Marshall Ramsey

The 1973 Chevrolet Impala station wagon’s passenger door closed with a loud thunk. A little girl in pigtails ran around the front of the car and hugged her father.  They were going on a hike. A father/daughter hike.  All the way to Abrams Falls.

Abrams Falls Trail is one of the most scenic and popular trails in the Great Smoky National Park. Tucked toward the back of Cades Cove, it ‘s a moderately easy five-mile roundtrip hike with a grand payoff: The spectacular site of rushing Abrams Creek pouring over a rock ledge.

They had already had a big day together — just them.  They had been to Gatlinburg earlier in the morning and seen taffy being made. They had skipped rocks together on Little River at the Forks.  Her dad told her stories of how he used to ride horses up in the mountains when he was a little boy.  The tourists from Ohio loved seeing him with his overalls on!  They drove past the grand summer cabins in Elkmont.  “No dear, we’ll never be able to own one of those.” But she didn’t care. The Smokies was just theirs today and no one else’s.

Cades Cove used to be a rural farming community tucked in between the mountains of the Smokies. In the old days, you had to drive an old dirt road over a mountain to get there. But thanks to the National Park Service and the CCC, you could drive right into the Cove and take a beautiful 13-mile loop around it.

Nose prints smudged her dad’s passenger window as she looked for deer. They had seen a mama bear earlier with a cub. (Her dad had told her it would be prudent not to stop and pet it).  She loved it when the car forwarded the small streams that crossed the road.  She and her dad enjoyed a picnic out in a field past the Primitive Baptist Church. Cows looked at them suspiciously as they ate their roast beef sandwiches.

But this was the big event. The hike.  The moment she had been waiting for.  She looked over at Elijah Oliver’s cabin.  Elijah was John Oliver’s son and his primitive cabin had been constructed in 1866.  “Were you a little boy then, dad?”  Her dad laughed as they walked toward the trail head.

Her little lungs burned as they went up and down the hills. “Tired, pumpkin?” Her dad sweetly asked.  They found a rock and sat down. The light, diffused by the leaves of the oaks and maples, caused spots of gold on them as they drank their cold water. Her dad looked almost angelic to her.  “You ready?” he said softly.   They continued on their journey.

The last hill before the falls was too much for her little legs. She was tired and the look on her face betrayed her exhaustion.  “Oh, OK,” her dad feigned in protest. He picked up his daughter and carried her the rest of the way to the end.

They sat there, watching the majesty of the falls, and just made memories as the water spilled over the rocks.

Thirty five years later, the cows were gone but Cades Cove was still there.  A van door slammed shut and a middle-aged woman ran around the front.  She hugged her son.  “You excited?!” she said.

“Yes ma’am!”

They had already had a big day together — just them.  They had been to Gatlinburg earlier in the day and seen taffy being made. They had skipped rocks together on Little River at the Forks.  She told her son about her dad and how he used to ride horses up in the mountains when he was a little boy.

Her dad.  He was gone now, but his spirit still remained — in her heart and at Abrams Falls.  “A lot of water had spilled over the falls since my first hike,” she said to herself.

She grabbed her backpack and her son’s hand. They looked over at The Elijah Oliver Place and headed to the trail head.

They had memories to make.

Lightning bounced off the clouds in the western sky.  Her parents used to tell her it was “heat lightning.” She knew better. It was a coming storm. And a bad one. She secured the livestock and headed toward the house.

The local weatherman was on the TV.  Rotation had been detected in a severe thunderstorm off to the southwest.  She popped open a soft drink and smiled. The weatherman would be fielding lots of nasty phone calls; he was interrupting football.  How dare he?  For just a tornado? The nerve.

Lucky the three-legged beagle limped into the room. Lucky had taken on a Cadillac and the Cadillac won.  The vet said he was lucky and who was she to argue with a vet?  So Lucky got his name.  And an attitude. The only thing that slowed Lucky down was trying to hike his leg.  There was nothing sadder than seeing a three-legged dog tip over at a most vulnerable time.

Thunder rumbled and Lucky howled. You didn’t need a weather radio with Lucky around. He could tell you if a cow farted in Port Gibson.  The first sign of thunder and Lucky was a quivering, barking mess.  The woman turned the TV up louder to drown out the spastic beagle and noticed the weatherman mentioning her county.  The funnel cloud was heading toward her farm.

She put Lucky in his cage and threw him in the safe room.  Lucky would be safe.  She then went outside and sat on the farm house’s huge, wrap-around porch.  Lightning was now more like a strobe light. Night and day were duking it out on his rural Mississippi farm.  Right now, day was winning. It was 9:30 p.m.

The clouds were rolling in like Sherman’s Army marching to the sea. The storm was 10 minutes off.  She pulled out a notebook out of her purse and began to jot down observations.  Winds from the south-southwest.  Inflow feeding the storm from northeast.   She pulled out her cellphone and called her closest neighbor, “The tornado will pass near our places.  You had better take cover. NOW!”  She stuck the phone back in her pocket and scanned the southwest horizon.

