Life and Death

When I was a kid, our neighbors had a camphouse out in
the country in Rodney, Mississippi.  In the late
1700 - 1800's, Rodney was a bustling river-port town. 
During the Civil War, it was fired on.  There's a church
there still standing with a cannonball lodged in the
front wall of the building.  After the war, the river
meandered off course, leaving Rodney without its
port.  There's practically nothing there now except for
a few little shanty shacks and hunting camps.

Anyway, my childhood neighbor, Claire, was in town
and wanted to ride out there.  We hadn't been in nearly
35 years or so. So we called my other childhood friend,
Alma, and her friend, Eric, and rode out there.

We weren't sure we'd make it.  The Mississippi River is
at flood stage, and although Rodney is no longer right
on the river, it's still flat bottomland, and floods
occasionally.  We made it out there, although the water
had crept right up to the road where the church is.  As
we were leaving, we talked to a woman helping her
96-year-old mother evacuate the little  shanty house
she's lived in all her life.  She was hesitant to leave,
creeping back across the creaking old plank stretched
over the waters to recheck the lock on the door, only
a few feet from where an alligator had been seen a few
minutes prior.

I was ascared of water mocassins, but Claire was
determined to climb the forested hill behind the church
to see the old deserted cemetery where some of her
ancestors are buried.

The cemetery is amazing.  I thought it was just going
to be one of those family-type plots, but as we walked
further and further into the woods, I realized that there
were headstones poking up out of the weeds and
trees as far as I could see.   We couldn't tell it yesterday
because spring is here in full growth, but if it had
been wintertime and the hills all bare, you would've
been able to tell that one of the rises we were walking
over was actually a gun embankment.

Well, amazing as it is, we didn't see but one snake, but
Alma's called today to tell me she'd found two ticks on
her, even though she wore long jeans tucked into boots. 
I took no such precautions, so we'll see how I fared.

I thought I'd post a few of the pics I took.  It was an
eerie, amazing place, full of magic and mystery.  The
graves date way back to the early 1700's, filled with
the souls of those long dead and buried, and being
consumed by living plants.