Woman with Rooster
It was a hot summer day, when a hat, especially a straw hat, was a blessing.
She, whose name I do not know, wore such a hat as she walked along the country road. I nodded a greeting as I drove past. I had driven some distance before I recalled that she was carrying an unusual burden: she had a live rooster in her arms.
So I turned around and went back to ask if I could take her picture. If she thought the request strange, she did not say so. She posed with dignity and a fleeting touch of humor, holding the bird against her white shirt to dramatize his bright feathers. When I asked if I might give her a ride, she declined, saying, "I ain't got far to go."
I wish I knew what happened to the rooster. He appeared to be too young to be consigned to the stew pot. His colorful plumage (the golds and greens purely sparkled in the sunlight) and his long spurs bespoke game chicken ancestry, so he may have been on his way to a fight. Or perhaps a happier future awaited him as lord of a new chicken yard.
Whatever his fate, I wish I had a few of his feathers to decorate my own straw hat.
She, whose name I do not know, wore such a hat as she walked along the country road. I nodded a greeting as I drove past. I had driven some distance before I recalled that she was carrying an unusual burden: she had a live rooster in her arms.
So I turned around and went back to ask if I could take her picture. If she thought the request strange, she did not say so. She posed with dignity and a fleeting touch of humor, holding the bird against her white shirt to dramatize his bright feathers. When I asked if I might give her a ride, she declined, saying, "I ain't got far to go."
I wish I knew what happened to the rooster. He appeared to be too young to be consigned to the stew pot. His colorful plumage (the golds and greens purely sparkled in the sunlight) and his long spurs bespoke game chicken ancestry, so he may have been on his way to a fight. Or perhaps a happier future awaited him as lord of a new chicken yard.
Whatever his fate, I wish I had a few of his feathers to decorate my own straw hat.
long WAit
The house was on the road between Selma and Camden, a road I traveled often. There was little to set it apart from hundreds of other deteriorating tenant houses scattered through the Black Belt except that it seemed a little more desolate and lonely than most.
For a long time I thought it was unoccupied, but then I began to notice signs of life as I drove past: smoke rising from the chimney, fresh tire tracks in the littered yard, a child's plastic tricycle near the side door. Never did I see a human being on the place. I watched the house for a year or more, watched its metal roof become rustier and its rough board exterior turn grayer.
"I must stop and photograph this place," I thought a dozen times. "It won't be here forever." Then one cloudy day when there were no leaves on the trees and when I expected to see smoke coming from the chimney but did not, I saw a mongrel dog, black and tan with a white chest, sitting in the yard. "Now's the time for that picture," I told myself as I pulled off the road.
The dog did not run, as I had expected he might, nor did he come toward me. He did not wag his tail nor did he snarl or bark. Except for lifting his ears slightly, he sat perfectly still and stared directly at me while I took a picture of him and of the house.
He did not move when I turned to leave. He did give me a quizzical look as though he wondered if I had come to give him news of the whereabouts of his owners or had come to take him to a new home.
For a long time I thought it was unoccupied, but then I began to notice signs of life as I drove past: smoke rising from the chimney, fresh tire tracks in the littered yard, a child's plastic tricycle near the side door. Never did I see a human being on the place. I watched the house for a year or more, watched its metal roof become rustier and its rough board exterior turn grayer.
"I must stop and photograph this place," I thought a dozen times. "It won't be here forever." Then one cloudy day when there were no leaves on the trees and when I expected to see smoke coming from the chimney but did not, I saw a mongrel dog, black and tan with a white chest, sitting in the yard. "Now's the time for that picture," I told myself as I pulled off the road.
The dog did not run, as I had expected he might, nor did he come toward me. He did not wag his tail nor did he snarl or bark. Except for lifting his ears slightly, he sat perfectly still and stared directly at me while I took a picture of him and of the house.
He did not move when I turned to leave. He did give me a quizzical look as though he wondered if I had come to give him news of the whereabouts of his owners or had come to take him to a new home.
Storytelling time
Storytelling is the simplest of the arts.
Other arts require musical instruments, stages and costumes, paints and canvasses, lighting, sound systems and such, but with storytelling, all that is required is someone to tell and someone to listen.
This storyteller in downtown Selma had five listeners on the trunk of his car. He appears to be keeping his young charges entertained while their mother (mothers?) shops.
I wish I knew what story he was telling them.
Other arts require musical instruments, stages and costumes, paints and canvasses, lighting, sound systems and such, but with storytelling, all that is required is someone to tell and someone to listen.
This storyteller in downtown Selma had five listeners on the trunk of his car. He appears to be keeping his young charges entertained while their mother (mothers?) shops.
I wish I knew what story he was telling them.
Scarecrow
The deer were plentiful and hungry out around Summerfiled in north Dallas County, the spring of 1976. As soon as young plants pushed through the plowed ground in fields and gardens, deer came singly, in pairs and in droves to nibble the tender shoots.
"Them deer eating up our garden fast as the plants poke their heads up," Albert Melton complained to me. "Looks like we ain't gonna have no corn or beans or peas or nothing. Not 'less we do something about them deer!" So Albert and Sarah, his wife of forty years, did something. They ringed their garden with scarecrows, eighteen of them, to frighten the intruders away. These were no ordinary scarecrows, not just a wooden cross piece stuck in the ground and draped with a tattered garment. The Meltons' scarecrows were well dressed, almost nattily dressed, figures. At a distance, they might have been mistaken for a line of worshipers heading for Sunday meeting.
The men sported vests and ties over their long-sleeved shirts, and their balled-up newspaper heads were shaded by felt hats. One of them carried a cane. The women were clothed in bright dresses, perhaps not the latest style, long enough to touch the ground, and flower-bedecked hats covered their newsprint heads.
I don't know how effective the scarecrows were, but Sarah and Albert Melton were pleased and amused by their creations. "Place full of field hands, and not one of them working!" Sarah told me.
"Them deer eating up our garden fast as the plants poke their heads up," Albert Melton complained to me. "Looks like we ain't gonna have no corn or beans or peas or nothing. Not 'less we do something about them deer!" So Albert and Sarah, his wife of forty years, did something. They ringed their garden with scarecrows, eighteen of them, to frighten the intruders away. These were no ordinary scarecrows, not just a wooden cross piece stuck in the ground and draped with a tattered garment. The Meltons' scarecrows were well dressed, almost nattily dressed, figures. At a distance, they might have been mistaken for a line of worshipers heading for Sunday meeting.
The men sported vests and ties over their long-sleeved shirts, and their balled-up newspaper heads were shaded by felt hats. One of them carried a cane. The women were clothed in bright dresses, perhaps not the latest style, long enough to touch the ground, and flower-bedecked hats covered their newsprint heads.
I don't know how effective the scarecrows were, but Sarah and Albert Melton were pleased and amused by their creations. "Place full of field hands, and not one of them working!" Sarah told me.
These photographs and essays are just a few samples
from Kathryn Tucker Windham's book, Encounters.
Available from NewSouth Books, Montgomery, Alabama
from Kathryn Tucker Windham's book, Encounters.
Available from NewSouth Books, Montgomery, Alabama
Photo Courtesy of Ted Tucker
"Some people are important to intellectuals, journalists, or politicians, but Kathryn Tucker Windham is probably the only person I know in Alabama who is important to everybody."
–Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University. |
CONTACT US
Ben Windham & Dilcy Windham Hilley Email: dhilley@inbirmingham.com © 2021 - Ben Windham and Dilcy Windham Hilley. All rights to images belong to the artists who created them. Site by Mike McCracken mike@mikemccracken.com |
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