Southern Stuff

The Joys of a Front Porch

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I am retired now; that is, I am retired from working with the public. 

However, I am not retired from life and I am relishing  the freedom to harken to a whim and go sit out on the front porch with a cup of coffee or a glass of cold iced tea, a good book in hand, and just sit and soak up the sights and sounds of my surroundings.

From my earliest memories of growing up on Lookout Mountain in North Alabama, the front porch played an important role in everyday life.

It was the first place we went to in the morning to relax, a place to get out of the sun for a while when working in the garden and shelter from a sudden downpour.

At the end of the day after supper, when the dishes were washed and the food safely put away, it was our reward for a long day of hard work and play.

 Those hours spent on the front porch are never about wasting time, it was about observing life.

When I was a barefoot child in the mid-fifties, I sometimes stepped on a sharp piece of rotted wood while playing with my sisters. The front porch was the place my Daddy would always take me to remove the splinter from my heel.

Then he would attack the splinter in my swollen heel with an alcohol-sterilized pocket knife while I wailed in pain.     

“Sing!” he would say. “The more it hurts, the louder you should sing!” 

Even to this day, I can still hear myself singing “Way down upon the Suwanee River, Far, far away…” at the top of my range.

The porch was used as a place to eat when the indoors was full of company, or stifling heat made the outdoors a comforting place to rest in the cool of the evening.

For me, the front porch is far and away the place to get lost in a canyon with Zane Grey; the light is the best there and the wide open vista represents a clean slate for the imagination to conjure up the scenes he is describing.

Further, the front porch is the primary vantage point from which a person could protect his or her property from mischief.

And what a perfect spot to sit with a date in the swing at night, near enough to the folks inside to satisfy convention, but also not easily seen (unless your little brother went out the back door and ran around the house to spy on you.)

A porch is a common individual’s psychological clinic. It’s a place to get away to for a few little while, if only to think, or reason, or plan…or reboot.

Front porches are found all over the world, in many shapes and sizes, plain or grand, tiny or tremendous. The word “porch” come from the Old French word “porche” and the Latin porticos “colonnade”, and is known by many names: Arizona Room, screened porch, sleeping porch, rain porch, loggia, veranda, lanai, sun porch and stoop.

All these designations refer to a covered shelter projecting in front of the entrance to a building. A Southern porch is often at least as broad as it is deep.

My porch is not a very deep one, but it can comfortably hold four chairs, a bench and a glider (all of which I have painted several times). When I go outside, I often “set up shop,” armed with a book, a phone, an iPad, a Nintendo DS loaded with the game Bookworm.

While enjoying my “porch time,” I am always alert to what is going on around me, especially if it involves wasps or hornets. I keep several hummingbird feeders ready for the season and I delight in watching them consume the free food.

If I have flowers blooming, the birds will just as likely drink from them. Hummers must feed about every ten minutes, so their waking hours are spent flying and eating.

The king of the front yard is the mockingbird. Atticus Finch had it right when he told Scout that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. They don’t harm, but they provide exquisitely lovely and intricate song patterns that consist of whatever they hear: other birds, other animals, hammers striking, someone whistling for a dog.

The male sits high in a tree and tells the news to all, changing directions so that his warnings and admonitions can be projected in every direction. 

Blue birds are often seen in pairs and their undulating flight calls attention to their presence.

The cardinal males are bright red, showy birds, while the female is a muted color. Redbirds often gather in large groups and eat seed that falls from trees or are scattered by the wind.

Then there are those birds who are only passing through briefly, the Indigo Bunting, the Gold Finch, the Cedar Waxwing, the Baltimore Oriole. Count yourself lucky if you get to witness a brilliant flash of blue or gold as dozens of these birds lift up into the sky, or if you see a small tree completely covered in Waxwings. 

There are so many woodpeckers and I love them all. The Pileated is seen more in deeper woods than out in the open, but what a sight when he swoops down and around, looking like some long-extinct ancestor.  If you sit with a pair of binoculars and a bird book, you might get especially lucky.

