Old Country Folk

Salt of the earth souls. The type that work from sunup to sundown on the farm. Honest as the day is long. Quick and eager to help every neighbor in need. Raisin’ chickens and cattle and pigs and horses … and a whole slew of young’uns who are called by both their first and middle name when in trouble.

My Uncle Paul and Aunt Peggy Cross were such folk.

They owned a little ol’ farm way out in Chinquapin Grove, far side of Bluff City toward Holston Mountain. On Sunday after church my family would sometimes drive down to pay ‘em a visit. “Just drive ‘til you get to the last house in the country,” my big sis said.

And it was. The last house in the country. Nothing stood on the other side of it, or behind it, but miles and miles of Cherokee National Forest.

Paul and Peggy could hardly read a newspaper. No, I didn’t say they weren’t smart. Just stated a fact. They were plenty smart. What I call “country smart”. The type of smarts too few seem to have much of nowadays. The type of smarts that cannot be overrated. The type of smarts that keeps someone a step ahead of trouble in an executive board meeting in a big city every bit as much as it does on an old country farm. The type that never goes out of style, or ever becomes outdated.

Paul and Peggy were each endowed with a truly joyous spirit. But each came in different flavors.