All Day Singing There were few things bigger in my youth than an All Day Singing. Some folks called them Homecomings. Doesnt matter what you called it, it was a big deal. Only thing that compared was a wedding or funeral but they were usually only one time occurrences. The singing came around every year. A singing is when the church holds a service (predetermined date) and usually calls in a guest preacher, one or more singing groups and it, as the name implies, lasts all day. Seems like it was usually June or July and it was so hot that when the preacher started talking about Hellfire and brimstone you thought you were already halfway there! The ladies were fanning themselves with the hand fans provided by the local funeral home or insurance company. Religious photo on one side, advertisement on the other! Gotta love capitalism! The ladies would congregate in the church and listen to The Message and the singing, the men would gather under various shade trees and swap lies and an occasional sip . The kids who were lucky enough to escape the church torture played. There was family, cousins we hadnt seen since last years singing and perfect strangers but we all were of the same tribe that day! The girls would form a gaggle and giggle, gossip and flirt with the boys and the boys, depending on their age, would seriously try to ignore them or try to talk them into going out behind the cemetery! We played in the cemetery, in the woods about the area, behind the church and anywhere that suited us. This was way before flush toilets were common and most of the churches we went to had outhouses. One for the men and another for the ladies. Usually out back and in the edge of the woods. One church we went to had a spring out back where you could get a cool drink of water. The spring had a concrete thingie built around it with a pipe where the spring continuously flowed with cool, clear, clean water from the bowels of the earth. There was a gourd dipper that everybody shared. Not very sanitary I guess but what did we know?! The highlight was the dinner. For those raised up north dinner is the noon meal, supper the evening one, we do NOT do lunch! All these little blue haired ladies would spend days cooking, canning, salting and making all manner of eats. They always brought their best. And I do mean best. Tables that seemed like they stretched for miles groaned with all manner of meats, casseroles, pies, cakes and you name it, it was there. Fried, baked, boiled, raw, etc. Sweet tea, Kool-aid, lemonade, etc. Reminds me of the old rhyme that goes, “I wish I were rubber skinned, instead of steel and tight, so I could eat a thousand things, so I could eat all night!” Believe me I tried. My grannies specialty was fried apple pies, but that is another story. As it started to approach noon we would start circling the tables trying to scope out where the best stuff was so we could be sure to go there first and get some before it was all gone. There was an art to it that has probably faded away by now. Load up your plate and find a spot under one of the trees or a pickup tailgate or whatever was available and eat. Repeat until you couldnt do it anymore. After the initial melee we would go around and make another plate to take home. This would be our supper. That is if it made it home! All Day Singing, Dinner on the ground, Whiskey in the bushes, Devil all around!
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 00:35:23 +0000
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