Butterflies abound and all have a beauty of their own. Rarely you might see a hand-sized moth and more commonly the Luna moth. You will see the spiders, mosquitoes, dragonflies, but every thing living has a story and you can learn a lot just by observing each and every one.

When baby birds are being taught to fly, it is a common sight to see the parents attack a cat or dog or squirrel that wanders into the vicinity. Rabbits foraging for food are not unusual and a fox or deer shows up occasionally.

If I get up and walk a little ways, I can see the elephant ears–their broad leaves flapping in the gentle breeze–standing staid and flamboyant in the flower bed.

For me, the best time to be on the porch is during a rain. It soothes the senses and causes a deep feeling of well-being. However, when the lightning flashes and the thunder claps boom, its best get up and go inside.

Did you know lightning can jump ten miles on a clear day?

Thanks for listening….and keep smiling.

Audrey McCarver, 9-16-22

Alabama’s Famous Noccalula Falls

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For the past seventy-five years, residents of Etowah County, Alabama have used Noccalula Falls, a 250-acre campground high on Lookout Mountain, as their primary gathering place for Sunday picnics, family reunions, office parties and social club events. 

When I was young, my family often went to “the Falls” to admire its grandeur and to hike both above and below the falling water. The unfenced grounds were open to both the fearless and the fearful. We were kids. We knew little fear.  

It was an exciting adventure, to go down the steel staircase, counting each step until your lead foot touched the ground. Then it was a cautious walk-run race to see who would be first to get to the cave behind the waterfall.  

Usually there would be people clambering around the rocks or sitting and feeling the spray of the water, some enjoying a picnic meal in the shadowed, dank recess of the cave. On hot, sweltering days the misty, cool interior provided respite from the baking heat above.  

There was easy access to the time-worn trails through the floor of the canyon, many people jumping off the huge rock into the soothing coolness of the natural pool at the bottom of the waterfall. 

If the visitor wanted a more rugged experience, there was a trail down the other side. This trek was more demanding physically and vigilance was required for the rocky, often perilous climb down. And believe me, the climb up was no picnic either. 

In hot, dry times, Black Creek becomes little more than a trickle, but in a rainy season, it cannot be contained within its banks and floods much of the area on either side, rising to the level of the footbridge and cascading wildly over the rocks, creating a noisy, frothy, glorious torrent. 

For several years my husband, my sons and I lived within a quarter mile of the Falls and directly across the road from Black Creek. There was a large area near the falls that had never had a home built on it, so when someone built a home there, locals expected the worst.  

Sure enough, when the rainy seasons came, the creek overflowed its banks and reached the road and the houses. Those stranded were rescued in a boat and brought to drier, higher land. 

The park has fifteen miles of hiking and biking trails, of different degrees of facility or difficulty. Trails wind past caves, an indigenous fort, pioneer homestead, an abandoned dam, and civil war carvings.  

Further, there is petting zoo. Sadly, last year the barn caught fire and burned and many animals did not survive. The barnyard animals were all saved. Plans are underway to construct a new barn and bring in more animals. 

Created in 1946 and operated by the City of Gadsden Parks and Recreation, Noccalula Falls Park is on land owned mostly by former Gadsden Mayor R.A. Mitchell.  

In 1909, aware that the land was going to be subdivided for houses, Mitchell bought 169 acres of land, intending it for a park. 

In 1940, his daughter inherited the land and offered it to the city for $50,000. Eventually the city bought the property in 1946 for $70,000 and more acreage was added in 1959. 

In the second half of the 19th century, the Gadsden Land and Improvement Company ran a dance hall and tavern in a cave behind the waterfall. In an attempt to increase the flat area inside by using dynamite, they created a cave-in. 

Underneath the falls was a wooden dancing platform which was used during, and maybe, before the Civil War through the early 1900’s. The dance floor was so near the waterfall, that dancers were enveloped in its mist. 

There is evidence that Col. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler and his men were there during the Civil War. 

