Expired statute of limitations allows history of epiphany

        Do you ever wonder why you choose a certain career? Here’s why I didn’t follow in my father’s footsteps:

        The moonlight peeked through the pines, just enough to see a man writhing on the ground. It was there, in 1967, holding one end of an ambulance stretcher, that I had an epiphany. 

        I didn’t know that’s what you called “a moment of sudden intuitive understanding or flash of insight,” but I had one. And I was ignorant about the legal statute of limitations, too.

        Ten minutes earlier, my feet were under our family’s supper table. 

        Over roast beef, potatoes, carrots, English peas and Mother’s cornbread, we had been discussing my after-college future. I was toying with a pre-law degree, but maybe I’d be a funeral director. 

        Mostly, I was trying to navigate the core curriculum and foreign language at UGA. As I was moaning about Spanish, the phone rang.

        There was a wreck on a country road. My dad and I dropped our forks. We dashed to the backed-in ambulance in the driveway. In those days, funeral homes provided emergency medical services, minus training and regulations. 

        The customary charges ranged from $3 to $10 per call. I doubt NeSmith-Harrison Funeral Home got a dime for what we did that night.

        As Big Dink eased the ambulance down the sloping embankment, the crowd parted. 

        A car had straightened out the curve and crashed into a pine tree. The driver was squirming on the ground and cursing with whiskey-heavy breath. 

        When my dad kneeled to calm the man, the fellow spewed language that would curl the bark on a chinaberry tree. “Easy, easy,” Big Dink said. And with that, the drunk swung an angry fist and missed.

        Once again, my dad assured the man that we were there to help him and to transport him to the hospital. Even in the faint light, it was obvious injuries, if any, were minor.

        With the cot lowered next to the ground, Big Dink instructed me to gently grab the man’s ankles. My dad slipped his hands under the fellow’s shoulders. We lifted him onto the mattress. 

        And with that, the drunk balled his fist and took another wild swing, letting loose a stream of “Sweet Old Boys.”

        My dad was a consummate professional.

        But enough was enough. 

Big Dink reached over, helped the drunk off the cot and said, “You can take yourself to town.”

Onlookers pleaded, “Please, Mr. NeSmith, take him to the hospital.” 

We reloaded the patient and raced toward town.

But it wasn’t a non-stop trip. 

About a mile down the road, the drunk lifted up on his elbows, cursing us, again. 

Big Dink stopped the vehicle, turned and said, “Mister, if you want to ride in this ambulance, you are going to have to lie down and be quiet.” 

When the inebriated fellow flopped back and zipped his lips, I thought: “Well, maybe that’s the end of it.”

Wrong.

As I was opening the ambulance’s back door at the Wayne Memorial Hospital, the drunk scrambled out. After another volley of profanity, he staggered, shook his fist and barked, “See you in court!”

“See you there,” Big Dink said.

In silence, we drove back to our cold supper.

The I’ll-see-you-in-court threat never materialized. But the experience was the beginning of my epiphany.

As much as I loved my father, I knew I would seek another profession. After 59 years, the legal statute of limitations has expired. 

And now you know why today I am pecking these keys and not driving a hearse or hauling belligerent drunks.

Rhett’s ‘that something special’ spurs music career

        Artificial intelligence (AI) is today’s rage.

It’s so powerful, so futuristic.

But, hey, there’s something just as powerful that can drive us into our futures. It’s called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

DNA is hard to hide. Think about your own DNA and how it has affected your life. I can see traits of my family’s DNA, separately and swirled together. Big Dink was driven. Mother was diplomatic. Great-grandpa Ezra McNeal was a pint-sized mule farmer but fearless. His daughter and my grandmother, Essie, could spin a yarn with the best of the dirt-road sports. I guess all this defines me as a “duke’s mixture.”

Let me tell you about my young friend, Rhett Ammons, who cannot hide his great-grandfather James Harper’s DNA. 

James was on my personal board of directors. And a role model who—deep into his 90s—climbed the stairs to his business office. Days before he died, at 96, I sat by his hospital bed for our last conversation. We laughed. We cried. Later that week, I was honored to deliver his eulogy.

The family of Rhett Ammons declares that he is a modern-day version of his great-grandfather James. Rhett, a junior at Nashville’s Belmont University, has the unmistakable drive, mannerisms, visionary business savvy, wit and heart of the father of his grandmother Peggy Harper Riggins. 

