Amen, and good night

It's been two weeks now since we dropped off a 12 hands chocolate and dapple Welsh pony to a friend in Livingston, Alabama. It is a horse the friend bought from us for his grandchildren. It was a great decision.

But, this is not about the pony, or about our friend's grandchildren. Instead, it is about a small window in life when you slip back into a place that was once so familiar and is now often so distant, like a stranger you meet on the street and think you may know.

Livingston is in west Alabama, close to Mississippi, and perhaps if it were not for drawn borders on a map, you would never know if it was Alabama or Mississippi because Livingston is a place so much a part and so much like much of the wonderful South where I grew up.

The minute we drove into town, I felt as if I was somewhere I had been many times before. Only, I had never been to Livingston.

It is something like Mayberry with the courthouse in the town square; something like the set for Doc Hollywood. It is a town dominated somewhat by a four year college that has its own rodeo team. A place where some of the nicest houses are within walking distance of its heart, and where neighbors visit each other riding on golf carts.

Talk is slow, doors are seldom locked and people actually talk to each other and go to church on Wednesday nights. And, I guess that is really what this is all about.

I probably took more deep breaths during the 20 hours we were there than during any other similar time in quite a while. The deep breaths, you must understand, are a way of soaking things in, enjoying the moment and the memories.

We spent the evening with our friend, a banker whose office is about two blocks from his restored 150 year old white and high columned house. The house itself was something so special that you could feel the care and sensitivity to history in its staircase, wood floors and and unfinished ceilings.

Our friend the banker, Fred Walburn, lives there with his 94 year old mother, who many years ago taught my wife Annette in a small school in a small town in Alabama. If being there in this old southern place and staying in this old southern town was not enough for me, being there with Mrs. Walburn was both overwhelming and inspiring.

Think about being 94. It is hard to imagine and when you do picture someone there, I'll bet you come up with an old person who is bed ridden, blind and memory struck. Well, that ain't Mrs. Walburn, a small southern belle with the same gleam and twinkle in her eyes that I am sure she used to charm young men over three quarters of a century ago. She has the same grace that has carried Southern culture on her shoulders for many years. And, she owns her quick wit and pushes an intellect that continues to devour knowledge and information.

That night, when we went to bed upstairs in a big room that had been returned somewhat to its original self, I lay there and so many thoughts swam through my mind. There were the familiar smells and feelings from a South I have known so well. There was our friend Fred and his gracious mother who brought a heart beat to all of the thoughts and memories.

And, then, that night as I slept, there was another familiar sound that stirred me. It was the sound of a freight train and its blowing horn as the train made its way through Livingston, a sound that is married to the life and times of so many towns across American, not just the South.

I dozed back into sleep for a while, until the next train rumbled through Livingston and woke me again. I remember smiling in my half sleep. I hugged myself and thought that I was so fortunate at this very moment in my life to be in this special place.

Amen and good night.