Where the Red Clay Stains
In northwest Alabama, the dirt is red clay and most of the rocks are called chert. Playing outside during the summer meant that the red clay would mix with the kid sweat and stain our ankles. You couldn’t get it off with a gallon of 20 Mule Team Borax and a box of Brillo pads.
The truth is: we didn’t want it washed off. The red clay stained our ankles and feet like a painter would coat the first layer of a new fence. White socks or baseball hoses were often thrown away after the season. What would I give for a pair of those old baseball hoses which were worn under our black stirrups? (You have to be old school baseball to even understand hoses and stirrups.)
Where the red clay stains isn’t just an area but a way of life and culture. It was special and remains the same after over 74 years for me. I don’t physically live there but still do, in my heart and memory, I’m sure it’s true in other areas; just not like where the red clay stains.
People are honest and trustworthy, where the red clay stains. The most important things about a man are his word and his last name. It is an utter disgrace to stain either of these. If you say you are going to do something, you DO IT. No excuses. No alibis. No crawfishing out of it.
How often have you heard someone say: “He’s just like his old man? Or “she reminds me of her Godly mother?” The opposite can be true: “He has embarrassed his last name. His daddy is rolling over in Colbert Memorial Cemetery today after what he just did.”
Not where the red clay stains.
Everyone falls into one of two categories: friends or those you haven’t met yet. Where the red clay stains, years or even decades can pass like sand through an hourglass UNTIL they run into each other at a funeral or reunion. Every story starts the same way with a question: “Do you remember that time…?” And then, it’s off to the races where hip boots are needed to wade through the barnyard deposits left behind.
Where the red clay stains, you can take a drive down memory lane and see Mr. Newman with his cigar box filled with money. Or Leon Chapman sweating over his grill as he made another “hamburger from Heaven.” George Chamblee is cutting meat, Pal Jackson is shining another pair of shoes, Vera is fixing another perm, Peggy is arranging another spray of flowers, Hob is winning another hand in Rook, Robert is racking another game of race horse, Daddy is making another pot of chicken stew and David Bruce is selling another water pump for a 76 Super-Bee, where the red clay stains.
Or, the Ford brothers are dry cleaning another prom dress or Earnest Lee is pumping some more thirty cents a gallon tank of gas. Or CT is blowing the whistle for another wind sprint or Curtis is unloading some more antiques for his Thursday night auction. Where the red clay stains.
Pride runs deep, where the red clay stains. Mention our town and you poke your chest out a little more when speaking about Percy Sledge, Jimmy Hughes, Leon Douglas, Phil Gargis, Thad Flanagan, Ozzie Newsome, Robert Bates, Howell Heflin, Jim Ashmore, Jimmy King and Ed West. Coaches are revered in a tone reserved for royalty when their names are brought up where the red clay stains: CT Manley, Jerry Daily, Don Creasy, Jimmy Moore, Arthur Andrews, and Howard Bradford.
The same is true about life-changing teachers: King, Jones, Sneed, Wombacher, Vincent, Cantrell, Stancil, Landers, Sherrod, Freeman, Pogue, Holland, Bradford, Davis, Goode, Jeffreys, Garnet, and McCoy. There is a special place in Heaven, for these from where the red clay stains.
No area is as giving as those from where the red clay stains. Where else could a loving community raise more than $500,000 for the kids at St. Jude? Volunteering, hosting, cleaning up, selling, auctioning, mowing, weed eating, cooking, donating and bidding on items to help the warriors at St. Jude. Yes, I am ultra-proud of my little piece of Paradise and pray that others are just as proud of theirs. As always, the challenge has been laid out to simply donate more and more so that we can eliminate childhood cancer before the Head Coach blows His final whistle for us to come Home.
Some of my northern friends (both of them), harass me about our Southern grace, pride and culture. Some even want to talk like us. That dog won’t hunt. They can’t help it.
I pray that Saint Peter will make us take off our shoes and socks as we enter the Pearly Gates as he reads II Timothy 4:7.
Just to hear that famous phrase:
“Welcome to another Paradise.”
Like the one where the red clay stains.