TIES THAT BIND

Miz Barbara greets you today from the shores of the Gulf (of Mexico that is, in case you're not from the South). I'm only here in my mind, of course, as I'm writing clear across the country from these warm waters and white sands I've been involved with since I was age two. I came here with Daddy and Mama but the only pictures I have show me with Daddy--picking up logs and shells washed in by the sea. MM has never seen these beaches and she's longed for some such adventure all her dreaming years. But when Aunt Lutie up and died and left her the only eating place in Harts Corner (and the price of an off-the-freeway cafe not worth two bits), she had no way to leave town.

Harts Corner, of course, is a made up town--one I created from bits and pieces of the town I was born in and others in the county. I drew on my kin--aunts, uncles, cousins--for the story people I molded. I can't say as how there are any real loonies on the family tree but there were certainly some "odd" folks.

Like Uncle Gat who had a raspy voice and always swore to us kids that swallowing the lid to the syrup pitcher caused the sound. There was Jimmy Jack who was a guard over at the State Pen in Huntsville; he gave we young cousins a tour of the room that held the electric chair, and grinned at us as he made a show of polishing the wooded back and seat of "Ol Sparky."

Aunt Corinne was a beautician who kept her nose in a "movie magazine" on more than one occasion to the detriment of her customers. Those old-fashioned wire curlers will singe the hair right off your head--usually in little patches until you look like a mangy dog. Way back in the early 1800's, one of our kin married a Muskogee/Creek Indian in Alabama and almost got himself killed in a massacre by some of her kin--I'm kind of proud of that lineage. Then there's the documented fact that we have the infamous Jessie James on our family tree--now my sister doesn't want anyone to know that fact so ya'll keep that little secret, won't you?

So I guess we, and Harts Corner, have those characters in the midst of our lives. If they didn't, we'd sure have fewer tales to tell, that's for sure.

And about this sharing. You readers can certainly tell me about your family, or some homefolks who could make themselves right at home in Harts Corner. I'd love to hear all about them. They might even end up in my next novel...names changed, of course. Let me hear from you.