By Mickey Dunaway | Reprinted with Permission by Currents Magazine | FEB 24 | Cornelius, NC

I grew up in the tiny town of Wilmer in West Mobile County, Alabama. Wilmer was small and only had one Baptist Church. We also had a Methodist Church to give some liberal balance to First Baptist or at least as a place for Baptists to go when they got mad at the preacher. A tiny Post Office, Mr. Ward’s Groceries, and Sonny Dossett’s Garage were the heart of the community’s economy. The biggest business was Evans Feed Mill. Wilmer Elementary School was the town’s largest employer.

I went to Wilmer Elementary from grades two through nine. The school had few amenities. Potbellied coal-burning stoves heated the classrooms in the winter. A prized honor for students was to be able to ring the handbell to change classes. Although it was named Wilmer Elementary School, it was junior high school, if not by name, as it went through the ninth grade. We had no advanced subjects and no science lab. No algebra. But we had more than our fair share of dedicated teachers who would not let us get away without learning even. The grammar I know today came from Willie Ford, my remarkable English teacher for grades seven through nine. 

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During the years my years at Wilmer School, we lived on a dirt road with no name, or at least not one that I ever knew about three miles from the town center. Across that sandy dirt road without a name lived Granddaddy and Granny McAdams.

Granddaddy Mac was not my real granddaddy. ­That was Granddaddy Dunaway. I only mention all this to say that natural and almost-natural grandparents don’t make much of a difference when you grow up on a sandy dirt road with no name. During those years, I ate supper at whichever house on the road had it ready first, and then I ate again when my Daddy got home from work.

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I was a pissant. Clear and simple, but I could run forever up and down that sandy dirt road. As I recall it, the fastest I ever ran was when a nest of yellow jackets decided to fly up my britches legs. I was mowing grass to make some money to go to the Mobile County Fair, and I ran over a yellow jacket next. When an army of angry yellow jackets are in your britches and zooming up toward your privates, there is no pride or embarrassment left in your body. Those pants have got to come off, and off they came as I ran around the yard in my tighty-whities, trying to escape those tiny insect fighter jets. 

I was safe once I entered Granddaddy Mac’s screened porch (my jeans were still on the grass out in the yard). He was in his swing contemplating life. When he saw my predicament, he applied a time-honored solution. He covered the dozen stings with wet Garrett snuff, and the healing began. 

Healing my pride took a bit longer. But the solution was near. Once I got my britches back on, I sought the healing of Granny Mac’s leftover biscuits. Always left on the dining room table were a few biscuits. I grabbed one, punched a hole in the middle, and filled it with honey. With a glass of fresh milk, my pride began to heal.

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Love, whatever the source in a small town, is one of the Almighty’s greatest gifts. And while small towns are rapidly disappearing, we can still find ways to love others when the stings of life arrive. And goodness knows, we all need it in the worst way. As Spring is almost upon us, take a little time and soothe some of those stings.

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I write about people in small towns; I don’t write about people living in big cities. My kind of storytelling depends upon people that have time to talk to each other.

Lee Smith, Hillsborough, NC Author