Rhubarb

I don't know if I ever tasted rhubarb before I moved to Vermont.

My only recollection was a story my Great Aunt Minnie told about a dessert she called "stick pie" that contained green and maroon stalks. I, however, was unaffiliated.

When we arrived in the Green Mountains, we found three patches located right outside the parsonage. I remember stooping over, breaking off a section, and tasting its tart-sweetness. I was left shocked and intrigued.  

I still didn't know what the hell to do with it.

For the next few summers, Lauren and I would pick a few pounds, nibbling on them here and there, but mostly for the purpose of taking them down to the community farmstand.

And then a revelation.

Not from a disciple named John. But from a chef in Louisville, Kentucky. 

I was missing the South. Meaning I was missing its food and storytelling. That's what led me to Edward Lee and his book "Graffiti Buttermilk:  A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting Pot."

Writing about cornbread, Lee offered a rhubarb-and-strawberry jam that seemed easy to make. 

I made it and have been making it ever since. Giving some away. Stashing some in freezers. Smearing some on toast. Plopping large dabs straight out of the oven on biscuits.

Occasionally, I even use it to toss fried chicken wings.

I have no restraints or convictions about performing a culinary faux pas. I wear my green horns right alongside my apron. I'm fine with taking a chance with my so-called "Frankenstein-type" creations.

Experiment, experiment, experiment.

I treat my understanding of the sacred the same way.

These jars will go to others over the weekend. I hope their sticky goodness heals some folks in ways they didn't even know they needed.

Derby Pie

Yesterday, I took pie to someone.

It took me a couple of tries to get my crust right. I go through phases of making pie. I need a little trial and error before I feel comfortable sending them out the door.

The pie I made was a Derby pie.

I got the recipe from a friend. She gave me a story with it too.

She told me how the pie became a favorite of her daughters.

As horse and rider gathered at Churchill Downs every spring, she would make this for her family.

This year, things were different. She'd had surgery. I can't imagine her doctors giving the okay to roll out dough and waltz around a kitchen.

So I took the recipe, held her story, and baked one for her.

I delivered a few slices to her doorstep yesterday.

It was good to see her on her feet.

I came home and did the usual.
Ate lunch.
Visited someone in the hospital.
Picked my oldest up from school.

And then, in the late evening, as the sun started to hide its face, I sat on our small porch stoop listening to a song by David Childers called "Blueberries."

I sipped Kentucky's finest from a jelly jar and watched my youngest dance with her fading shadow in the driveway.

I thought of her future. I thought of my friend, her spouse, and her daughter.

I thought of Derby pie and how I'll make it for the rest of my life.

Revival

I am from a faith tradition that wings the benediction.

I have an idea, but never a plan on how it's going to turn out.

Today I kept it simple. I shared some of the last words I heard from a congregant who passed a few days ago.

I'd gone to visit her in hospice. She was herself.
Spunky.
Spry.
Giving orders.

She told me I needed to go home and feed my children when it started to get late.

She was moxie personified.

I was in a rough place when I went. Turning some things over in my head.

Sitting with her was one of the times when a preacher goes to minister to someone, and the person ends up ministering to them.

I was the student, she the teacher.

She told me about her faith.
How she knew God was real.
And that no matter what choices I made, no matter what I did, everything would work out all right.

It was a message of hope. A message I needed to hear.

Standing in front of the church this morning with people who'd known her longer than I had, I shared the same message.

Somehow, everything is going to work out all right.

I'm thankful for her message.

In a time when folks look to jump on each other over anything, she was a revival—an improvement on this old human condition.

She extended grace and mercy when she didn't have to.

It appears that was just her way

The Doll in the Woods

My Southern eyes took in many unusual sights when I lived in Vermont.

I watched snow fall from clouds as gray as jasper a week before Halloween.

Once, I watched a man fill a bowl with banana slices, pour heavy cream over them, and drown the whole thing in maple syrup while my blood sugar vibrated.

It was a lot to take in.

Still, that didn’t top the wildest thing I witnessed.

And it definitely wasn't the creepiest.

That belonged to the doll in the woods.

Lauren and I first spotted her on a random afternoon.

Mud season had almost ended. For the uninformed, this is the time between winter and spring, when cars slide around unpaved roads like jello on a porcelain plate.

We drove north.
We passed the local, honest automotive shop.
We blinked and missed the Friends Cemetery.

