There are many things that make me smile. Little things, big things. Mostly it is when somebody says something so out of the ordinary.

We were just about to leave our property in TN, after a meeting with a contractor, when a rusty blue pick-up truck chugged up and parked. A battered hat poked out of the window. “Howdy!” A thick Southern accent greeted from within.
We all stepped forward and smiled politely. The elderly man limped down and toward us, as if he was used to doing it all his life. He was wearing a pair of over-alls, a plaid shirt, and a bandanna round a scraggly head. We did the usual North-Eastern “Hi!”

The stranger proved to be a retiree who lived “down the road a piece”. He might have mentioned his name, but if he did I couldn’t discern it through his thick drawl, neither could anybody else. He shook each of our hands, and inquired who we were, and where we came from. When we told him we were the new owners of the land beyond the fence, he slapped his knee.

“Aint thet sumthin?! I was a’wondering when some body’d scoop that one up! Purty piece of land that is! You knows…land is a special thing to have, you young’ns remember that. Very ‘portant. The good Lord done good given all y’alls thet land.” He scanned our property with a thoughtful eye. “I can tell it’s a’fixen right now to tell ya a story.”

I guess our puzzled thoughts showed too plainly on our faces. The old man slapped his knee again. “Don’t ya knows it? Don’t you know all land gotta story to tell? But…” here he gestured for us to bend closer until our heads almost touched. “All land gotta story to tell,” he whispered and looked us each in the eye, “iffen y’all listen.”

We smiled, and watched as the stranger spryly limped back to his jaloppy truck then waved out the window. “Now don’t you ev’r forgit thet, ya hear?!”

The Story of the Land