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    Low Country Soul: Songs My Father Sang
    Low Country Soul: Songs My Father Sang
    Low Country Soul: Songs My Father Sang
    Ebook128 pages2 hours

    Low Country Soul: Songs My Father Sang

    By Ralph Bailey

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    These are some notes, his father said shortly before he died, about a few things I dont want you to forget. Those life lessons became the substance of Low Country Soul and, when placed along side an account the life and times of an amazing man, the book becomes a compelling read. The Bailey family was steeped in the savory sauce of the Carolina low-country. Set on the islands of Charleston County, South Carolina, the story opens a window on life and culture during the war years of the1940s. It also gives entrance into the soul of the man. The Songs My Father Sang are like the Biblical psalms in which the writer praises God for life in whatever form it came to him.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateNov 8, 2012
    ISBN9781477284452
    Low Country Soul: Songs My Father Sang
    Author

    Ralph Bailey

    Dr. Ralph Bailey is a retired Methodist Minister who lives with his wife in Savannah, GA., the city in which he was born. In addition to his parish ministry, he served for 13 years as Director of Pastoral Care at Candler General Hospital, has written curriculum for the Methodist Publishing House, and numerous articles for nationally circulated periodicals. He is the author of “For Everything A Season” which was first published in 1975 by Hawthorn Books and republished in 2011 by Xlibris. He is the pastor emeritus at historic, Trinity UMC, the mother church of Savannah Methodism.

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      Book preview

      Low Country Soul - Ralph Bailey

      © 2012 by Ralph Bailey. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 11/01/2012

      ISBN: 978-1-4772-8444-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4772-8445-2 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920007

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Reflections

      Ralph Swinton Bailey

      PART 1 THE LOW COUNTRY MARINADE

      Chapter 1

      Home

      Chapter 2

      Rockville

      Chapter 3

      The Sacred Landscape

      Chapter 4

      Harps And Willows

      PART II THE SONGS MY FATHER SANG

      Chapter 5

      The 1St Song—Put First Things First

      Chapter 6

      The 2Nd Song—Truth Or Consequences

      Chapter 7

      The 3Rd Song—Empathy

      Chapter 8

      The 4Th Song—The Partnership

      Chapter 9

      The 5Th Song—God In The Darkness

      Chapter 10

      The 6Th Song—God In The Sunshine

      Chapter 11

      The 7Th Song—A Tribute

      Chapter 12

      The 8Th Song—The Final Curtain

      Postlude

      About The Author

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      4416.jpg

      Special thanks are due the following people whose help contributed to the writing of these pages:

      Both my mother and father—leaving written account of their life and times-and who, by example, motivated me to do the same.

      Members of my extended South Carolina family who encouraged me to write about Rockville while I was still able.

      My sister, Rosemary, who lived, loved and shared these times with me. Conversations with her always enriched my life and added depth and color to my recollections. She has been an invaluable benchmark against which to measure both the accuracy of my stories and the depth of my understanding, particularly in the area of family history and dynamics. Her encouragement kept me on task even when I might have rested for a while.

      Two invaluable friends, both of whom read the manuscript and cared enough to tell the truth even if and when I would have preferred to hear something else—The Rev. Enoch Hendry, my pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in Savannah and Karen McClure of Atlanta, a longtime friend and confidant with whom I’ve shared many things across the years including the privilege of being her pastor, her colleague in Clinical Pastoral Training at Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah, and beneficiary of her insight in a study group while I was writing my doctoral dissertation. I was working on the problem of Moving from Estrangement to Reconciliation and having trouble with the content and development. She said, I know why you’re having trouble. You aren’t reconciled. She was right, and I needed the same incisive perspective as I worked my way through this project. I’ll have to take final responsibility for the outcome of this work, but however it turns out, it is much better than it would have been without benefit of her clear vision, honest criticism and enthusiastic encouragement.

