Thoughts About My Father
For Father's Day I thought I'd post an excerpt from a memoir I am writing. A thing I can look at, and do often, is a photo of my father that I took on our last trip together to his hometown of Battle, Alabama in May 2001. It is one of him sitting in a folk art gallery. It was located not far from where he grew up in Russell County, in the southeastern part of the state, not far from the Georgia border. He is sitting in a rocker, relaxed, and smiling. Primitive paintings done by local artists make a colorful backdrop. What I love about this picture of my dad so much is that I had coerced him into taking me to the gallery—really just a somewhat broken down general store run by a white man in his seventies, Frank Turner, who called himself the Mayor of Pittsview. Dad, because he had a father’s heart for a daughter, went along with my "art collecting" shenanigans, and we wound up standing in "The Mayor's" office. If you knew my father, you would know his tas...