Southern Family

Meet my sweet hubby (shown here with his daughter, Kimberly at the Mountain Ministries location in Washington) John W - Jack to his southern family and Papa John to almost everyone else. Born in Georgia and raised in Florida, he is definately the southern gentleman.

Visiting here in the south has certainly been nostalgic for him. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Georgia to visit an old high school buddy and to see the "farm" where John spent a lot of his childhood. Shelly and Louisa have a great spot in the Georgia countryside and they welcomed us with typical southern open arms even though they hadn't seen "Jack" in over 30 years. After sharing lots of pictures and family history, they started teasing each other and talking about things done during high school days. Understand, this is two guys - each has had a stroke - each is at the age that they can barely remember what they had at their last meal - but neither has forgotten a single drag race, girlfriend, bad boy prank or other minutia from high school. I guarantee that one day was not enough for these two and we will be visiting with them again. I found it so very interesting to learn so much about the history of this man I live with!!



Shelly & Louisa's Home & Shelly




The Old Farmhouse - now abandoned.

Life on the farm must have been a great time in his life, too, because as we were travelling to the site of the "old homestead" , he regaled me with stories about the way they lived and then insisted that we eat some boiled peanuts! Now, I've actually learned to tolerate eating black-eyed peas even though they are somewhat like chalk with salt and pepper! But the boiled peanuts!!! YUCK!!! That's chalk without the salt and pepper with an added greasy mess of soft shell fragments to clean up!!! Well, okay - so I am a California salad with sprouts kind of girl and boiled peanuts, collard greens, grits and other such southern dishes do not tickle my pallet. It was fun watching John enjoy this mess, tho. He attacked them like a kid in a candy store - and for those of you that have seen him eat candy, you know what I'm talking about!!! But boiled peanuts is one southern delicacy I think I can live without.


The cottonfields in GA were mostly harvested. We were lucky enough to run across this one that was going to be harvested by hand. I have lots of other pictures to share like Charleston, Myrtle Beach, the campground that we are working for, etc. If one of the smart people out there would care to share how I can turn these into those neat little slideshow files and post them here, I'd certainly be grateful.


But, for now, it is about time for Shabbat so I must leave this story. More on our southern adventures next week. For now, please continue praying for those on the prayer list and may G-d grant you a peaceful, blessed Sabbath - whenever you celebrate your Sabbath. Shabbat Shalom!