassinate King James I in what has become known as “The Gunpowder Plot.”] In London, in 1605, a conspiracy of Catholic men, fearing that the persecution they received under Elizabeth I would become… Read More »

The Big Picture

“President Biden on Wednesday announced the creation of the country’s newest national monument [Camp Hale], protecting tens of thousands of acres in the mountains of Colorado from mining and development.    New York Times, October 13, 2022: At the beginning of WW II, the United States Army established a winter warfare teaching ground high in the… Read More »

Naomi

I had a serious but distant relationship with Naomi Judd, who died recently by suicide. Naomi and I would have by-chance conversations around gas pumps, in neighbors’ yards, and other chance meetings, and we carried on a hand-written correspondence. I would receive lovely handwritten notes from her about my writing. But when we talked, we… Read More »

A Shooting in Jellico

Back in the 1980s, while I was trying lawsuits for a living, I had occasion to enforce a judgment in Jellico, Tennessee, through a legal collection procedure aptly called an “execution.” Jellico in those days was a small town located in Campbell County, Tennessee, about 75 miles north of Knoxville, smack on the Tennessee/Kentucky border,… Read More »

Irish Enlightenment

WARNING: THIS POST MAKES REFERENCE TO A CERTAIN BANNNED SUBSTANCE THAT WILL LEAVE YOU– AS JOHN PRINE WOULD SAY– WITH AN ILLEGAL SMILE. FURTHERMORE, THE FRIEND WHO RELATED THIS STORY TO ME IS AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, AND SOMETIMES AN OUTRIGHT LIAR, BUT  IT’S SUCH A GOOD STORY THAT IT MUST SURELY BE TRUE.  Every Spring,… Read More »

Existentialist Warfare

News Item:      French Intellectuals to be Deployed to Ukraine to Wage Existential Warfare  The ground war in Ukraine took an optimistic turn yesterday when NATO announced that it had begun air-dropping Parisian existentialists into the warzones to undermine the morale of Putin’s forces.  Elements of the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, known as “The… Read More »

Overboard !!

In North Alabama, almost at the Tennessee line, there is a creek named Cypress Creek. It rises in the hills just across the border and runs almost due south to the Tennessee River, entering just below Muscle Shoals. It is (or was, I’m talking 50 years ago) a beautiful creek which flows quietly through farmland… Read More »

Moon

Pictured on the right is my dear friend, the late William E. “Moon” Poynor of Peach Hollow. Moon did farm work and general labor for most of his life, but he was a thoroughly remarkable man. For many years he served as the song leader at the tiny Garrison Creek Methodist Church  at the foot… Read More »

What time is It?

Back in the old days, 30-40 years ago, Leiper’s Fork was an entirely different place. Lifestyles were different, clothing was different, but most of all language was different. Speaking in the wrong language could sometimes result in unhappiness and confusion.  In those days, if you wanted to carry on a civil conversation, there were certain… Read More »

Crushing Coal

I’ve written before about my Alabama high school friend, Will Shanks, a truly remarkable man—a Merit Finalist in our high school, first in his class in engineering at Auburn, and an inspiration for us to travel to the edge of catastrophe and back. You may remember the story “Bat Shit” earlier on this blog.  https://www.lettersfromleipersfork.com/bat-shit/… Read More »

Pause

“Letters from Leiper’s Fork” will be going into hibernation. I’m not sure when it may wake up. In the meantime, you might enjoy going back and reading some of the earlier posts. In any event, thank you for reading. And thank you, too, to the wise and generous Margaret Renkl who inspired me to begin… Read More »

Wasted at El Perdido

Recently, there has been an unexpected swirl of activity around my blog post from four years ago entitled “Me and Freddy Wasted at El Perdido.” So I thought I might re-post it for others.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?=51M-nsfC0QM Me and Freddy Wasted at El Perdido  

Scorched

In the almost-four years I’ve been running this blog, I’ve never published something written by somebody else. But this hare-brained story from Rachel Kaminek is so silly that I couldn’t pass it by. It was written by a lovely woman who has recently moved from California to Leiper’s Fork with her four-year-old son Elliott– a… Read More »

Plumbing

“And the house has brand new plumbing.” That was the realtor talking, trying to sell us our Leiper’s Fork farm 30 years ago. What she said turned out to be true, and therein lies a tale. Skunks are everywhere in Middle Tennessee. They are beautiful animals, and they have beautiful little litters of kits. Skunks… Read More »

Harpo and Anne

Today is the birthday of Harpo Marx, who was the heart of the Marx Brothers’ slapstick, and also took a few minutes during their farcical movies to play some serious harp music. In the early 1980s, Anne had the good fortune to spend an afternoon in New York with Mildred Dilling, the renowned classical harpist… Read More »

Sonnet 73

Looking at the bare autumn trees outside the window of my morning writing table, I am reminded of Shakespeare’s beautiful Sonnet 73, and how its barren branches become the empty vaulting of a ruined church: That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those… Read More »

Hey Neighbor!

