I was recently surprised to find a package in the mail containing some old family photos. This picture was included. That's me, holding my newborn brother. Beside me are sister and other brother. Upon seeing this picture, my brother commented that it looked like a photo taken back during the depression. I found his comment quite funny because there are a few distant family members (and I use the word family only for clarity sake because I don't and never did consider them family) have believed my siblings and I to have come from 'poor white trash'
Well, that's actually not true, regardless of appearances. Back then, children played barefoot outside during those long southern summer days. Not so anymore of course, but that's how it was then. Though they never saw this picture. Their opinion was formed more on their own over inflated sense of importance - typical overachieving snobs, that they are.
I have a particular pride regarding the mixture of yankee blood and southern roots. The best of both perhaps. My lineage surely is not that of anything I'd call 'trash' though I am definitely a white girl and we had some 'poor' years.
French, on my father's side and what my grandfather called Pennsylvania Dutch on my mother's and born on a cold Indiana morning, raised in the heat of the southern sun. I claim the best of both worlds. It's a legacy of blood and circumstance. For all it's goods and bads, it's made me who I am.
So, this song is dedicated to my brother - the one I'm holding in the picture. When he was a baby he liked hearing the radio. The following song was popular one on the local AM station around that time. I still like the song and when I hear it, it reminds me of those lazy days that summer he was born.
[Note: A year or so after the picture was taken, that house burned down]
Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? [James 2:5-7]
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