James might have been short in stature, but he proved you don’t have to be 9 feet tall to be a giant. I have this prediction about Rhett. 

He will become a giant in the music industry. When he was 12—battling a health issue—Rhett discovered music, “turning vulnerability into a strength.” Since then, he’s pushed himself to become the complete package: songwriter, singer, musician, marketer and businessman.

Riding around Oglethorpe County, Rhett explained that today it takes more than a good song to be a hit and/or make you a star. You must be as gifted in marketing as you are at the microphone or with your guitar. Rhett knows all the digital age’s magic buttons to push. With that, I can’t help him any more than I can strum a guitar or wow a crowd with my singing.

But I know this:

When you are climbing the stairsteps to your dreams, it’s a plus to have someone shining a light on your path. That’s why my brain said, “Call Gary Hill.” Gary and Charlotte’s Oak Ridge Farm is in Smithonia, too. We were friends long before silver tinted our hair. 

Gary’s first cousin, Byron, with a stack of No. 1 songs to his credit, is a Music City legend. In 2018 he was inducted into Nashville’s Songwriters Hall of Fame.

A phone call to my down-the-road neighbor, Gary, was all it took. Bryon was eager to welcome Rhett. Their chemistries clicked. Byron has become a mentor to Rhett, much as James was to me. Bryon is opening doors, and they are writing songs together.

Here’s what Byron told me:

“Sometimes in the music business, you meet a young person, and you know that they have that something special that is going to make a difference. When I met Rhett, I knew he was one of those people. His songwriting, his artistry, and his keen sense of how to get things done are impressive.”

One of our stops on the ride-around was at Crawford’s G Brand BBQ. Rhett met restaurateur Fred Gretsch, whose great-great-grandfather founded the world-famous Gretsch Company. Among the stars who have performed with Gretsch instruments are George Harrison of the Beatles; drummer Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones; and guitarists Chet Atkins, Duane Eddy and Eddie Cochran. I smiled, watching Rhett and Fred banter back and forth. 

During our countryside rambling, I called Randall Bramblett. He and I became buddies as 3-year-olds, pushing Tonka trucks in the sandbox of his mother and aunt’s Jack & Jill Kindergarten. 

Randall is just back from another tour with Steve Winwood. Their friendship and collaboration spans decades. Randall has spent his life songwriting and performing. As the different generations from Jesup chatted, I could sense the two clicked, too.

Another highlight of our visit—especially for me—was to push a button and say, “Play Rhett Ammons.” Just like that, the music of the fellow riding shotgun was filling the cab of my Sierra. And with each song, Rhett gave me a little of the backstory. 

Did I have a favorite? Maybe “Best Mistake I Ever Made.” If you’d like to listen to Rhett, click on whatever platform streams music.

When we rolled to a stop in Smithonia, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. But Rhett was going to Athens to meet his parents, Steve and Jodi Ammons, and his brother, Riggs, who is a pharmacy student at UGA. 

Rhett’s family is right.

        You can’t hide James Harper’s DNA in his great-grandson.

And we don’t need AI to tell us that Rhett is destined for musical success.

Byron Hill already knows Rhett Ammons has “that something special.” 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com

UGA legend Charley Trippi was surprised by this accolade

(Note: This column will be included in my upcoming book, People Die Twice, Second Time Stories Stop.)

Who’s the best Bulldog to ever play football for Georgia?

My generation would probably say, “Herschel Walker.”

But the “Greatest Generation” and plenty more history-savvy fans will bark, “Charley Trippi!” 

One barking that claim in the 1940s was a strapping farm boy turned soldier in the Philippines. And when the Japanese surrendered, Lamar Shirah couldn’t wait to get back behind the plow in Mitchell County. But he wanted to make one more trip, first chance he got. Lamar had been following the gridiron phenom Charley Trippi.

So, when his pal Buddy Davis planted the idea of going to Atlanta to see Charley play, Lamar couldn’t drop his plow lines fast enough. On Dec. 1, 1945, at Grant Field, they witnessed a Trippi-led team wallop Georgia Tech, 33-0.

Lamar couldn’t have been happier, he thought.