      Certainly I could not have done it without the help of my wife, Vermelle. For years she has been an eagle-eyed editor with the patience to go over every word at least several times; who can smell the aroma of literary fertilizer from a mile away; who has listened patiently to my stories, many of which she has heard time and time again; who has loved me most of the time and tolerated me the rest . . . . For more than fifty years she’s been the love of my life.

      Thanks to you who read these pages. Were it not for the hope that you would do so, I’d have not bothered to write them.

      I also want to express gratitude to my technical support person, who did the work of formatting and scanning the final manuscript before submission for consideration for publication, and who also just happens to be my sister-in-law, Lorene Pierce.

      In addition, two books were most helpful in re-orientation after all these years.

      They are:

      1. Rockville, by Alicia Lish Anderson Thompson, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston 2006.

      2. A Place Called St. John’s, by Laylon Wayne Jordan and Elizabeth H. Stringfellow. Reprint Company, Publishers, Spartanburg, SC, 1998

      REFLECTIONS

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      Ralph Bailey, my dad, died on April 5, 1972 at the age of 74. He was an imperfect person, as we all are, living in an imperfect world, as we all do, and struggling to do the best he could with the hand that fate had dealt him. And like all of us, the person he became was the product of those emerging forces working around and within him. I’ll try my best to explain those dynamics, but I can say up front that I believe he ran a good race.

      In his thirties, Dad developed rheumatoid arthritis that nearly crippled him; but still he kept going, often working two jobs. Later in life he suffered from congestive heart failure and eventually died of a heart attack, the last of several over a period of years. Fortunately, he had sufficient time between the onset of the disease and it’s conclusion to come to terms with his own mortality. This I saw with my own eyes.

      He was hospitalized with one of his many attacks a year or so before his death. Actually, this one would be his next to last. As soon as I heard of his illness I came home to Tifton from Jesup, where I was living at the time, and found him in surprisingly good humor. His countenance was a startling contrast to the grim intensity I’d seen on his face when he’d first gotten sick a number of years before. I found him sitting up in bed with pen and paper in hand.

      As always he was delighted to see me and when our greeting was over, I asked him what he was writing.

      Nothing much, he answered, just a few things I hope you won’t forget.

      Can I see? I asked.

      No, there’ll be time for that later, he answered with a solemn smile while putting the pages back into the manila envelope. It was the closest thing he had to a briefcase.

      I understood what he meant.

      After his death, I came home periodically, but it would be seven months before Mom finally felt emotionally ready to deal with the envelope’s contents. What we found was a collection of notes and stories written on whatever scraps of paper were available at the time. There was a chronological account that must have been the document he was developing during his last hospitalization. But there were other writings that he recorded as his/our life passed through stormy days. Regardless of the circumstance, each was a hymn of praise drawn from the seemingly worst possible scenario. Indeed, they were wonderful windows into the soul of an extraordinary man.

      He was a great story teller. In turn, his stories and his teachings have now become the core of both my life and this book. Aside from his genetic input, these life lessons helped determine who I am.

      In the last moments of his life, Dad had been working among the trees and flowers of his yard, doing the thing he loved most in his favorite place in the entire world.

      This homestead was the first real estate he’d owned since the great depression when he had to sell his family’s farm on Wadmalaw Island, SC. In his garden, he was standing on holy ground.

      That morning he had been raking pine straw into neat rows and had stopped to take a break. He leaned the rake against the back porch, hung his hat on the handle, and went inside to get a drink of water.

      He wanted to call Mom.

      Although she hadn’t felt well that day, she had gone to her secretarial work in the Dean’s office at Abraham Baldwin College. They talked about 10:15 AM. He hoped she was feeling better and said he was expecting the TV repairman at any minute. The technician arrived at 10:30 and found Dad on the lawn by the back steps, dead.

      Apparently he was sitting on those same steps when he was stricken. He never got to finish the glass of water.

      The coroner said he was gone before he hit the ground.

      At the end of a long and productive earthly life, it’s something of a tragedy in and of itself that, all of one’s triumphs and tragedies, struggles, loves, pain and joy, longings and personal satisfactions, can be compressed into the space of a single hyphen etched into a tombstone between the

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