The reader who is unfamiliar with the area might ask how the name is pronounced. “Knock-a-lew-la” with emphasis on the third syllable is correct. 

At the top of the Falls there is a nine-foot bronze statue of a young Cherokee woman, perched eternally ready to plunge into the water below.  

In the time-honored story, the Princess Noccalula was ordered by her father, the chief, to marry a man she did not love, in order to solidify the two tribes.  

Rather than obey, the maiden took her own life by jumping into the abyss below.  

In 1969, probably every Gadsden resident of accountable age was aware of the drive to raise money for sculptor Suzanne Silvercruys to create a statue commemorating Noccalula’s historic jump.  

School children collected pennies. Volunteers collected donations on city sidewalks and social clubs, including The Gadsden Woman’s Club, held charitable functions to raise money. 

For visitors, the park features a host of amenities. These include cabin rentals, campsites and hookups. Several pavilions and meeting rooms are available for rent. On the paid admission side, the visitor will find a beautifully landscaped oasis, including a Botanical Garden, Animal Habitat, and historical buildings built in the late 1700’s and 1800’s. 

When the train is operating, it goes on a mile-long journey through history. The campgrounds have two full bath houses with restrooms, a laundry room, library media room, a pool, and a meeting room. 

Some of the principal celebrations held throughout the year are: Christmas at the Falls, Art on the Rocks, Smoke on the Falls, and the Barbarian Challenge. 

For those coming on 1-59, take exit 188. For times and prices, check the website. 

Thanks for listening… keep smiling! 

Audrey McCarver, August 9, 2022 

Southern Mama’s Hoe Cakes

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As a Southern girl I know full well that, on a cold winter morning, there is nothing on this earth like the taste of strawberry jelly and hot, buttered hoe cake bread.

 

My family grew up enjoying this tasty bread along with an assortment of companion foods: sorghum, molasses, syrup, and honey plus all manner of jellies and preserves.

 

Usually a meat such as bacon, sausage, ham, chicken or fat back was also served along with fluffy scrambled eggs. This menu works equally well for breakfast and supper.

 

Since our Southern version of hoe cake was always a staple, we probably did not concern ourselves with its origin. We likely assumed all of America ate the same foods we did.

 

However, like many childhood beliefs, this has proven not to be the case. Apparently, the rest of the world didn’t get the memo. So, what is hoe cake (for the uninitiated) and how did it come to be such a desirable dish on Southern tables for so many generations past?

 

Hoecakes and honey are as American as apple pie and the popularity of this simple food quickly spread among settlers throughout Colonial America. Originating with native Americans, it eventually became a commodity eaten regularly by not only early white Americans, but slaves and European settlers as well.

  

George Washington’s Mt. Vernon table boasted a sumptuous and bountiful bevy of dishes from which to choose. One of his favorite choices was hoe cakes and honey. One guest offered the theory that the softening effect of the hot butter and honey made the food much easier for Washington to chew. In colonial times, hoe cakes were consumed throughout New England, Virginia, the Deep South and the Southwest.

 

American diplomat and poet Joel Barlow wrote about hoe cake in his 1793 poem “The Hasty Pudding”, calling it “fair Virginia’s pride.” Barlow also referred to it by other names: in New England, it was called Johnnycake (“a dash of pumpkin in the paste.”) In other parts of the nation, it was referred to as journey cake, ash cake, corn pone, spider bread, mush cakes, Injun bread and bannock.

 

Simple hoe cake was made with corn meal, water and salt. It was baked on the flat part of a hoe over a wood fire, hence the name. Johnnycakes and corn pone were somewhat thicker and may have contained wheat flour or added fat. Southern hoe cake was essentially a little corn meal pancake, brown outside and crispy around the edges.

 

These hoe cakes were often eaten with turnip greens or collards and, for those ‘in the know’, dipped in pot likker. Basically, these hoe cakes were fried corn bread made with only corn meal and water, but many cooks liked to use eggs and milk.

 

I have often eaten fried corn bread, and I frequently had corn meal pancakes growing up, but I have never cooked nor eaten anything that was cooked on the flat side of a hoe.

