A True Southern Thang
There are some things we know to be unique to the South, but some things are even more specific to this area of the South. Earthworms are a good example. I lived in the Montgomery area for almost 20 years, and the first time I told someone we need to fiddle some earthworms, I got blank stares. They have none in that area and they thought I was pulling their leg.
I once brought some friends home from Montgomery to show them. Convinced it was a trick like Snipe hunting, they followed me into the woods and watched as I sawed on a little hickory stump with a dull handsaw. Their smiles disappeared when those big worms started coming up through the leaves and they ran screaming from the woods.
Decoration is another great example. Since before the Civil War, it has been a yearly tradition of many in the southern Appalachian Mountains as family members “come home” from afar to gather at their family cemeteries on a specified Sunday in spring or summer to honor their dead relatives. Everyone helps to clean the cemetery, straighten old tombstones, and decorate the graves with flowers. Hence the name: Decoration.
The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English defines Decoration as: “An occasion on which a family or a church congregation gathers … to place flowers on the graves of loved ones and to hold a memorial service for them. Traditionally this involved singing, dinner on the ground as well as a religious service.”
Many historians believe that this annual recognition of the dead by Southerners was what inspired people around the country to begin honoring the fallen soldiers of the Civil War, both Union and Confederate. The practice of recognizing the Civil War dead began not long after the war ended and was observed on May 30th each year. The occasion was also known as Decoration Day.
Over the years, however, the name would change. By the end of World War II, it was commonly called Memorial Day. In 1967, the federal government made it official and changed the name to Memorial Day. It became a time to reflect on all of the servicemen from every branch of the military who died while serving.
Here in our little corner of the South, we celebrate Memorial Day with the rest of the country, but we still honor the original celebration of Decoration as well. Most of my departed family members are buried at Town Creek Cemetery in Rainsville, and today it looked like a scene from a dream. The meticulously manicured landscape was dotted with beautiful flowers of red, pink, yellow, white, purple, and blue.
You gotta love the South.