But on the way home—at a traffic light between Macon and Fort Valley—something caught his eye: two young women in the car ahead of them. Guys being guys and girls being girls, they struck up a conversation out of the windows of their cars. 

Lamar and Buddy asked the beautiful ladies whether they’d like to ride around. Willene Lavender replied, “My daddy told me to never ride with strangers, but you can follow us to Wheeler’s Drug Store in Fort Valley.”

After chatting over Cokes at the soda fountain, Lamar asked, again, “Would you ladies like to ride around with us?”

Willene countered, “Thanks, but I live just two blocks from here. Would you like to come and meet my parents?” Lamar and Buddy took up the offer and followed them to the Lavender home on Peachtree Street.

When Willene started to introduce Lamar and Buddy, she blushed. She couldn’t remember their names. Never bashful, Lamar stuck out his calloused hand and said, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Lamar Shirah from Hopeful, Georgia, and this is my friend Buddy Davis.” 

So far, so good.

Mrs. Lavender said, “You fellows must be hungry.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with sandwiches. 

As the visit stretched into the afternoon, it was apparent the farmers weren’t in a hurry to get back to Southwest Georgia and their mules. And Charlie and Meddie Lavender were warming up to the two just-home Army veterans who had appeared with their daughter and her friend. 

Lamar asked Willene, “Is there a place we can take you and Elaine to supper?” Heads nodded, and the foursome was off to Fay’s Restaurant in Macon. At 10:30 that evening, the Lavenders were waiting for Willene and Elaine to return with Lamar and Buddy.

Before the plowboys headed home, they exchanged addresses and telephone numbers with their new acquaintances. 

The first impression was powerful enough that Lamar was back in Fort Valley the next week. Serious courting began, as Lamar began the back-and-forth trips to see Willene. Because his car didn’t have a heater, he’d wrap warm bricks in towels to keep himself from freezing during the cold commutes.

On Nov. 23, 1947, Willene and Lamar exchanged vows. Elaine sang at her best friend’s wedding. And Buddy was Lamar’s best man.

The new bride left asphalt and streetlights to move into a shanty—minus indoor plumbing—down a washboard dirt road. When Willene’s parents made their first visit to Shirahland, her dad said, “Sister, it must be love. Because there ain’t another damn thing down here.”

Charlie Lavender, the prosperous businessman, was right about love. But he was wrong about the couple’s future. Lamar became one of the most successful farmers in Mitchell and adjoining counties. 

With his own hands, he built a house—many times expanded—for his wife and four children: Pam, Ray, Tim and Krista. In that home, the two former strangers—who had met at a traffic light—shared their love for 73 years. They died under that roof within 60 days of each other in 2020.

Years ago, I was invited to enjoy Tuesday breakfasts with a small group, mostly long-ago UGA baseball lettermen. I am one of the few that hadn’t played for their coach, Big Jim Whatley. The magnet drawing us together was Charley Trippi. The stories swapped could fill books.

Long before Charley died in 2022, at age 100, I told him how Lamar met Willene. I thanked him for inspiring my future father-in-law to go see him play football. Without Charley, there would not have been that farmer’s daughter for me to meet at UGA and later marry in 1969. 

And that was one accolade Georgia’s greatest athlete never knew he had. 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com

Dove season’s opening day is Christmas morning in September

        The opening day of dove season for our seven grandsons is as exciting as Christmas morning. The preparation and anticipation are almost as much fun as the real thing.

Almost, but not quite.

You don’t sit on your hands until the last minute and then say, “Let’s have a dove shoot on Saturday.” 

Oh, no.

The planning and the work begin months in advance. This year, we added sunflowers to go along with the traditional crop of brown-top millet. Timing is everything. 

And then, there’s the looming question: “Will it rain at the right times?”

For two years in a row, drought and pigweed infestation hammered our opening-day hopes into disappointing duds—cancellations. 

But hallelujah, not this year. All the good-luck stars were aligned.

Grandsons and their dads were ready for legal shooting, 30 minutes before sunrise on Sept. 5.

The evening before, it was pow, pow, pow, as clay pigeons were launched and burst over the back pasture. Everyone wanted to make sure they hadn’t lost their shooting skills since last season.

As for me, Grandpa was scrambling to check off details on the to-do list. 