 

The Southern hoe cake, eaten by most of us Southerners for generations, is not a corn meal product, but rather a biscuit-like bread made in a skillet. 

 

My recipe, which follows, was handed down from my mother and probably represents a chain of generational sharing in the family. My first piece of advice: put on an apron, one that covers the preparer. While preparing hoe cakes, believe me, you will want coverage. Also, have a damp washcloth and paper towels handy.

 

A Southern Mama’s Hoe Cake

 

You Will Need:

 

2 cups plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup of shortening 

Buttermilk

10” or 12” cast iron skillet, well-seasoned and well-used

 

Add dry ingredients, work in shortening with (clean) hands, until well mixed. Add buttermilk a little at a time until you have a stiff dough. With floured hands, knead until it is no longer sticky. Put it into a greased, floured skillet and shape it evenly around the edges. Bake at 450 degrees until lightly brown.

 

Take it out of the oven with mitts and dish it onto a large plate. Let it cool, cut and butter, spread on your favorite jelly or jam and dig in!

 

Thanks for listening and… keep smiling.

 

Audrey McCarver, August 5, 2022

 

Alabama’s famous shoe tree

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Let’s face facts. There are just some aspects of life that defy a satisfactory explanation. Without empirical evidence, many matters fall into the abyss of “opinion.”

For instance, why do people take a pair of shoes, tie the strings, and toss them onto a tree limb? I have heard from a reliable source (my son), that in the Marines it’s often done to commemorate one’s leaving the corps. A defiant gesture against those rigid, smelly, blister-causing foot coverings, perhaps.

As some have suggested, there could be a yearning to free their feet and go native and at the same time leave a visual ‘footprint’ on the sands of time.

Alabama’s famous shoe tree is a testimony to this curious phenomenon. Located on the north side of Highway 72, four miles west of Cherokee, Alabama, this popular roadside attraction has drawn thousands of admirers, picture-takers and curiosity seekers over the years.

There, several hundred pairs of shoes-tennis shoes, dress shoes and boots-dangle from the limbs of a lone sycamore tree which juts out of an embankment along the highway.

According to RoadsideAmerica.com, the Alabama shoe tree was first reported in 2008. This site also lists thirty-two such shoe trees around the U.S. and names several in multiple foreign countries.

Why do they exist? Frankly, no one knows. One such tree is known as the Tree of Lost Soles. Being the eternal optimist, I prefer Sole Survivor. How did the tradition first get started?

It may sound tongue-in-cheek, but maybe the first toe-box thrower was a muscular, stealthy type—an athlete with an old pair of sneakers. Or a disgruntled employee who, as an act of protest against a boss who was a heel, wanted to release their frustrations.

Maybe some jealous would-be beau swiped the foot wear of a rival for his love’s affections and flung them into forever. That would teach her that the upper crust did not care to be strung along!

It has been attested to that many who consign their old footwear to heavenly history inscribe on them their names, hopes, aspirations, predictions and even poetry.

It’s my opinion that people who engage in this practice usually do it just for the fun of participating, to see if one can achieve higher altitude and perfect placement and add their personal touch to posterity. Bragging rights, so to speak.

If a reader determines to see this showy shoe spectacle, please be advised that this timely tree is terrifically close to a bustling, busy thoroughfare and sudden stopping could result in catastrophic conclusion.

Best way to get a photo while traveling?

As the objective nears, slow down and take a picture from the car, then quickly return to the real world where a shoe tree is just a figment of an overactive imagination.

Thanks for listening… and keep smiling!

Audrey Brooks McCarver. August 4, 2022

 

 

Legend of Alabama’s Goat Man

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There are legends, and then there are LEGENDS.

Some legends are born of woman. Some legends are born of imagination. Some are born of a combination of the two. Often, in such a case as the latter, it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate fact from fiction.

There are those who are ‘a legend in their own time’; there are those who are ‘a legend in their own mind’. Then, there is Charles “Ches” McCartney, known throughout the South as Alabama’s legendary Goat Man. 