A few farmhouses dotted the road, nudging us into a stretch of woods filled with private drives marked by old last names like Isham and Zeno. Every hundred feet or so, blue sugaring lines stretched like veins from tree to tree.

We were watching the lines when we saw her.

A hundred yards up a small embankment, a doll perched on a stump.

It looked like the Raggedy Ann doll I had as a child.
The same type of toy Ed and Lorraine Warren called “Annabelle.”

I didn’t know if this plaything had a name.

I only knew she sat there, alone, in the woods.

Lauren and I locked eyes and compared goosebumps.

We talked about her for the rest of the drive.

We chose a different route home.

A couple of weeks passed, and we spotted her again.

This time, she had moved.

She sat closer to the road, propped against a tree.

Our minds churned out rational theories. The most likely one: a great gag. Probably a local hiker or resident who wanted to stir the pot and create lore for the daily front porch forum email.

We asked a few trusted souls. They said they’d seen her too.

One feller told me he spotted her during his early morning walks.

“Did you ever go up to it?” I asked.

“Nope. I saw it and kept moving.”

The curiosity of old Vermonters runs as cold as their Januarys.
Lauren and I never stopped to investigate either. Call it adapting to our surroundings.

We kept spotting her. Sometimes she sat closer, sometimes farther up the hill. The doll turned into a marker for us—she signaled when we’d left the village center or when we were almost home.

And then one day, we looked and she was gone.

Maybe a bear or another critter dragged her off.
Maybe the owner thought she needed a good cleaning.
Or maybe the gag had run its course.

I considered all of these possibilities.

Still, I silently prayed for the doll to return to the woods.

That way I'd know where she was.

We moved away from Vermont without solving the riddle.

It’s one of those stories I still think about now and then.

Usually right before I fall asleep.

Sometimes I think about reaching out to the folks I know who still live there. Just to ask if the doll is still around.

But I don't.

Maybe I'm afraid of the answer I'll get.

Y'all Wanna See a Picture?

Our oldest went clothes shopping with her grandmother and aunt.

My wife, my youngest, and I decided to have an adventure—we wanted to see how three wheels worked compared to four.

It’s been a while since we tried that.

We hopped over to the city beside us. I spent many years there growing up.

Trails wind through it. Nature lurks at every step. Mushrooms sprouted too slowly for my daughter’s hands—she snatched them up before my wife could snap a picture.

With small hands, she tore them apart and scattered them along the path like a flower girl at a wedding.

Monuments rise here. Large statues honor a war called Revolutionary.

The biggest belongs to a feller named Nathanael Greene. He served in the Continental Army and commanded troops through the South. The British General Cornwallis felt on edge whenever Greene came too close to his neighborhood.

The statue towers over you—Greene mounted on a horse, both rider and steed twice the size of life.

My daughter sprinted toward it. So did I—not to bask in its grandeur, but to claim the cool shade it cast.

As we stood there, a voice called out.

“Y’all wanna see a picture?”

A man named Paul spoke. A seasoned saint, he wore a cap and loose clothes that made him look at ease.

He felt easy to talk to as well.

He showed us two photos. The people inside stared back from a black-and-white world.

The background matched where we stood now, only in the 1940s.

Fewer trees. Fewer additions. A child on the steps, now much older than my daughter.

That child stood in front of me—a man with decades of living behind him.

We talked for several minutes.

We found the kind of connections people discover in small communities. He once lived in my hometown. He told me his nephew still does.

I handed back his photos—his treasure, proof of a life lived well.

I thanked him for sharing his story and shook his hand. We walked in opposite directions.

Maybe we’ll meet again farther down the path.

Maybe one day I’ll stop and show a photo to someone, too.

I’ll let them know I’ve been around a while.

Everyone’s story deserves telling.

Everyone’s story deserves hearing.

A Feast Day for Saint Willis

I have known some saints in my life.

My great-aunt Minnie was one. My grandmother "Dood" was, too.

The lady I call Momma, Penny, is still a saint of affirmation.

My spouse, Lauren, has a saint's patience. She should. She has to live in a house filled with me and two children.

There's more.

Saint Bill, keeper of the Baptist flame.
Saint Don the Crumudgeon of Waffle House.
Saint Nelson the Protector of "green" Youth Ministers

These saints all, I have touched and hugged.