On Saturday morning, I didn’t wait for the 5 o’clock alarm to sound. My feet were on the floor long before. Coffee had to be hot by 6. And if the boiled peanuts were going to be ready by mid-morning, the flame had to be lit by 5. 

Hunters are famously hungry.

Coffee, orange juice, bananas, apples, oranges, doughnuts and granola bars got them fueled for the walk into the dove field. Awaiting their return was a mountain of hot cathead sausage biscuits. And more coffee and juice. 

But the most popular drink was ice-cold water. Oh my, it was as hot as the door hinges of Hades.

By 9:30, family and friends were transitioning from catheads to boiled peanuts. I insist on boiling only green Valencia peanuts from Hardy Farms in Hawkinsville. And I don’t skimp on the Morton salt. 

Yeah, I know. We’re supposed to go easy on the salt. But on opening day of dove season, I think it’s all right to loosen the doctor’s rules. 

Doctors tell us to go easy on fried foods, too. But I don’t think they’ve tasted our son Alan’s swamp recipe for fried catfish nuggets or his hushpuppies. Country folks declare, “They’re “fittin’.” 

Son-in-law Tom was the fry cook’s helper. Don’t forget the cheese grits and coleslaw. And gallons of sweet tea and lemonade.

Eventually, it was time—for those who wanted to sweat some more—to hike back to the dove field. 

Some of us comfortably witnessed the Dawgs gnaw up Tennessee State, courtesy of air conditioning. I kind of felt guilty in such comfort. But not too much. 

By game’s end, Alan was out of the field and getting the griddle hot. Another of his specialties are double-stacked cheese smashburgers with toasted buns. 

Meanwhile, grandsons were peppering me, “Grandpa, when are you going to make swamp sherbet?” 

It’s a family favorite: a 2-liter of Orange Crush and a can of Eagle Brand condensed milk. Twenty minutes later, delightful. Especially on a nearly 100-degree day.

An hour after sundown, the doves were cleaned and all the pots scrubbed. The highlights of the hunt and the verbal replays of Georgia’s victory were winding down. 

As I watched taillights disappear down the gravel road, I thought of three things:

• A hot shower
• A soft pillow
• But most of all, the memories made on a Christmas morning in September.

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com

Hinson’s last phone call was powerful, from his heart

 (Editor’s note: Hinson Mosley called last month. I didn’t need caller ID. His voice was distinctive. I say “was.” Hinson died Sept. 1. When I learned of his death, I reflected on our last conversation. Hinson was bedridden and fading. Now I realize my friend was calling and saying, “Goodbye.” His last words were, “I love you and your family.” Powerful and from his heart. That was Hinson. Here’s what I wrote, in 2020, as the foreword to his book God Knew). 

        Looks can be deceiving. If you’re meeting Hinson Mosley for the first time—and he’s dressed in sweat-stained denim—you might make a mistake by thinking you are looking at a fellow who hasn’t strayed too far from the plow hitched behind his mule. And if you aren’t careful, you might think that again when he speaks in his signature aw-shucks monotone. 

But stop right there, or you’ll be going down the wrong dirt road.

Hinson is proud that his roots are deep in rural Georgia’s soil. He’s felt the prick of sharp cotton hulls as he’s plucked the fluffy white bolls from stalk after stalk on rows seeming to reach the horizon. He’s no stranger to back-breaking labor or grease under his fingernails. Put a wrench in his hands, and Hinson knows where and how to turn it. 

For the people who know—really know—Hinson Mosley, they saw something more than a master pulp-mill instrument technician or dawn-to-dusk farmer/mechanic. His slow-speaking tone didn’t fool them at all. They saw and heard more, much more. Those are the people who encouraged him to do more than fix industrial or agricultural equipment. They wanted him to go to Atlanta and take his commonsense wrench to what needed fixing in state government. That’s how Hinson came to represent his District 171 constituents in Georgia’s House of Representatives.

I had known Hinson for years, but I knew his in-laws better. During my college summers, I worked for his future father-in-law, Don Lawson. Don was general manager of Rayonier. In the late 1980s I was director of the Adult 1 Sunday School Department, and Don was my Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church. We served as fellow deacons.

In 1974 Hinson married Linda Lawson. Linda had taught with my wife, Pam, at Jesup’s Orange Street Elementary School. For 50-plus years, Pam has worn the diamond that I bought with my $2.725-per-hour pulp-mill paychecks. 