It seemed as though our gutters always needed cleaning, and of course there was nobody but me to clean them. The gutters reached all the way around the house and about 100 feet down one side of the barn. Some of it was mighty high, too high for my ladders to reach, and too high… Read More »

What to Get?

Ok, Y’all. I hate to bring this up, but it’s Holiday time again. If you don’t believe me, just walk into any store and listen to the piped-in music. So, what do you get as a gift for 1) people who have everything or 2) people you don’t really like very much and don’t want… Read More »

Murder at the Opera

Many years ago I sang in a volunteer opera company in a medium-sized American city. The company itself was small, but it was quite good and well-supported by the community. The company would mount two productions each season and was able to bring in singers from New York to take the starring roles. The rest… Read More »

Yellow Leaves

[This piece was first published several years ago in “Vanderbilt Magazine”.] Toward the end of the Vanderbilt/South Carolina football game last week, with the Gamecocks firmly in control, the stands began to empty and the sparse crowd began to thin. Most of the people who remained seemed loyal to the point of unconsciousness. As I… Read More »

The Iroquois

Last weekend, in Nashville’s Percy Warner Park,  the 80th annual Calvin Houghland Iroquois Steeplechase was held. An estimated 25,000 people watched from a block of old concrete boxes lining the home stretch, the crowded infield, and a large grassy field sprawling across the side of a hill above the course. The competition is a popular… Read More »

The Book

There are so many wonderful stories of things that have happened around  Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, over the past 30 years that we’ve lived here. The town has become a tourist destination over the past decade, and now those things don’t happen anymore. And most of the people who did them– all friends of mine– have… Read More »

Coming to America

Our new neighbor and friend Chris Elise, a fine professional photographer from France, now married to an American novelist and living in L.A., took his final oath to become an American citizen last week. He is a charming, friendly, and intelligent man who suits my idea of American citizenship perfectly. He is a man of… Read More »

Bucking Hay

“I’m sixty-eight” he said, “I first bucked hay when I was seventeen. I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life. And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.” Gary Snyder from “Hay for the Horses.” It’s haying time in Leiper’s Fork. Big, sleek tractors are out… Read More »

A Plague of Locusts

Well, we’re not talking about locusts, exactly, but 17-year cicadas, the kind that rise from under the ground every 17 years, and for a few weeks add their rasping voices to the din of ordinary cicadas, filling the air with the iconic sound of the Southern summer. They are due to arise in Tennessee very… Read More »

LXRV and Me

LXRV– that’s what the late Alex Harvey would call himself when he was in a good mood. LXRV– Alex Harvey– got it? He even had it set in a wrought iron belt buckle. That’s the kind of inspired foolishness Alex Would get up to now and then. I thought he was really cool. Even if… Read More »

Cement, revised

CEMENT–  On writing poetry Begin with sand Where the river flows fast and clean. Sift it pure of roots and soft dirt. Gather gravel, Limestone aggregate, Quarried deep from the rock-hard hill.  Scrape the Red Wheelbarrow Clear of last year’s work, and Take the sharp-nosed spade, crusted with old cement.  Mix and turn the sand… Read More »

Baby Steps

I’m hesitant to post this, but Anne insists. She thinks it’s good, but I think of it as baby steps from an amateur. It is a video Anne took on her telephone of an early performance of “Johnny B Goode” by our pick-up neighborhood band at Open Mic Night at Puckett’s Grocery in Leiper’s Fork.… Read More »

How I Got my First Drink

Lauderdale County, Alabama, when I was growing up there in the 1960s, prohibited the possession or sale of alcohol for human consumption. In common parlance, the county was “dry.” And it was not alone. Colbert County across the river was dry, as was Limestone County to the east and Mississippi to the west. In fact… Read More »

The Art of Joe King

The tragedy of COVID took our old friend Joe King a few weeks ago.  Joe was a journeyman carpenter around Leiper’s Fork, working mostly on small independent jobs. He was modest and retiring, and most people didn’t know him very well.   But when he was in his 50s he was in a serious car… Read More »

I Knowed how to Walk

Well, my friend Rachel bought herself an exercise machine. I don’t know why—she’s slender, healthy, and beautiful—but she decided she wanted one anyway. It’s a big old thing, and complicated. I don’t know how she put it all together by herself, but she did. Now it sits by a beautiful window looking like something that… Read More »

I Wrote Me A Book

There are so many wonderful stories of things that have happened around  Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, over the past 30 years that we’ve lived here. The town has become a tourist destination over the past decade, and now those things don’t happen anymore. And most of the people who did them– all friends of mine– have… Read More »