A couple of nights ago, the old song “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain” got stuck in my brain. i was also thinking about how the sun runs low from Mount Miguel east of our house in Bonita and bends over the Mexican border in the winter.

The thoughts kept gathering, and i thought of how Joel Chandler Harris has been vilified for his wonderful “Uncle Remus” stories and how Faulkner has been praised for his accurate phonetic dialogue of folks in the South who had darker skin tones than mine. i thought of those folks heritage and the deep rooted Christian beliefs that were part of it all, and it all kept rumbling around in my head until this came out.

Another vivid memory was the innumerable road trips my family made to Red Bank, a suburb of Chattanooga to spend the weekend with Aunt Evelyn (my mother’s oldest sister), Uncle Pipey, Nancy, and Johnny Orr. Many of those trips were in the 1956 Oldsmobile Super 88 before AC and prior to any interstate cutting through the beauty of the Tennessee hills and mountains.

We headed out south from the Old Murfreesboro road, an extension of South Maple, caught US 41 east just past Murfreesboro, then a town about twice the size of Lebanon but still a town. We headed southeast through the farmlands and Manchester before hitting the mountain, Monteagle Mountain, that is, where 41 turned into a myriad of switchbacks up to Monteagle, the town on the crest . Heading down, we would pass through Jasper where we always, always, slowed to the speed limit. i think the major cash flow of the town was produced by the sheriff and his deputy who always sat on the city limits awaiting anyone who exceeded the thirty mile speed limit by even a mile: a legend in Tennessee road lore. 41 clung to the side of the Tennessee River, ran below the bluffs of Lookout Mountain and made the turn south on US 27 to Red Bank. That was usually on Friday night with a return on late Sunday afternoon.

The three siblings in the backseat were restless. We picked up many road games.

There was “thank-you-maams.” South Maple and the initial section of Murfreesboro Pike was a series of humps in the road. When the car hit them going pretty fast (our father was never known for going slow), the backseat trio would bounce up and then land again, all yelling, “THANK YOU, MAAM.”

My brother Joe and sister Martha may add a whole bunch of other games, but there are two i remember the most.

The long one that could have lasted the entire trip either way was “Counting Cows.” i’m guessing Joe, the youngest shared the competition with his sister or me. The idea was to count the cows in the fields on your side of the road. i know a white mule counted as five cows and there were other point bonuses, but the big one was if the car passed a cemetery on your side of the road, you lost all of your cows, etc. points. Now, the amazing thing about our game on returning to Lebanon, no matter who had the lead, we would pass Cedar Grove Cemetery on the east and Wilson County Memorial Grounds on the west. Everybody lost.

The other major children’s occupation was singing. There were bunches of them but the one that sticks in my mind was “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.”

She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes;
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes;
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain;
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain;
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes.

She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes;
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes;
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses;
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses;
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes.

And we’ll all go out to greet her when she comes;
Yeah, we’ll all go out to greet her when she comes;
Oh, we’ll all go out to greet her;
Yeah, we’ll all go out to greet her;
We’ll all go out to greet her when she comes

i hope everyone understands this a tribute, not a prejudicial comment. i honestly believe i don’t have a racial prejudiced bone or drop of blood in my body. i’m just not terribly politically correct. After all, i am a pocket of resistance. Sitting here outside in the Southwest corner in the the cool evening, all of this struck me, moved me, and i wrote this:

dun seen it,
i’d dun seen it
swinging low over de mountain
wid a ball of fire ridin’
on de chariot
pulled by de six white hosses
but
she ain’t no Mother Jones
and
de fire am bright
and
de lawd is hauling down
de five-mile road
to glory
hallelujah.