A Treasury of Fine Arts

Travel with me, if you will, on the wings of time to a day in the annals of “yesteryear,” an extremely vivid, colorful yet turbulent time in our lives few people are apt to forget.  Nothing needs to be exaggerated or concocted.  It is stark reality in its rawest form This narrative is bloated with imagery and events brought forth throughout its pages in vivid, colorful and highly descriptive language (be-fitting a poet at times) in an effort to vicariously transport its reader (visually, emotionally, intellectually and physically, if you will) to that precise “time” and “place” it all occurred.  One need only be a careful, sensitive, imaginative, and discerning reader to experience both Nature and Reality in their crudest form. The sights and sounds are baffling; the feelings and emotions are deeply piercing but profound; the events are startling yet intriguing.  Yes, the pen moves on each page with deadly accuracy like a painter’s brush on an oil canvas to re-create that turbulent day and time … shaping, forming and developing these in the mind of the reader until … reality sets in.  Suddenly, you are there and it is happening to you Believe it or not she was a Southern Belle from Louisiana---well bred, cultured, and charming. Some say she was as graceful as a swan on Lake Chattachoo at dawn. Beautiful? That she was! Elegant and fashionably dressed? At all times! She was tall and stately and had very expensive taste. According to rumor, Madame Bouisewä had been left a hefty sum of money by her late husband, who had passed on one year before. She lived in a beautiful, fancy cottage near the banks of the Mississippi River high on a hill called Glory.  One day a gentleman from New Orleans (Bourbon Street Beat) came a’calling on her. He was a knight in shining armor that had come to rescue her from this earthly paradise and take her to heavenly places. This is what she truly believed as a young Southern Belle. Dollar bills, not stars, began to crowd his view whenever he looked at her. Yes, she was a rare beauty but he needed some “dough” to support his gambling habit. Miss Unsuspecting played right into his clever hands. He was slick as a fox and smooth as a silk spool of thread. They said he spent the day contriving new schemes to run on gullible females at night There was something sinister about the wall. I detected that even as a very young child. Everything appears “bigger” when you are a little child. I guess it’s because “you” are so small. However, it was not so much its height and breadth  but rather what it did not allow me to see on the other side of it Even though the wall was made of beautiful, light pink brick with a dash of orange here and there, it seemed ominous … belligerent… threatening. It was about 100 feet in breadth and seemed to have been standing there ages before I was born (or even knew it existed). There was also a rather unfriendly air about it though it was very attractive in appearance. It seemed strong, durable, and commanding – forbidding anyone through, above , or around it As a child I was taught to respect and honor the earth...to love it, till it, and preserve it.  Why?  It was the source of our livelihood–our  food, our income and our way of life.  Abundant harvests erupted from those colorful fields seasonally, and we were the tillers, the reapers, and the caretakers. During the late 30's in the hilly plains of Georgia, Father was like a plantation owner, and we were his slaves.  He drove us like a slave owner, and Mother did absolutely nothing to stop him.  For years she was too fearful to stand up to him.  “If you love the land,” he would always say, “it will love you back.  It will take good care of you if you take good care of it We awoke at dawn and worked from dawn to dusk.  Then we ate and went to sleep early enough to start the next workday at dawn.  It was a vicious cycle...no leisure, no p