Our world is a complex and often bewildering place. Amidst this chaos, there is a disturbing trend of labeling and patronizing groups in ways that strip them of their human dignity. These acts of indignity not only harm the victims but also erode the very fabric of our shared humanity.
“When we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!” — Ceasar Chaves at the end of a fast and a Mass of Thanksgiving
As a child of rural Alabama in the 1940s, I was surrounded by a southern environment still reeling from the Great Depression. Despite the hardships, the people I grew up with, poor working folks who owned little more than their dignity, fought each day to preserve their sense of self-worth.
Later, in my twenties, I saw photos of tenant farmer families and immediately identified with the people in the images. Walker Evans, who, along with James Agee, was assigned by Fortune magazine in 1936 to document the lives of tenant farmers in Alabama, took the photos. When Fortune declined to publish their work, Agee and Evens published a book entitled “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” in 1941, in which Agee says:
I believe that every human being is potentially capable within his ‘limits’ of fully ‘realizing’ his potentialities; that this, his being cheated and choked of it, is infinitely the ghastliest, commonest, and most inclusive of all the crimes of which the human world can assure itself.
Although the original edition only sold about 600 copies, today it is considered a classic in American art. Many credit their work, along with Roosevelt’s New Deal, for helping address the depression-era issues of social responsibility and human dignity. Like so much art, especially that effectively captures life’s anguish, this recognition came only after death.
Agee and Evans tried to distinguish between what was real and what was actual by avoiding making a judgment by committing to interaction — doing as they would be done by. It’s not always easy to make sense of what we may see while trying to learn what we believe and where our ethical concerns might require us to go. In doing so, we are drawn not to an explanation but to the profound compliment of dependence and use.
Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired. — Erik H. Erikson
My Grandparents Home In Lincoln, Alabama (Late 1940s)
My brother and I lived with our grandparents from 1946 to 1950. They were some of the best years of my life. Our Grandmother made pies for which to — Those were the days.
Grandparents Home in Lincoln, Alabama — Image by kenne
My brother and I live with our grandparents in Lincoln while our mother was in business college. It was during this time, the late 1940s, that I started school, and discovered girls. Plenty of childhood dreams happen in this little country town.
Aggies at the World Sports Grille In Tucson — A scene that can be found all around the world. Image by kenne
“Oh ye of little faith!” I have been connected to Texas A&M since 1977, getting a PhD in 1980 and having three children who have degrees from there. An Aggie learns early on what it is to be let down, but not today — No. 15 Texas A&M upsets No. 1 Alabama 29-24 in Tuscaloosa! Whoop!!! Whoop!!! Whoop!!!
Willie Agnes Poe passed away (September 8, 2006) after three months of fighting post-surgery infection. During the last few weeks of Mother’s life, she shared stories of her childhood and often talked about playing with her close childhood friend, Fern. (They remained close throughout life.)
“We had so much fun playing in the cemetery — Can you take me back to the cemetery on the hill?’ she would ask. “I can see the man in black with a big black dog,” she would go on.
In her last days, the man in black visited her. As we were talking, she looked straight ahead, “…see him, he is here! Don’t you see him?” Then she would turn and ask, “Can you bring me a big black dog? I want a big dog! Can you get one for me?”
“Yes, we can,” would be my reply, We were making arrangements for Jill to bring one of their black labs by for Mother, just two days before she passed on.
On August 26, 2012, the family gathered in The Woodlands to celebrate the life of Willie Agnes Poe, which involved a brunch at Cru’ Wine Bar and a gathering at the pedestrian bridge over Grogan’s Mill Road.
After moving to The Woodlands in the mid-1980’s, Mother would walk the trails from her Grogan’s Landing apartment, which included the pedestrian bridge in a six-mile walk around the TPC golf course. Over time, Mother became functionally blind, limiting the trail walking, but not her walking. Early each morning she would spend a couple of hours walking back and forth over the pedestrian bridge. Our gathering at the bridge ended with a symbolic walk over Agnes’ bridge.
Why this celebration now? Because Mother had donated her body to the Texas Medical Center after her death, we didn’t have a family gathering to celebrate her life. It was our understanding that Mother’s ashes would be sent to us 2-3 years after her death. As it turned out, we didn’t receive her ashes till this past May.
Hall Cemetery
Several months after Mother’s death we got word that her brother, J.C. had died. I knew immediately we were going to Alabama. How I know just how important it was to bring closure to the Mother’s life. While in Alabama, Joy and I made a point of going to Lincoln, then two miles out to the country church and cemetery in Refuge. She was always at her happiest when talking about her childhood in Alabama, even more so during her last days with us. She always wanted to go back but knew she would only be able to in her vision of those childhood memories. It doesn’t go unnoted that with the importance of Hall Cemetery in Refuge, Alabama, Mother didn’t desire to be buried there. For her, a higher priority was to give her body to medicine.
While visiting Hall Cemetery, I wanted so to turn around and see two little girls playing in the cemetery on the hill – to see the man in black with the big dog – to hear them laughing, and see the joy when the big dog came running to the children. Instead, Joy and I walked silently, on this sunny fall morning through the small cemetery on the hill, which now represents the burial-place of the last surviving member of the Confederate army. As fate would have it, as we walked through Hall Cemetery, a black dog appeared.
By making the journey to Hall Cemetery, I have for my life captured the feeling of two little girls laughing and playing in a world that never vanished from Mother’s vision of happiness. Real or not, it was real for her – now it is real for me, and I might add, Joy.
kenne
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A Celebration Of Life
“When the child was a child, it didn’t know
It was a child
Everything for it was filled with life and all life was one
When the child, when the child
The child, child, child, child, child
And on and on and on and on, etc. And onward
With a sense of wonder
Upon the highest hill. Upon the highest hill
When the child was a child
Are you there
Shassas, shassas
Up on a highest hill
When the child was a child, was a child, was a child
Lincoln, Alabama (Old Downtown Lincoln Station By The Railroad Tracks) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Old Town Lincoln, Alabama — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Aggies at the World Sports Grille In Tucson — A scene that can be found all around the world. Image by kenne
Hall Cemetery