Born in Sigourney, Iowa, on July 6, 1901, Charlie was a student at the local rural school which numbered only 14 students, all ages gathered into a single room.

“Charlie was never very bright,” said a former classmate. “I never really liked him all that much, to tell you the truth it was because he liked to keep to himself.”

At age 14, Charlie ran away from Iowa to New York City where he married a 24-year-old Argentine knife thrower. They had a baby boy and, to make some spending money, Charlie joined her knife-throwing act as a human target. It was also his job to keep the knives sharp.

After this venture failed, they moved back to Iowa and bought a farm, but after only a few years, the woman became unhappy, took the child and fled to parts unknown. The small farm he owned was lost in the Great Depression, but a local historian claims that Charlie gave up the land to satisfy a grocery bill that he couldn’t pay.

While cutting trees for the WPA in 1933, Charlie was struck by a falling tree and injured him so badly that, when he was found hours later, he was taken to a funeral home. As the undertaker was inserting the needle with embalming fluid into his arm, Charlie suddenly woke up and sat up straight on the mortician’s table. The surprised mortician passed out cold.

After this, Charlie could use his left arm very little due to the deformity from the accident. Out of pure shame, he didn’t want to be put on the newly-formed welfare programs created by Roosevelt, so, he decided he wanted to travel the world and preach the gospel.

When Charlie discussed the matter with his wife at the time, she gave him a firm ‘no.’ She was having no part of such foolishness. A week later, Charlie sold her to a neighboring farmer (whom the wife already had her eye on) for two payments of $500 each. Now Charlie was free to do whatever he liked.

Having always been very fond of his goats, he rounded them up and attached several to a wagon he had made from a railroad cart. He took a bed, a pot-bellied stove, lanterns, Robinson Crusoe and the Bible and hit the road. Along the way, Charlie gathered up various items he found along the way.

“He made some money selling postcards he had had made of himself,” said one historian. “Twenty-five cents or three for a dollar.”

He also sold or traded items he gleaned along the way. He was known to preach and pray in return for dollars and dinners. His sermons were liberally salted with cursing and profanity.

“He smelled awful!” was the most often expressed impression people had of Charlie. Having lived with and slept with goats for years and never bathing would be a believable reason. It was often said that people could hear the commotion of the goats and wagon and smell the pungent odor long before he could be seen.

When word got round that the Goat Man was coming, parents would gather up their children and their cameras and go to see him. With few other forms of family entertainment, his appearance made for an enjoyable outing for a family (provided they stayed upwind).

Charlie would camp where tolerant landowners allowed it. Each night he would build a huge bonfire and top it off with cut-up rubber tires he had harvested from his travels.

Ostensibly, this was done to keep the bugs away, but others surmised that this thick, smoky cloud brought the locals to see what was on fire. When they arrived and saw that it was Charlie, well, now, what a fine opportunity to sit a spell, chat a while and buy a few postcards —“25 cents apiece or three for a dollar”. 

He didn’t have a big overhead, living on goat’s milk and items people brought to him. He accepted donations, especially from a little Georgia church that he started near Jeffersonville. And the goats would eat anything.

People remembering the sight of “Ches” McCartney and his smelly, clamorous entourage traveling down a road would be a sight they were not be likely to forget. Sometimes his herd numbered thirty goats, some goats pulled the unsightly sight from the front and some of the billy goats would push from the back.

If an animal was sick, or “off its feed”, he would hoist it up into the wagon for treating. The baby goats were often born in this wagon. One goat was observed with no front legs, and it hopped like a kangaroo.

Once while taking this tremendous load up Monteagle Mountain in a winter storm in southeast Tennessee, Charlie passed stalled vehicles left and right. That night he survived, he said, by taking extra goats into the wagon —a real Three Goat Night.

Around 1969, the Goat Man retired from the road; new super highways were frightening the goats and it was just time. After decades spent traveling in this fashion all over the South and most of the East, Charlie was calling it quits.

