The Same, Only Older(Sher and Bren standing below the gazebo.)
I've read that the human body's cells regenerate completely every seven years. We may all have entirely different bodies (and some mornings I would argue that this is definitely not mine!), but we are the same as we were all those years ago. We still like "riding around."
One of our side trips was to a pretty little church truly in the wildwood, called Jackson Camp. Bren took me there several years ago and I just fell in love with it and the location, and we wanted Sher to see it. It's on the back water (lake) of the Tenn-Tom Waterway, has a small cemetery, a gazebo and outdoor seating arrangement in the form of an ampitheater. There are stone benches arranged in a semi-circle facing the lake and I'm sure peoples' voices are amplified by the water, just as Jesus's was on the Sea of Galilee. We were there just after the sun set and there was a full moon. It wasn't quite dark, but that dusky time of evening when everything gets still and settles for the night. The moon shone through the pines onto the marble and granite grave markers and illuminated the flowers people had placed for their loved ones. The church was established in 1860 and is a vital part of the community even now. There is nothing past the church on that bank. There is only that wide stretch of calming water coming up into the cove, and it's a beautiful place for people to go visit their ancestors in their resting places, or just be still for a while. There is even a marker for an Unknown Soldier and someone had recently put flowers on it. It's a well-kept, well-loved little church. While we were there, one of the residents of the little community drove down to check on what we were doing, I suppose. They just drove up, turned around and left. I guess they could see we were just looking around, not causing any problems! Nice to know neighbors still do that. Also on the way to the church and back out, a group of people were sitting on their porch and waved and hollered at us as we went by - very friendly. Bren's cousin was the pastor here at one time.
The moon is barely visible through in the middle of the picture below, just below the tree line. It was much more beautiful in reality than this could ever show. But then that's God's handiwork.
The trip was a lot like the old days: We took off in Bren's SUV for Jackson Camp and we were very close to going on fumes. This reminded us of one of our trips years ago that involved an old truck her Daddy had recently traded for. Bren had said, "Let's see how fast it'll go!" With me saying all the time, "Oh, Bren, you better not do that!" We were on a "milk run" out on Coleman Park Road to pick up the gallon or two of fresh milk in glass jars they bought locally. My job was to hold the milk steady on the floorboard between my feet while she drove with the manual gears flopping, as she said, in about 20 directions and all backward at that! We thought that old truck had shaken all to pieces when a box in the bed of the truck started flapping around - whop! whop! whop! - in the wind! Just go! It'll be alright! And it was! Not sure how fast she made it go, but probably all of 60 mph! We never lost a drop of milk, though!
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