Ethyl remembers Mississippi thunderstorms.

Rain!  How much we need rain.  The South is hot and parched right now.  The grass is crunchy and the vegetable plants in the garden have to be watered every night just to keep them alive.  Summers in the South without enough rainfall are murder.  They kill all the living things growing in the yard and they come pretty close to devastating the human population also.
I remember summer thunderstorms when I was a child growing up in Tishomingo County, Mississippi.  The earth would become dry and parched and there would be a weariness that hung over both the animal and human population.  The old dogs would try and find as much shade as they possibly could and then they would just lay there and pant, waddling up occasionally to take a sip or two of the water that had been left out for them, even though by mid day that water would be warm enough to make a cup of instant coffee.
Everything started to suffer.  The animals in the barnyard didn't move any more than absolutely necessary.  The frisky calves that had been so bouncy and full of themselves in the spring, by the summer heatwave had pretty much calmed down.  Not as much as the old jerseys who barely moved, but still, greatly reduced from their former liveliness.
The old hens who pecked at the worms and insects in the grass, that was by now pretty much parched and withered, seemed to go about this task in slow motion.  The entire world we lived in had slowed down.  We spent a lot of time on the front porch or under the big shade tree in the front yard, trying to keep cool with either a glass of lemonade or super sweet iced tea.  The old ice trays came out of the freezer much more often and went in again in a flash when we had totally emptied them in a quick movement of the hands.  We  never seemed to have enough ice until the summer we got the big freezer.  Then we started freezing it in big plastic bowls and dumping it into a large dishpan where we beat it to death with a large metal spoon.  Enough beats and we had all kinds of ice to go in our huge goblet ice tea glasses.  It also served very well as a means to cool our bodies to a slight degree.  We dumped huge chunks of ice in a wash tub, filled it with water and submerged our feet and legs in it.  Whee!  I can still feel the chill go up my back from that  icy cold impact of flesh on ice.
Clouds would start to gather, at first gray and on the horizon, and then a short while later, black and ominous as they postured themselves over our heads.  The first thing would be the thunder, followed by the streaks of lightening as it shot forth out of the sky.  The first drops of rain that fell on the freshly plowed Mississippi red clay would smell so like the earth itself, and tiny puffs of steam would rise from the parched earth.  Then the rain would start.  Like the heavens themselves had opened up.  We would make our way from what we were doing, either work or play, and head for the house.  The old country house had a porch that went across the front and we could sit under it and hear the rain as it beat on the tin roof.  There is no other sound on earth like that of rain on a tin roof.  It stirs all kinds of emotions in a kid.
The air itself would be full of the smell of the rain, as it watered and brought back life to our parched corner of the earth. The air would cool, the puddles would fill, and then when it was over, often a gorgeous rainbow would appear.  Is was as if all the life, both plant and animal, would perk up and drink deeply of this precious fluid from the sky.
I remember one particular summer day when my mother and I had gone to the garden to pick some green beans.  It was hot and dry and we so needed rain.  The sky blackened, the lightening flashed, and the rain started.  We ran across the road from the garden and got under the porch where we waited for the rain to cease.  I must have been about ten years old but I remember it like it was yesterday.  When the rain had come and gone the most beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky.  As I stood and admired it, my mother told me of the rainbow covenant God made with Noah to never again destroy the earth with water.  Over fifty years later I can still hear her voice and feel the wonder of a small child as I listened to her.  And today I am so thankful for the rains from heaven that bring back life to a parched earth and for a mother who taught me to believe in a loving Creator who looks after us all.

Ethyl remembers Mayberry.

I haven't written much lately.  Just haven't had much to say, I guess.  But today I kind of feel compelled to share a memory.  A memory of an old Zenith television with a small screen on which we watched shows like Dragnet and Perry Mason and Leave it to Beaver.  And of course the Andy Griffith show.
My oldest brother was working in Chicago and he bought the television for us.  We could only get three channels and two of them were snowy with poor reception.  We had an old outside antenna that had to be turned if we wanted to change the channel, so somebody had to run outside and manually swing the pole around so we could get a half way decent picture.  That was alright if the weather was good, but it was murder if it was raining or coming a thunder storm.  We would all gather around the tiny little set and there was no debating what we would watch.  We would watch whatever happened to be on if we could pick up a half way decent picture.
Andy Griffith died today.  And I couldn't help thinking about how that show represented a much simpler time.  A time when little old ladies made pickles to enter in the county fair and people sit on their front porches sometimes in the evenings and played guitars and sang old songs.  When the biggest problem the townspeople had to worry about was who would sing in the Fourth of July celebration or which baby would win the prettiest baby contest.  Poor Andy had been appointed the judge for the contest and all the mothers in town started bringing him gifts of food and other goodies to ensure their baby was picked.  Andy, in his wisdom, choose the ugliest baby.  Since every woman knew their baby was far prettier and it was merely an act of kindness on Andy's part to pick that ugly baby, they all went away happy, secure in the knowledge their baby was really the winner.  Or the lesson Opie learned when he killed the mother bird and he ended up having to care for her babies himself.  Or Barney Fife and his talent for always putting his foot in his mouth.. 'Nip it in the bud', Barney, with his one bullet and his inability to ever get his gun out of his holster.
The people who lived in Mayberry were real characters, in more than one sense.  They were allowed to grow and develop on the show as it moved out of the early sixties, a time when the world changed forever.  We the audience were allowed to see them grow and change and really get to know them.  They were characters in another sense too, in the fact they were all originals.  No two alike.  People we could relate to and in a way see ourselves in.
And our tv sets changed too. The screens got larger and black and white morphed into color.  I remember back in the mid sixties when color was first being introduced and there were just a few shows to start with that were in color.  One of the first was Bonanza.  The Cartwrights would ride across the screen with the Nevada territory map burning in the background and that theme song blaring in our ears.  Man, how I loved that show.  And the announcement was always made  'the following program is brought to you in living color on NBC'.  And the NBC peacock would appear with his full color wing span.
Rest in peace, Andy.  You made us laugh and you made us cry and you made us think and you kept us entertained.  And those of us who were around to see the original shows will never forget you.