“Sweet Summer Rain..”
Well, I’m sure you movie buffs will recognize that little line from the movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” Of course, only we Southerners really resonate with that sentiment, which one of the characters in the movie quipped as he listened to the thunder and watched the lightening flash in the distance. Yes, you have to be a true son or daughter of the South to really feel that statement. Sure, we get plenty of spring, fall, and winter rains, but it does get hot and dry down here in the Sunny South, and when a summer storm thunders in and for about thirty minutes dumps a flood of water on our parched yards, woods, and fields, we might not say it, but we feel it, “Sweet Summer Rain.”
A few years back, during an especially hot and dry summer, a very dignified El Dorado lady, an active member of First Baptist Church, confide to me, “I was about to take a late afternoon shower, when the rain started, and I was so delighted that I ran out in the backyard naked and danced just to feel the rain come down.” Well, you might not have danced naked in the rain, but if you’ve lived through some of our dry Augusts and have been surprised by an afternoon rainstorm, you can certainly identify with this El Dorado lady. You’re not Southern unless you enjoy and revel in a sweet summer rain.
Of course, we Southerners do have a tendency to romanticize almost everything, and a sweet summer rain is no exception. But we’re all easy touches when it comes to things such as hungry animals and birds that have fallen out of their nest. Songs, books, and movies set in the South touch the soft spot in our soul that every Southerner has. They’re always a hit, at least for most of us. Gone with the Wind, had Southerners lined up around the block to see it because it captured and romanticized the South we love, even with all its wrinkles, which we conveniently ignore, and since Gone With the Wind is really a lament about the Lost Cause along with an unrequited love story, it couldn’t fit most Southerners better. For many Southerners it set the high water mark for a movie.
But our basic taste in music also indicates how the Southern soul views life. When you hear Patsy Cline sing “Walking after Midnight” or Jessie Coulter resonate “I’m not Lisa” we don’t really think we’re listening to a sad lament about lost love, but we are, and we embrace those songs because they touch our hearts. Yes, the popularity of many of our most played songs are because of the deep, soul-wrenching sentiment that link Southerners together and makes us who we are. Southerners have always carried that emotion deep in their being. Maybe it’s from the old country. It’s hard to find a Southerner who doesn’t have a little or a lot of Scotland and Ireland soul. The South is full of descendants from those two countries, and those Scots and Irish immigrants, after being down-trodden by the English for generations, brought with them the trials and tribulations of a people who struggled, and when you hear Danny Boy something deep inside of you resonates. Yes, Danny Boy is a true lament, and it’s probably more popular in the South than in the rest of the country. You might not think Danny Boy is a Southern Lament, but Elvis did, and it was sung at his funeral. Just think of the truly mournful sound of a bagpipe or the fiddle when played as a dirge, and when you find your head dropping just a bit as you nod as if you’re one with them, it’s because you really are one of them
But I guess that deep feeling about the South has something to do with where we call home, and to get a real understanding of the romantic South, we must remember our roots, and almost all Southerners have some connections to the land where granddad farmed or where Uncle Luke went duck hunting, but it’s more than where our ancestors lived. It’s something deep within us that we can’t describe. In Gone with the Wind Scarlet’s father, a broken and semi-deranged man stood in one of his fields, sifted the dirt in his hands, and proclaimed to Scarlet, “Land! Land! Katie Scarlet. It’s the only thing worth fighting for….” Yes, we may not feel that strongly about the land, but as we feel the rush of spring, when all of a sudden it bursts upon us with azaleas, dogwood, and redbud and the dull brownblack trees are suddenly a moist, almost blinding green, then that feeling tugs again, and we know that our God is renewing the land and our hearts rejoice. And as the seasons flow by the Spanish moss draped oak trees, sounds of the Blues, swimming holes in secluded creeks, and boys eating swiped watermelon are so much a part of everyone’s being in the South, that we don’t realize those actions and sights are truly just Southern, and they impart a distinct character and emotional depth to our lives.
I know, I’m a hopeless, southern romantic, but folks, I know enough about the South to bet I have a lot of company, and when Vertis and I are sitting on our little, wooden pergola by the small pond in our backyard having a little something to drink, and the big blue heron zooms in to pick up a late afternoon snack, it puts an exclamation point to a southern way of life that if folks up north or out west really understood our quality of life that reaches deep into our souls, we would have to build a wall around the South to keep from being overrun.
Richard H. Mason of El Dorado is a syndicated columnist and author and former president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation and the state Pollution Control & Ecology Commission. He may be reached by email at richard@ gibraltarenergy.com .