When First Baptist Church on Brunswick Street opened its door, the Lawsons and NeSmiths had our customary pews. I can still hear the way Linda’s mother, Irene, livened up the sanctuary when she sat down at the organ. Improvising as she went up and down the keyboard, Irene could knock the dust off musty old hymns. 

When Hinson ran for public office, I got to know him better.

I remember our first conversation about his candidacy. His opponent was one of my boyhood Sunday school teachers. Hubert Howard was also my personal and corporate attorney. Hinson said, “I know you’ve got to support Hubert, but I have one request. If you can’t help me, please don’t hurt me.” We shook hands, and the rest is history. Hinson went to Atlanta, and Hubert kept on being my attorney, trusted adviser and friend.

In time, Hinson and I got to know each other as friends, too. When he calls, I know that he has been thinking about an idea. In his unrushed, pensive way, he trusts me to be a sounding board, and I’m always ready to listen.

I’ve always believed there’s a book in every life. For years, Hinson has talked about putting his story between the covers of a book. Somewhere along the way, Hinson quit talking and teamed with his wife and Joy Waters Fowler to make his dream come true. He drilled into the Great Depression and the day—Oct. 21, 1932—that he was born. From that start, Hinson layered story after story into a thick and very readable stack of memories.

As you turn the pages, you will discover why God Knew is the perfect title. Just days into this world, pneumonia almost robbed the author of the next 88 years. Hinson is convinced the Lord had other plans. God knew—He really knew—where the Honorable Hinson Mosley was going in life. 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com

Telling their stories keeps people ‘alive’

By Will Bacon

     Growing up in Wayne County, Georgia, meant growing up among people whose names and 

personalities became part of the landscape itself.

     Jesup and the Oglethorpe community were the center of my world, but Wayne County stretched into 

Gardi, Screven, Odum, the Altamaha River, pine forests, farms and dirt roads. What I remember most 

now, though, are the people who gave those places life.

     

     As a boy, I worked for Ralph Smith at Jesup Pharmacy as a “soda jerk.” Later, I topped, suckered 

and helped string tobacco near Beck’s Dairy. I loaded and hauled watermelons for my Uncle Tyler 

Surrency. As I got older, I worked at S&R Men’s Shop with Mr. Jimmy Sullivan and Don Miller, 

helping sell Gant shirts, Hart Schaffner & Marx suits, and Bass Weejuns.

     At the time, I thought I was simply working.

     Looking back, I realize I was being introduced to Wayne County through its people.

     Each of those people had their own way of doing things, his own expectations, his own personality, 

and his own place in the community. They taught me lessons without announcing them as lessons. You 

learned by watching. You learned to show up, to work, to speak to people, to treat customers well, and 

to understand that your name and your word mattered.

     My own family was part of that same fabric. Early in their careers, both of my parents taught at 

Piney Grove School, where Dad also served as principal. Dad was also a minister, and I often tagged 

along when he stopped by the funeral home to visit the family of a church member or friend who had 

died. Dink’s father was the undertaker and funeral director, so the connection between our families 

goes back many years.

     I did not understand it then, but funeral homes were places where stories were told. People gathered 

to remember what someone had done, something funny they had said, how they had helped another 

person, or simply what it had meant to know them.

     Years later, after college, I returned to Wayne County, married a wonderful Cherokee Lake 

sweetheart, and went to work at Rayonier alongside Bob McCrary and Gerald DeWitt. Angie worked 

for Glenna Parker, who had taken over the insurance business where she herself had worked for 

“Snooky” Littlefield. Once again, our lives were intertwined with familiar Wayne County names and 

stories. Eventually, education and opportunity carried our family elsewhere.

     But the people of Wayne County traveled with me.

     In my own work as a minister and marriage and family therapist, I have heard thousands of stories. 

Over time, I have come to understand that our stories are one of the ways we keep one another alive.

Ralph Smith and Uncle Tyler, Jimmy Sullivan and Don Miller, Bob McCrary and Gerald DeWitt, 

Glenna Parker and Snooky Littlefield—these names and so many others belong to the Wayne County I 

remember. Some are gone now, but when I speak their names and remember the lessons, laughter, work 

and ordinary days we shared, they are present again.

