It’s been dry enough this summer that an old family story is worth retelling. After Daddy retired, he and Mama moved back to Mama’s hometown, Fulton, right across the road from the old family home where she grew up. Mama’s oldest sister, Aunt Cap, and Uncle Red still lived in the old home place. And just down the road on the other side of the family communal garden lived another of Mom’s sisters, Aunt Ermine, with Uncle Lloyd.
One summer, it just wouldn’t rain. Having been raised in a God-fearing family, Aunt Cap declared the reason for the drought was obviously “sin in the camp.” The drier and hotter it got, the more insistent she was that the guilty party “get right with God.” Then one weekend Aunt Cap and Uncle Red took a trip to Birmingham, and it rained 3 inches in Fulton while they were gone. There was no further talk of sin in the camp after that, except when Uncle Lloyd could work it into the conversation just to needle Aunt Cap.