A Place Called Home: An August Evening in Southside, Alabama

You know you live in Alabama when you step into your front yard on a humid August evening, the air a sultry quilt of heat and damp, and see lightning bugs flickering under five giant pecan trees, older than your sixty years, while deer graze at the edge of the pines. Across the yard, the barn stands, its red clay cradling the grave of my dear dog, Dorothy May, where roses once placed by Miller have withered, though her memory still runs, forever chasing squirrels and deer through the pines.

The Coosa River hums, nestled against the Appalachian foothills, its current weaving beneath the cicadas’ drone. Across Highway 77, the graves of my uncle James, aunt Elizabeth, and my daddy keep vigil over this eight-acre plot in Southside, Alabama—land gifted by my grandfather after World War II. The pecans’ branches stretch like ancient storytellers, their nutty fragrance mingling with the earth’s damp musk. Out here, unseen, I can answer nature’s call under the stars—freedom the hills and river never condemn. Some folks may tire of my stories about this place, but I remain in awe: the fireflies glow like tiny lanterns, the deer graze as if entitled, and the foothills loom, unmoved by time. This evening, thick with heat and memory, is Alabama’s soul, and it is home.

At sixty, I am the third-generation steward of this soil, as rooted as the pecans that shaded my childhood. My uncle James and aunt Elizabeth received this land from my grandfather, who ran a store on the old highway before the second bridge was built. James, a Private First Class in the 94th Infantry Division under General Patton’s Third Army, entered the U.S. Army at 32, serving with valor. A photo of him with Elizabeth captures their strength—his weathered face beside her determined gaze. He survived the Battle of the Bulge, waking in a foxhole to the shrapnel of a German “potato masher” grenade—so named for its kitchen-tool shape—that spared him but left his friend in pieces. Captured by the SS, he escaped with two others, hiding beneath a bridge while GIs fell to a German 50-caliber. He returned to Elizabeth, a Rosie the Riveter, and together they built a quiet life among pecans, walnuts, red cedars, magnolias, azaleas, figs, muscadines, apples, and pears.

As a boy, home on leave from Lyman Ward Military Academy, I would sit under these trees and listen to their stories of war, faith, and resilience. When Elizabeth passed in 1994 and James in 1996, my daddy took up the mantle, cultivating gardens so lush with collards, tomatoes, and roses that they seemed a hymn to beauty until his own passing in 2006. I assumed the role of steward in those years, though a friend once named me a poor one—my nonprofit work in Birmingham often pulling me away. The sting of that judgment lingers. Yet, this summer has been a rebirth: I’ve walked these paths, tended this soil, prayed by the Coosa, and remembered that land itself can restore a soul.

Mid-August in Alabama is stubborn. The heat clings, the humidity presses down, and yet fireflies ignite their rebellion against dusk. Scientists warn their light is fading—darkness stolen by sprawl and floodlights—but here, sheltered by pecans and pines, they endure. The deer too, among Alabama’s 1.8 million, graze my clover without shame, heirs to the land my daddy planted. The Coosa flows 280 miles, bearing the memory of Cherokees and settlers, carrying both lament and hope. The pecans—planted, perhaps, after the war—stand as living witnesses to it all.

I remember gathering pecans with cousins, shells crunching underfoot, while Elizabeth reserved the best for her pies. My daddy carried that tradition, his roses vying with crepe myrtles for beauty, his collards feeding neighbors until the year he left us. Dorothy May bounded through those gardens in her day, chasing squirrels with untempered joy. Her grave lies by the barn, roses fading but her spirit evergreen, woven into the hum of this land.

Yet the night is fragile. Subdivisions creep nearer, their lights dimming the stage of the fireflies. I recall when the state claimed James and Elizabeth’s first farm for the second bridge—eminent domain cutting like a knife. They wept, then rebuilt on this very soil, and here I now stand, custodian of their endurance. The Coosa flows on, though dammed and polluted. Even the Appalachian foothills, timeless as psalms, cannot stop bulldozers.

My guilt returns when I remember being called a poor steward, absent in Birmingham with my nonprofit, Lettermen of the USA. Our Shelters for Heroes program places veterans and their families in temporary refuge until larger agencies can step in. A holy calling—but one that pulls me from these acres. Still, this summer, I have reclaimed something of myself.

The deer still trespass for pecans, unbothered by propriety. Perhaps they are right—it is not mine but ours, this land. It was given to us in sacrifice: James’s survival with the 94th under General Patton, Elizabeth’s labor, my daddy’s gardens, Dorothy May’s devotion. Their graves across the highway, Dorothy’s resting place by the barn, tell me daily: this place is holy. This place is worth tending.

So, I return under the pecans—trees older than I am, rising into the damp August sky. The fireflies rise. The Coosa hums. Across the way, the graves keep watch. This is not merely land. It is memory, witness, and inheritance. And I, flawed steward though I am, am bound to it as surely as it is bound to me.

Some may call it Alabama; I call it home.