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By Tom Boggs

I was looking at a video of beautiful America with comments by Charlie Daniels asking things like “Have you ever seen the mountains of Montana or tasted barbeque in Alabama?” Got me to thinking about our own backyard right here and some questions I might pose to you dear readers.

Have you ever watched cattle grazing out on rolling Alabama prairie land that reminded you of the Biblical word picture of cattle on a thousand hills?

Have you ever marveled at straight rows of white fields of cotton, and how many of y’all remember the time when those cotton fields were full of mostly dark faces, young and old, man and woman, picking that cotton, and can you remember the first bale of cotton ginned in Demopolis each year being placed on the City square with the name of the producer attached to it?

Do you remember Sunday mornings when most of the ladies going into church were fashionably outfitted in long dresses, big hats and the expected white gloves?

Do you remember noticing young black boys and men walking around town with the softball size and shaped biceps developed from days of throwing short wood sticks of pulpwood up onto the waiting log trucks deep in the woods?

How many remember the happy days of 1945 when young men walked the streets of their hometown wearing army brown or navy blue uniforms with the little gold emblem over their right breast pocket denoting an honorable discharge after America’s victory in Europe and Asia?

Have you ever seen mule drawn wagons hitched up behind downtown stores, along with old pickup trucks parked on the street when the farmers and their families came into town on a Saturday morning to stock up on necessities for the week?

Can you remember watching your grocer pulling your requested items off the shelves, placing them on the counter, entering the prices on a lever operated cash register or simply writing down the items with a pencil in your own personal yellow charge book he kept in little cubby holes when you said, “Charge it, Mr. Brown?”

Have you ever crowded into a courtroom during a particularly gruesome murder trial, mainly on account of you couldn’t watch such entertainment at home since none of us had a television set?

Have you ever seen a hunter stopping in the middle of town to show off a buck deer he had just taken, and everybody coming out of the stores to gawk at that deer, back when our deer population was mighty scarce?

Can you still picture those times when the county high schools always played each other in rivalry games regardless of classification or size, and did you ever see men on the sidelines building fires to huddle around back when it just seemed a whole lot colder than football games today?

Did you ever see folks lined up for blocks waiting to get into the picture show for a special movie such as “The King of Kings” or something like that?

Has this week’s talking conjured up some old-timey memories for you?

Finally, let me refer to the picture this week. I reckon there is nobody around who does remember the Miss Linden beauty contest of 1933, but I will always hold onto the memory of the winner that year, Wilmothe Cooper, my Ma. 

 

Tom Boggs is a columnist for the Demopolis Times and a native of Marengo County. His column, “Days Gone Bye,” appears weekly.