Still there are others I have never met.
,
Saint Will the Mississipian Contrarian.
Saint Anthony the World Traveler.
Saint Fannie Lou the Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.

They are known and not known to me.

I am a Baptist.
We talk more about the Priesthood of All Believers and the Great Cloud of Witnesses than we do saints.

We sure as hell aren't known for praying to any.

However, after today, I do believe a small altar could find its way into our home. A shrine of some sort. A tabernacle built out of appreciation.

Made for a man named Willis Carrier.

In 1902, this child of God helped create what we now know as air conditioning.

Thanks to two of his disciples who came by the last couple of days, we now have the chilling Paraclete-pushed air pouring out of our vents again.

That's worth lighting a candle for at least.

That's worth lifting a prayer to heaven.

That's worth holding a Feast Day sometime during the summer months.

We owe his holy work that much.

Y'all show Saint Willis some love.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a regular day for me.

They usually are.

Tuesdays on my calendar are a day that has to get done and put away like clean dishes.

I have staff meetings on Tuesdays.

I mess around and have a third cup of coffee.

My kids demand tacos.

It’s a rinse, lather, repeat kind of day.

I do not know what Tuesdays mean to everybody else.

Maybe for some, it’s when they head to the nail salon.

Maybe it’s the day when they're the first ones to walk into a barbershop.

It’s doctor appointment day. A trip to the dentist.

The day a certain Amazon package arrives.

They could hit up a theater for a discounted movie and popcorn.

They could troll the aisles of a local grocery store and watch the employees put out the specials for that week.

Maybe they go to a local diner and get the chopped steak for $11.99

I imagine somewhere, the Norse god Tyr appreciates the recognition of the day that honors his efforts against the monstrous wolf Fenrir.

Tuesdays mean different things for different people.

I know a person whose yesterday was special. Their Tuesday had a deeper meaning.

Their Tuesday belonged to somebody. Somebody who’s no longer with them.

It was a day in the words of Marty McFly, “heavy.”

A day to mourn and a day to celebrate.

I heard about their day. Saw they had something special planned.

Their loved one loved sweets, so they planned to go by a sweet shop. Make a pilgrimage to pay homage.

I never met this special person, but I imagine that sweets were a comforting treat for them.

They needed something delicious to get them through the week.

I know the feeling. I have treats I turn to on the harder days.

Pimento cheese. Bojangles chicken filet biscuit. Waffle House.

Balm on a wounded spirit.

These have gotten me through the roughest of Tuesdays.

They once got me through the worst Good Friday of my life.

I thought about this person all day Tuesday.

And I knew I wanted to let them know I did.

I know they love Sun Drop.

So I left a six-pack of Gastonia’s finest on their doorstep.

Just to let them know, I know.

It really doesn't take much to let folks know we see them.

Sometimes all we need is some candy, some chocolate, or some Sun Drop.

Any can make a Tuesday a whole lot better.

Father's Day

This Father's Day started in the early morning.

The youngest had a bad dream. She first woke her mother and then me.

Downstairs, I warmed up yesterday's coffee before sitting in the room I call a library, polishing a sermon that wasn’t, and never will be, done.

More feet stirred. And like the sunrise, the oldest appeared - bright and promising.

They wanted to give me presents. I told them we had to wait for their mother.

She got me a couple of books. One was a guide to accompany the Hohner harmonica she gave me. By early afternoon, I’d mastered Mary Had A Little Lamb. Neil Young, take notice.

Later, I drove to a pipe shop. A man sold me a couple of ounces of aromatic pipe tobacco. I lied and told him that’s what my wife prefers when actually it's what both of us do.

In a second-hand rocking chair, I smoked a black cavendish blend. My tongue tasting perhaps the only flavor of the good life I'll ever know. Smoke rolls up into a blue sky, and I wonder if it will become part of a cloud.

The girls find me outside.

“Do you have to go to work today, Dad?” they ask.

“I’ve already been to work today,” I say.

“It’s church day AND Father’s Day,” the youngest says back. She smiles before adding, “They are mixed together.”

“What do you want to do today?” the oldest says. She's holding a massive piece of bamboo that she dragged home from a park. I know without a doubt that she or her sister will drop it on their bare feet soon.

“I dunno,” I say. “What do you want to do?”

