Pictures from the past
By A. Ray Lee
“Daddy, what was it like growing up on the farm?”
The question came from my daughter Jenny as she, her young children and I were visiting a museum featuring exhibits portraying life in early 20th-century rural Alabama. One section of the exhibit featured life-sized paintings of the rural South during and after the Great Depression.
An artist had graphically portrayed a picture of a barn yard where sweat-soaked mules rolled in the dust for relief after a long day of work in the fields.
Another painting showed a late-afternoon scene when cows had gathered near feed troughs, lowing to be fed and milked. Mule-drawn farm implements of the era were scattered against a sagging fence. Off to the side was a pig pen, where two or three fattening hogs were waiting to be slopped.
A large mural showed an autumn scene with an old weather-beaten house that was missing planks on its sides. A window pane had been replaced by cardboard. Broken steps led up to a porch that had gaps in its floor.
The house was crowned with a leaking rusty tin roof.
In another autumn scene, a cotton patch bordered a small yard that had been swept clean with a brush broom. I was lost in thought as I gazed at the seemingly unending rows of open cotton bolls.
I remembered all too well the reality that had inspired the artist.
As an infant and young child, I had lived in four different sharecroppers’ houses. I could only clearly remember experiences in two of those houses, but those memories persisted for years after my parents had been able to buy a farm of their own and construct a small-but-comfortable dwelling.
In my lifetime, the farm landscape has drastically changed.
The old houses have been replaced with attractive and comfortable dwellings. Mules have been retired in favor of ever-increasingly-modern tractors. The old farming equipment has been turned into scrap iron except for a few relics rusting in flea markets and scrap yards.
I realize that which had been so real to those of my parents’ generation has now faded into a dim memory, only occasionally revisited by those of us who have long outlived our promised three score and ten years.
But there are important things that remain the same.
Values have been passed down to children and grandchildren – many of whom have retained a work ethic and a sense of self sufficiency. They love God, their county and their neighbors. They say “hi” to the strangers they meet. They are active in community affairs and work for the benefit of all. They are always ready to give a helping hand where it is needed. They give generously to worthy causes. They worship regularly and support the missions of their church.
Some things have changed, but for many, values have endured.
I have been blessed to be able to live in north Alabama, where I have spent 60 years in ministry with those of kindred spirit.