There is was. The funnel.  It hadn’t touched the ground yet but was trying.  She watched in awe and fascination as one of the most powerful, fearsome events on the earth headed right toward her.  The finger of God.

She could hear the roar. It sounded like a pulsating jet engine more than it did a freight train. She wondered, “What did they say it sounded like before freight trains?”  Lucky was howling.

Trees began to dance in the wind.  Strobe lightning illuminated the storm as it passed between her and her neighbor’s house.  Limbs and leaves pelted the porch but she just sat there, watching.  Waiting for the storm to pass.

The funnel looked like spinning gray cotton candy.  It rotated slowly, grinding and moaning as it went past.  Baseball-sized hail began to fall, making a deafening roar as it hit the metal roof of the barn. Then buckets of rain poured down.  Lightning illuminated the show. Thunder provided the soundtrack.  The the only sound she could hear was her breathing. The storm had passed.

She slowly got up, walked in, took another soft drink out of the fridge and released Lucky from his crate. The three-legged dog went out on the porch, tried to hike his leg and fell over.  The weatherman on the TV was talking loudly and turning red now.  The storm was heading right toward the TV studio.

Both Lucky and the woman watched the tornado as it headed on toward to Jackson.  The TV station went off the air.

She looked down and patted her right leg. It was artificial.  Like Lucky, she had also survived a run-in — just not with a Cadillac.  She had survived an EF-5 tornado and was found under four feet of what was left of her previous home in Northeast Mississippi.

Sometimes you chase a tornado. Sometimes a tornado chases you. But sometimes you just sit and watch all nature’s power in all her glory. Tonight was one of those nights. She, like her dog, was lucky.

We’re born with a blank canvas.  What we chose to do with our lives determines the outcome of the final portrait.  Will we use bright colors or dark?  Will we have numerous brushstrokes, adding lots of information? Or will be just float through life with just a few dabs of paint?

Every action we take is oil permeating to the canvas.

Saturday, a beautiful portrait was left unfinished. It’s one full of amazing images, vivid colors and bright, sunny brushstrokes.  Renowned Mississippi artist Miriam Weems left this world way too soon at the age of 69.  Her paintings not only pleased the eye; they helped the community.  Her love of animals made it a better world for our four-legged friends as well.

But what I’ll forever remember Miriam for was her smile.  That was her most beautiful brushstroke of all.

Thank you Miriam for sharing your talent — your canvas with us all.  And I know when you got to the Pearly Gates that St. Peter said, “you used your talent well. Thank you for such a beautiful portrait.”

Ten o’clock at night on I-55 in Holmes County, Mississippi is normally very dark and very lonely.  Not tonight.  Headlights were lined up as far as he could see. He was driving south from Memphis. They were driving north from New Orleans.  It looked like the line of cars from the end of the movie of Field of Dreams.

A major hurricane was heading toward the Gulf coast.  And Katrina’smemory was fresh on everyone’s mind.  He leaned over and flipped his car’s radio to WWL out of New Orleans.  “GET OUT!” the radio announcer screamed. From the looks of the traffic, people were heeding his call.

He pulled off in Durant to fill his car’s gas tank  (another lesson learned during Katrina.)  Civilization ground to a halt after that b*tch slammed ashore and gas supplies dried up.  Gas lines in the Jackson area led to fist fights — and worse.  He looked over at the scared family from New Orleans at the pump next to him.  The two small children’s faces pressed against the van’s glass.  A small dog sat barking between them.  And their mother’s eyes were bloodshot red as she pumped gas.  Six years later, their worst nightmare was replaying.  He slid his credit card in the pump and began to refill his tank.

The full moon  lit the night sky.  He could see the clouds whipping past the moon from the east. This was very unusual. Mississippi’s weather normally came from the south or the west.  This was another bad omen.   A warm breeze blew across his face. It felt like dog’s breath.  The Gulf was marching in. The Category 5 storm’s invasion would be here in 48 hours.

The last time, during Katrina, he had a front row seat for the storm — and ended up swimming for his life.  The water had swallowed his Waveland home and his parents with it.  He, by sheer dumb luck, escaped the collapsing house and swam to a tree.  The debris. The screams. The wind. The death. The six years of nightmares.  Six years of guilt. Rinse and repeat.

He looked at the lady pumping gas again. He completely understood why her eyes were red.  He nodded and she nodded back. Only a Katrina survivor would understand.

The gas pump spit out a receipt and he hopped back in his car.  He turned out of the station and then south on I-55.  He put in his favorite Jimmy Buffett CD  in the stereo and cranked the volume.  And as he headed toward the storm, the song “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season” came on.

Squalls out on the Gulfstream,
Big storms coming soon.
I passed out in my hammock,
God, I slept way past noon.
Stood up and tried to focus,
I hoped I wouldn’t have to look far.
I knew I could use a Bloody Mary,
So I stumbled next door to the bar.

Sleep would come tonight. And so would the nightmares.  But he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever learn to reason with hurricane season.  He was tired of trying.

He reached over to the passenger seats where his parent’s urns sat and patted them.  “We’re going home mom and dad. We’re going home.”