She looks at me, puzzled. “But it’s Father’s Day,” she says. “You gotta choose.”

She bounces away with energy that makes my knees jealous.

I don’t know how to answer her in a way she’ll understand.

How do you tell someone that whatever makes them happy is what makes you happy?

I watch them play on the slope of the driveway. They laugh. They fight. They dance. Their feet are dirty. Their dresses cling to them thanks to the June heat. Their hair breaks free from the ties and braids their mother put in earlier. Their faces are a mixture of hers and mine. Other parts of them belong to ancestors I've never known.

I watch them, and they watch me.

It’s a small moment, but the small ones are truly the only ones that matter.

Soon, I’ll listen to a song a friend sent me. I’ve listened to it a few times today. The artist is Tommy Prine, son of the late John Prine. “Ships in the Harbor.”

The last verse wets my eyes,

'I'd do anything just to talk to my father
But I guess he was leaving soon, as we do
Yeah, I guess he was passing through, and I am too.'

That is a feeling I have today, and if I could do anything on Father’s Day, it would be to talk to him again.

Maybe that's the strange gift—you spend part of today missing someone who raised you while also trying to become the kind of person your own children will remember when you're gone.

All of it is enough to give a man pause.

The Biggest Fool in the Family

He walked to school through fields. In his arms, he carried books and expectations.

He was the second-oldest boy. Unlike his father, he was tall and lean, more like his uncles, Cal and Monroe. He was unlike his older brother, Jesse. Less humble. He wanted more in life. He swore to his father that he’d never work with his hands. He graduated top of his class.

His grandmother thought him “busy.”

Neighbors called him high-strung.

Friends said he was fit to be tied.

His sister Minnie said he was her favorite brother.

The first suit he wore was new to him, but familiar to his family. He'd bought the tie with his own money. During the five-mile walk to the military academy, his hand would find it.

Tighten.

Loosen.

The knot never quite right.

He’d wear a tie for the rest of his life. He’d show up for get-togethers with one on. By then, he had a week's worth of suits. Paid for by the pharmacy job he got after graduating from Draughons' Business College.

He even wore a suit at home.

The ties lay on shirts as crisp as the dollar bills in his wallet. He married a woman, Frances, 19 years his junior. She gave him a boy. They called him Jamie.

On Saturdays, he would take Jamie to Greensboro Park to ride the paddle boats. Many times he’d take his niece, my mother, with them.

At a Sunday supper with family, I’m told he sat at the end of the table. His body coiled tight like a cushion spring. Before long, he seemed to hear his name in every conversation. Jokes were taken as jabs. Feelings got hurt. Something about a diploma hanging on the wall. He left the table, hungry for something that wasn't on his plate. The sweat of his palms left an imprint on Grandma Sara’s oil tablecloth. Aunt Emmie would say he got up and did the “St. Vitus Dance.” His body motion jerky and uncontrollable, he crashed out the door.

Watching him go, his father, Addison, shouted, “I’ve educated the biggest fool in the family!”

In his Buick Riviera, his hands would find the smooth jar of hootch he kept under the seat. He found its use while stationed in California during World War II. Between sips, he’d tap the beat of Bill Munroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on his tie. There, his nervousness finally came to a rest.

This scene, like his tie, was a constant.

His father would die at the county hospital in 1960

His mother would die at home in October of 61’.

They were buried in the family plot at the little Methodist Church.

James Bailey, known to his family as JB, would go and visit them once a week. Dressed in a fine suit and fedora hat, he would stand on their grave drinking, cussing, and looking for answers they could never give him.

He died in 1972 at the age of 55.

He was buried beside his parents. He was buried in his favorite suit and tie.

A neighbor named Pink Dwiggins said it was the prettiest casket he’d ever seen.

When people tell me I don't know how to relax, I think about him.

When I can’t sit down after coming home from work because I know the dishes need putting away, I think about him.

I think about that boy walking five miles to school, working on the knot in his tie.

A knot he never could get right.

Field Notes

Justin always carries a notebook. He thinks many other writers do too.

Not because he thinks every observation becomes an essay, but because paying attention is part of the work.

These Field Notes are a collection of stories, observations, and reflections gathered along the way—noticings from church pews, diner booths, front porches, factory floors, and back roads.

Some may eventually grow into larger essays. Others are complete exactly as they are.

Either way, they seemed worth writing down and passing along.