Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~Mahatma Gandhi

The family members that did well take great pride in the family name. Often when we talk say that it is the blood; that makes them so strong and prosperous. Our family gene pool held many things that can make you excel in many ways. There was ego, passion, pride, good looks and the desire to have money. These things can be used for the betterment or the down fall of any person. What outsiders saw many times was the obvious. Sometime it was a drunken fit for the whole Corum Hollow to hear. Sometime it was a car ran in the ditch. Then there were a couple of fires. On a better note there was a good cotton crop, the church services we attended, how nice we looked in clothes that were handmade, and the help lent out to the struggling farmers surrounding our home.

Once more the perfect crime can be comitted if you don't tell a soul. The men in our family did not often hide the fact that they drank. It was just not widely known what they did at home as they drank. The community I am sure spoke more bad of them than good. It was a time when drinking was even done in the work place. There were many a deal made over a glass of whiskey. The deals my daddy and them made were made sipping from a bottle of moonshine. Moonshine of the late 1960's was nasty at times. It was made many times in old car radiators. The Jackson's that made some of what Daddy and them drank were so dirty from collecting scrap metal that the black never washed off of them. That is if they even ever tried to wash it off. There was a bottle that Daddy showed me one day that instead of being a clear liquid, as wildcat was supposed to be, was grey. In the bottle there was a slime floating around. Daddy told me he never thought he would, but this was one bottle of whiskey that he was going to pour out. This made me for sure that he wasn't drinking for the taste to begin with. He was drinking for the effect that it had on him. The Jackson's wildcat whiskey would have been drank by my daddy if they had not left the slimey stuff floating around in it. There was always a thing that if you drank beer, the drinking was not a problem. I remember when we were still in Michigan that Daddy only drank beer at first. Then it was whiskey. Jim Beam most if the time. Then it was wine. He became a wino. Wino because it was very cheap, especially the sugary wines, just a dollar or so a bottle.