     In People Die Twice, Dink helps us understand why those stories matter. We die once when life 

leaves us, but there is another kind of death that comes when our names are no long spoken and our 

stories are no longer told.

     So we tell them.

Will Bacon is a retired minister and the son of the late Rev. James E. and Nanelle Bacon. The following was written as the foreword of Dink NeSmith’s upcoming book, People Die Twice, Second Time Stories Stop.

Alabama foot log was original link to our families

     Two girls were born in “the other LA”—Lower Alabama—in 1900.

     The McNeal family lived on one side of a tea-colored creek.

     The Mercer family lived on the opposite bank. 

     Before mothers ever tied bows onto the pigtails of their daughters, Essie McNeal and Katie Mercer spawned a friendship that spanned 80-plus years. 

     When the girls were 10 years old, Ezra McNeal and Will Mercer hitched their mules to wagons. And with a pop of the reins, they rolled toward “Jawja,” where they had heard schools were better. 

     Pulling up to the Flint River, Will drove his wagon onto a ferry and settled in Mitchell County. My great-grandpa, Ezra, clucked to his mules and ordered, “Whoa,” on the west side, in Baker County.

     Essie and Katie stayed in touch through marriage, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And one of their most memorable visits was in 1968, sipping Christmastime eggnog.

     But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

     Eleven months earlier, I had been frazzled as rush chairman for my UGA fraternity. Over Sunday lunch, I realized I didn’t have a date for that night’s party for our new pledges. In mid-bite, I dropped a piece of fried chicken and announced, to no one in particular, “I don’t have a date.” 

     Spunky Good, from Camilla (Mitchell County), piped up, “I know just the girl. She’s a beautiful freshman. She’s a good friend of my sister Ouida. Want me to call her?”

     “Thanks,” I said, “I can do that.” 

     Spinning the blind-date roulette wheel was my only option. Back then, you phoned Brumby Hall’s front desk. The receptionist scanned a list of 1,000 names and rang the room. Pamela Leigh Shirah answered the phone.

     If she hadn’t told me what she would be wearing, I could not have found Pam among the throng of coeds in the high-rise dormitory’s rotunda. 

     Spunky was right. 

     She was special. 

     Then came the second date. 

     We sat on steps in the coliseum’s nosebleed section to watch our Bulldogs take on basketball phenomenon Pistol Pete Maravich and his LSU Tigers. With a hook shot from half court, among other feats, the Pistol was dazzling. But I was being bedazzled by the hazel-eyed brunette sitting beside me.

     Now, back to that eggnog sipping at Shirahland, Pam’s dad’s farm. 

     Pam and her family remembered me as a 12- and 13-year-old, when I had attended Hopeful Baptist Church with my Uncle Billy’s family. I lived with them for two summers, while working in Riverview Plantation’s tobacco patches. 

     And during that Yule gathering, our grandmothers, Essie and Katie, told us how our two families were linked. As young girls, they scooted back and forth to each other’s houses over a foot log that stretched across the creek.

     Then came the spring of Pam’s sophomore year. 

     She called her folks and announced we’d be coming for a weekend visit.

     When we arrived Friday night, Pam’s dad stayed up past his bedtime. He was expecting me to bring up “the subject.” About 11 p.m., he said, “Good night.” And he went looking for his pajamas.

     After Saturday’s breakfast, her dad asked whether I’d like to check on the crops. In his 1966 pea-green Ford pickup, we rode for three hours, looking and talking. And as he pulled back into the yard, under the pecan tree, he looked at me and said, “Don’t you have something you want to ask me?”

     “Yes, sir. I’d like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

     “Well, I have two questions. First, do you love Pam?”

     “Yes, sir, I do love Pam.”

      “How to you plan to take care of her?”

     “I wish that I could tell you how we will manage. But I have always believed that where there’s a will, there’s a way. I promise to take care of Pam, and we’ll finish our education.” 

     We shook hands, and that was that.

     On Aug. 23, 1969, Lamar Shirah parked his peanut picker to escort his older daughter to the altar. I remember Katie and Essie—arm in arm and smiling—on that night inside Hopeful Baptist Church. They sported it-was-meant-to-be looks on their 69-year-old faces.

     And it has been. 

     For 57 years.

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com