He admitted to having three wives and children with each and admits “there could be more. Who can I know?”

In 1984, Charlie became enamored with Hollywood actress Morgan Fairchild, so he set out to hitchhike to California and woo her and make her his own. He actually made it to Los Angeles, but, upon arrival, he was promptly mugged. This brought his wife-hunting to a halt.

Gene, Charlie’s son, traveled with Charlie for several years and never went to school. Charlie had photos of the lad dressed in clothes made of goat skins. After Charlie was mugged on Signal Mountain and eight of his goats killed, the father and son retired to an old family property near Jeffersonville, Georgia.

On the site, there was a concrete tomb which housed the remains of his father and step-mother. There was no electricity or running water. When the wooden shack burned down, Charles and Gene took up living in an abandoned school bus on the property.

In 1998, when Charlie had been moved to a nursing home in Macon (where he made a new girlfriend), Gene was found in the old school bus shot to death. The crime was never solved.

In less than six months, Charlie McCartney died in the nursing home. He and Gene are buried, side by side, in Jeffersonville. 

In all his decades of travel, he visited forty-nine states, only missing Hawaii.

“My goats couldn’t swim that far,” he said. “And if they could, “they’d just end up eating the grass skirts off the hula dancers anyway.”

Thanks for reading and… keep smiling

By: Audrey McCarver

July 21, 2022

 

Tasty Chicken and Dumplings

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“My mom makes the best chicken and dumplings in the world!” exclaimed my eight-year-old granddaughter. Then, as if to console me, added, “Yours are second best in the world.”

Every Southern born man, woman and child from who were living before the fast-food era probably had a mother or grandmother or friend who made the best chicken and dumplings they ever ate.

Recipes have been handed down through generations and the traditions observed in the preparing and serving of this Southern comfort food which has stood the test of time. 

Eagerly anticipated at church pot-lucks, family get-togethers, home style cafes, this basic meal is not likely to disappear from Southern tables any time soon.

Since taste is so subjective, I feel no one article could be written that reveals the perfect, accepted recipe for chicken and dumplings. So, I will provide the recipe and instructions I grew up with, those of my mother, and her mother, and her mother before that.

To people of the South, there has never been a time when chicken and dumplings was not known. Do we know how this very popular dish came to be?

The actual history of chicken and dumplings is scarce, well, as hen’s teeth. The probable beginning given is that this pleasing plate of plump poultry and delicate, delightful dough had its start in the Antebellum south as a mainstay for harsh economic times. They did their best with what they had.

As is the case with any recipe, add, subtract, substitute, experiment: Make it your own. Here is my favorite recipe:

Chicken and Dumplings

About 4 chicken breasts (or preferred pieces)

Salt and Pepper, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Dumpling pastry

Cover chicken with water and cook until tender, about one hour. Remove chicken from bone and cut into small pieces. There should be enough liquid in the pot to make dumplings; if not, add small amounts of hot water with chicken bouillon cubes dissolved in it, or use canned chicken stock.

You can also use cream of chicken soup, diluted. Keep the liquid hot because the dumplings will take up the liquid and get too dry. Salt to taste.

Put two cups plain flour into a large bowl, add about 3/4 teaspoon salt. Work into the dough about 2 tablespoons of shortening until it is all worked in. Mix just enough ice water to make a dough.

Have a floured surface prepared. Turn out dough on this surface. Knead the dough with the flour until it is not sticky. Halve it for better handling. Keep using flour as you roll out the dough very thin. When dough is thin enough, cut into thin strips and drop into boiling liquid. Put on the lid and cook for 20 minutes.

Next, remove the lid. Turn these dumplings under the liquid and add the other strips. Let cook for another 20 minutes. Add more water if needed. Be sure to add black pepper, but not too much. Time to eat.

What should be served as accompaniment with chicken and dumplings? Bread is already in the dish, so it is not needed. I would suggest beans or peas and a relish tray with cut raw vegetables; carrots, bell pepper, cabbage, celery. Maybe a comfort dessert such as blackberry cobbler, but that is another recipe for another day.

