Afternoon All, "I will neither look back, nor be back..." Those words have rung again and again in my head, sounding ominously and sadly...wrenching my heart over the thirty years and more since I first heard them spoken, and I have an idea it was not the first time they were said... The man who spoke them had spent the long autumn day of 1967 sitting on the back porch of the home where he had taken up housekeeping with his young pretty wife in 1910. One of the last to give in to the inevitable when LBL claimed entire communities and lands owned for generations, he was a sad defeated figure, sitting in his best gray pants, his crisp white shirt, suspenders...holding a worn gray felt hat in trembling hands. He had watched the accumulation of a lifetime, as well as the generations before him auctioned off in his backyard. He blinked back tears we must not notice as the first boards removed from his outbuildings, his smokehouse, his barn and the home where he raised five children. He had seen the land where his father and the father before that, and that, and even before had lived, loved and dreamed, cried and buried their own....suddenly gone, out of his grasp, out of the grasp of the generations to come. He was a Dennis son. He was a Futrell, Dunlap, and Clark grandson. He had lived in the land of his ancestors, and fully expected that the generations to follow would live on the same land that he had lived, would take their first steps there (as I did)...and perhaps, would draw their last breaths there (as he had wished to). When the autumn day drew to a close, so did the autumn of his life. He climbed in the back of a daughter's car, with only the words, "I will neither look back, nor be back..." Within six months he drew his last breath. I was young when I heard those words, old enough to understand there was something prophetic about them, something so infinitely deep in their meaning that his voice speaking them is forever recorded in my mind, playing back again and again at any given time. But I was far too young, far too away from understanding the true depth of their meaning. It has since come to me that those words he spoke, the first time I had ever heard them, had indeed been spoken many times before, and that the times they were spoken were no less wrenching, no less heartbreaking than on that autumn day of 1967. I think of James McElroy and his young bride, my 6th great grandparents, sailing from Scotland in 1730 in the vessel "George and Ann", leaving behind their folks, their siblings, their friends, and all they had known all of their lives. I picture them going round to the huts of their kin, the hugs, the blessings, the prayers, the tearful goodbyes, perhaps some small thing "in remembrance" being exchanged. I see them watching over the rail of a ship until the last green of their homeland blurs in the distance and is swallowed up by a sea stretching as far as they can see...Perhaps James then put an arm about his wife, saying stoicly, "I will neither look back, nor be back...and turned her then to the west, gazing across waters toward a promise and another way of life. You have an ancestor who could have said those words, in the same circumstances... I think of Jacob Brake, also a 6th great grandfather, who began his promise in this country as an indentured servant. When those days were over he moved further west, and before the days of his son were numbered, James the son of Jacob had seen that North Carolina held no further promises...and he cast his eyes past the blue mountains westward. His wife must have mourned over those she left behind, the graves of loved ones, perhaps those of her own children. She must have hugged a sister, an aunt, a beloved friend hard, willing the memory of that hug to be enough to last forever. She must have searched beloved faces she would leave behind when they were not looking, willing herself to remember each line, each wrinkle, each nuance, each mannerism...knowing she would never look upon them again. How they must have mourned to leave behind the dreams of Jacob, and build again. And if the words were not spoken audibly...it must have been the resolute determination in a heart when they at last had said every farewell that could be said, and set their eyes determinedly on the long trail before them that led to Tennessee. "I will neither look back, nor be back..." You have an ancestor who could have said those words, in the same circumstances. I think of John Hatcher, my 4th great grandfather, a Cherokee who left North Carolina early in the 1800's, probably understanding that he was witnessing the end of his culture, probably wanting to escape with his family before the looming storm clouds on the horizon released in full fury the ultimate promise that boded not well for the generations to come. I think perhaps his sadness at leaving his people was probably tinged with not only the wrenching from those he loved, but also grief for a long heritage...and more than a little fear for those he loved who stayed behind. And I think as he turned his eyes toward a "safe place", his thoughts were were not only stoic, but also tempered with the strange mixture of guilt and relief..."I will neither look back, nor be back..." And yes, you may have an ancestor who could have said those words, in the same circumstances. It comes to me that those words were probably spoken again and again, after every season of generations...and always with the same pain, always with the same resolute stoic understanding that for all things there is a season, and there comes a time to move on, neither looking back, nor going back... whether it be places, situations or people. It comes to me that those words are as much a part of our heritage as all these bits and pieces of paper, all these scraps of tattered evidence they lived, all these legends and stories we clasp close to our heart....and it comes to me that those words are as much a part of our "survival kit for living, and continuing to live" as our ancestors could possibly give us. We learn a lot from them....sometimes it is an appreciation for the richness of our history, and the sacrifices that led us to this point. Sometimes it is an empathy that then somehow paradoxically manages to aid us in feeling that even more so for our fellow living man. Sometimes it is a knowingness of how truly planned this world and its long journey really is, and a belongingness when we see our small humble link in all of it. Sometimes it is a tremendous sense of responsibility that we feel, and we reach out to help another, in any small way we can...to find his or her own link in it all, his or her own sense of belongingness in this great family on earth. And sometimes...it is simply a lesson in how to live, how to survive, how to build again, how to point those who follow us in a fresh direction. "I will neither look back, nor be back..." Thank you, Pa...I little understood the full import of those words when they first fell on my ears...but since that time, there have been many seasons in my lifetime...and more than a few times, when I realized a season had ended...that no further positives could come of it, and the time was ripe to bid goodbye...to grasp the good memories of that season firm in my heart to remember forever, to hold the deep lessons of that season firm in my mind to aid me again, to leave with sadness, and without negatives...but to say..."I will neither look back, nor be back...", turn my eyes toward a new horizon, and begin again. just a thought, jan John 3:16 Future Resident, artist, scribe-in-residence, general troublemaker of the Old Genealogists Home, best kept secret in America Listowner: [email protected] [email protected] Listowner: [email protected]