'DECORATION DAY WEEKEND'

One of the many flower arrangements I made for this year's Decoration Day Weekend

            This coming weekend is Decoration Day Weekend; our annual trip around Alabama and into Mississippi to go see dead folks. As odd as that might sound, it’s something my parents and I look forward to each and every year.

            We first visit Crane Hill, where my Momma’s people, the Pittmans and the Clays, have lived for generations. We replace last year’s weather-worn flowers with beautiful new floral arrangements on grandparents’ graves, and set a new American flag in front of my Papaw Pittman’s headstone in honor of his wartime service.

            From Crane Hill, it’s on to Pickens County, Alabama, where my Daddy and his brothers and sisters were all raised. At Pleasant Grove and Hargrove cemeteries, we decorate my Mamaw and Papaw Jennings’ and Grandma and Grandpa Hicks’ graves. And all the while, my Daddy has us laughing as he tells us, for the umpteenth time, about the time Grandma ended up astraddle of a big ol’ hog, ridin’ it backwards, hollerin’ “Help me, Will! Help me!” And how Grandpa Hicks couldn’t, for laughing so hard at her.

We also stop along the way to admire different things and places as we travel the old byways and dirt back roads. I’m one of the world’s worst for stopping to take pictures of seemingly mundane things that most folks wouldn’t give a second thought to, like the rusting old Coca Cola sign on an abandoned country store, a one-room clapboard-sided country pharmacy whose original druggist I later found out had been a local Confederate veteran, or a dilapidated farmhouse turned ‘deer camp’, surrounded by a dozen old travel trailers patiently awaiting the next hunting season. Yet, some of these turn out to be some of the most interesting photos I take all year.

Here and there we stop to visit with our living kin, as well. Whether it’s sharing a delicious home-cooked meal with my dear Aunt Mary or laughing and cutting up with my Uncle Jerry, we relish getting to see them, since some of 'em aren’t able to travel as much as they once could.

On over in Mississippi, we head out to Chickasaw County, an hour northwest of Columbus. It’s here, in Mississippi’s agricultural Black Belt, that my Daddy’s people have lived for generations. This is where my grandparents, my great-grandparents and their parents were all born and raised, where they met their true loves, lived out their lives, and ultimately took their last breaths. So, it’s understandable that, in a way, Chickasaw County feels more like home to me than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

Grandmother Tabitha's grave

We visit the local cemeteries there, cleaning grass clippings and fire ant beds away from graves, putting new flower arrangements on headstones, and sticking bright new Confederate flags into the ground of the graves of our ancestors that served in the War Between the States. I point out different tombstones, explaining who each person is and how exactly we're all related. And, no trip to the Pleasant Grove cemetery, in Atlanta, would be complete without me venturing off down the hill to the oldest section of the graveyard, to check on my 5^th-great-grandmother Tabitha, and to let her know that, even after 170-years, she’s not been forgotten.

What was once part of the John L. 'Jack' Jennings plantation, in Hohenlinden, MS

As the resident history nut and family historian, I'm frequently haulin' us off out into the sticks, to some small, little used, almost-forgotten burial ground so I can introduce my parents to more of our great-grandparents. Other times, I’m pointing out where this or that ancestor’s plantation once stood or where Great-great-grandpa So-and-so used to live back in the 1860’s, 70’s, or 80’s. That information is compliments of years and years of genealogical research.

'Waverly Mansion'

On this trip, we also get to enjoy the occasional historical attraction or roadside oddity. We’ve toured Waverly Mansion, a gorgeous antebellum plantation home near West Point, Mississippi; looked upon the ‘Face in the Courthouse Window’, in Carrollton, Alabama; had our pictures taken in the giant Adirondack chairs at Ashville, Alabama; and stood beside a 32-foot tall tin man on Jim Bird’s farm, outside of Forkland, Alabama. And rest assured, 2017 will be no exception. I've got a visit to Confederate General Joe Wheeler’s beloved plantation ‘Pond Spring’, in Courtland, Alabama, planned, along with a few other interesting and odd sights mapped out, as well, for this year's trip.

When at last we roll back in at the Jennings Farm, in Cohutta, late Sunday evening, we will be thoroughly worn out, having logged more than 800-miles in three-days, over rough secondary roads for the most of that distance. Yet, we will have once again paid homage to our grandparents and family, retold their stories, and made even more wonderful memories in doing so. And I think that that’s what Decoration Day Weekend is about the most.... the strengthening of and reveling in of our family’s wonderful heritage.