So, if my grandchild thinks my chicken and dumplings are the second best in the world, I consider that a real, heartfelt compliment.

P.S. I am going to reveal a secret. If you just can’t dedicate this much time and effort to making the homemade dumplings, don’t despair. Go to the grocery and buy roll-out pie crust, then follow the rest of the instructions. It will save you some time and still look and taste authentic.

Thanks for listening… And keep smiling!

 Audrey McCarver, July 20, 2022

Sacred Harp Singing

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The tradition of Fa So La singing, so-called Sacred Harp singing, is as deeply embedded in the fabric of Southern culture as chicken and dumplings and “See Rock City” signs.

Known as shape note singing originally, Fa-So-La singing has its roots in the “country parish music” of early eighteenth Century England. Practiced mostly in small rural churches, the singing tradition was handed down from one generation to the next and, by the mid-1800s, it was known as Sacred Harp singing.

Around the mid-eighteenth century, the forms and styles of the English parish music were incorporated in America in a new tune book called Urania (1764), which led to The New Psalm Singer (1770). In 1835, an American named William Walker wrote a very popular book titled Before The Sacred Harp, which is still in use today.

In 1844, B.F. White and E.J. King published The Sacred Harp in Georgia, which came to be the tradition of shape note singing with the largest number of participants. With that, the music took on the name of Sacred Harp singing.

Fa-So-La singing is profoundly associated with books using the shape note system, which was popular in America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This system of using shaped notes was developed to help the singer learn to read the music by sight.

The notes are printed in shapes to help the singer identify them on a musical scale. Two prevalent systems were developed, one using seven syllables (Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti) to represent seven musical notes and the other system using four shapes. Three of these shapes represented two notes with the fourth only being used once.

Fa is a triangle, La is a rectangle, Sol is an oval and Mi is a diamond. The publishing of the book “shape note” singing was very popular, the song books often using existing folk tunes.

Those who participate in Sacred Harp singing follow a specified form. They do not sing for an audience, but for themselves and other singers. The venue is set up with chairs or pews enclosing a hollow square with the sides dedicated to treble, alto, tenor and bass.

Participants always sang a cappella, without instruments, believing that the ‘voice was the instrument given by God at human birth’. There is no designated song leader, rather any participant may direct a song.

That person stands in the hollow square facing the tenor section, or melody singers, and calls out the number of the song to be sung. The song is started with an open palm in the down position and singing commences on the palm up motion. Someone sets a pitch and the singers sing the first verse using the shaped notes.

Then they sing the poetry, every one keeping the time with their palms raising and lowering with the rhythm.

Shape note singing, very popular in New England, spread to cities and urban and rural areas all over the country. However, despite the popularity of the shape note, the “better music” movement brought it under attack, led by Lowell Mason (A Charge to Keep I Have), who wanted a more scientific style of sacred music, which more closely favored the contemporary European music.

Before the Civil war, shape notes and their music disappeared from the Northeast and the Midwest, but still had a stable haven in the rural south. Much later, children in poor regions of Appalachia went to the singing schools and learned to read the shape notes at a very early age. In those regions the music was known as harp.

Today there is a wide resurgence of sacred harp singing which reaches beyond the American South to all areas of the United States and is popular in the British Isles, Australia, Ireland and many other countries.

Usually, most singing conventions are not held in a church building, but some churches host the ‘all day singing and dinner on the grounds’, which was popular in the middle of the twentieth century.

As a child, I often saw this sort of get-together at a church near my home. I recall vividly in my high school, a shy and quiet girl displaying for our class the art of shape note singing. I thought her very brave to stand before thirty teenagers who were disciples of sixties rock and roll and sing a recognizable tune with Fa So La lyrics.

To provide examples of Fa So La singing, I am including links to Terry Fell’s ever-popular Fa-So-La song and the Chuck Wagon Gang’s In Harmony

Thanks for listening… keep smiling!
Audrey McCarver, July 15, 2022