Earlier days in December in Clarksville, Tennessee

Well, today was another dreary, rainy morning in Georgia. The rain spread right into this afternoon. It tested my patience and my umbrella, hat and raincoat. I hope it clears up tomorrow. It can get as cold as it wishes as long as it is dry. Getting cold in December reminds me of earlier Decembers in Clarksville and Hopkinsville.

I remember driving up to Clarksville when I was in law school and interviewing with a law firm in town. The temperature was crisp and there was a biting wind blowing around the corners of the downtown buildings. The winds Blew paper trash up the street. The snow and sleet collected against the brick walls on the buildings. The law office was located in a building which had been Goode Wilson's drug store when I was a child.

I also remember going down Franklin Street to visit my great aunt Mamie and looking down toward the tobacco warehouses across the street. Mamie always offered us a cold coca cola toward the end of our visit. Her home was an old brick townhouse with limestone trim and when we visited in the Winter, the fallen dead leaves were brown and curly on the ground and the air smelled sweet from coal smoke.

My grandmother used to take Frank and Susan and me down to Goode Wilson's, each with one of her dollars in our pockets. She would unleash us on the toy department and we would scramble to find something to buy with our dollars. Goode Wilson's was an old fashioned drug store with a soda fountain and rows filled with virtually anything you might need, from pharmaceuticals to sundrys to toys and ice cream.

When I visited the former site of Goode Wilsons for my job interview during law school, they had converted the old pharmacy into law offices, and it was so cold I wore a topcoat over my suit. Even though I didn't get the job, I remember feeling consoled in the thought that I felt quite accomplished and grown up walking down the sidewalk in my grey flannel suit and camel topcoat with gloves and driving back to the farm, past the old First Presbyterian Church where my grandmother attended church as a child and crossing in front of the buildings of Austin Peay University where my parents attended college, then out the Guthrie Highway and over the Red River bridge and on to St. Bethlehem and the road leading out to our family farm.

It was easy claiming consolation for not getting the job, when your grandmother was waiting for you at the farmhouse with a good meal and a warm bed. Watching WSM and WLAC from Nashville on the television as the night grew dark and the wind screamed like a banshee around the corners of the house, treading up the staircase to the bedrooms up on the second floor, lying down in the old bed and feeling the burn of the chenille on the bottoms of my feet as I got ready to sleep. Hearing the buzz of the window unit. I have never had better sleep than when I was sleeping in that farmhouse.