China Grove

Today I met DennyJ, Mimi, and Grandad in Tuscaloosa and we drove out to Hale County. The second Sunday of September is Homecoming Sunday at China Grove, the church my great-grandmother MawMaw grew up in. It's out in the middle of nowhere on a no-room-for-two-cars-to-pass kind of road in a there-ain't-no-indoor-plumbing-to-be-found kind of setting:

It's a pretty drive, though. We got there early enough to sit in the church and listen to some note singing. I'm fascinated by note singing. Although I can read the music, I can't keep up with the pace of the songs so I have to just listen. It's a cool experience to sit in this simple wooden church with no air-conditioning, with all the windows opened, and listen to these people sing.

I found myself today wondering where MawMaw liked to sit, if she sang along at the top of her lungs, or if she was a silent "appreciater" like me. I also started wondering what will become of this pretty little church as the years go by.

The number of folks showing up dwindles every year. Grandad talks a lot about the huge crowd that used to show up years and years ago. I vaguely remember going when I was little, and I thought it was so cool to have "dinner on the grounds". MawMaw would help fix our plates. She would whisper to us whose food we wanted to eat and whose food would "make you sick as a dog". We would sit on the ground or on the hood of a car to eat our lunch. Once I hit my teenage years I realized, "Hey! Nobody can make me go to this anymore!" And I didn't. I was far too cool for such things. I'm glad I'm not too cool anymore.