(insects chirp) (birds calling) (gentle bright music) - [Kathryn] All I ever wanted to be was a newspaper reporter.

From the time I can remember.

I didn't want to be a teacher and I didn't want to be a nurse.

I didn't want to be a stenographer.

I didn't want to do any of those things that my little friends thought they wanted to do.

I didn't even wanna fly an airplane.

I just wanted to be a newspaper reporter.

(water laps) - [Narrator] I met her it wasn't like a first meeting.

She seemed familiar, comfortable.

(gentle music) It was like traveling to a new place, arriving and then feeling like I'd been there before.

And being with her is like going on a journey.

She takes us places in our minds, through her memory that reaches much further than most of us can recall.

Through her childlike curiosity about things that go largely unnoticed by most people.

And through her eternally optimistic outlook on the world and her life within that world.

She's as Southern as the part of Alabama she calls home and like her lifelong small town surroundings, she's part of a rapidly disappearing part of American culture.

She's been known as a journalist, a photographer, a wife and mother, a writer, a storyteller.

But to me, she's simply known as a friend named Kathryn.

(gentle, bright music) - I've been knowing Miss Kathryn, I guess ever since '85, I met her at the Kentuck Festival, but I never really got a chance to talk to her 'cause when she was selling all of her books that she stayed busy the whole time she was there.

So I would always go by and speak to her and just have a good time talking to her for just a few minutes.

Oh.

And she's a easy lady to talk to.

(wind blows across mic) So when I really got to know her was in France.

Look at that.

That's when the wheels ran off the wagon.

(gentle, bright music) - Kathryn came with Charlie Lucas and it was like landing in a country where neither one of them had been, in a new culture, and immediately their friendship and their warmth and their personality, and their being, their presence, their vital life energy exuded hospitality, something we're famous for and proud of.

- Well, she introduced me to the world right because she said, "Charlie," said, "come on, let's go downtown."

So we walked downtown and she led the whole way.

And that was pretty fascinating to me to see her walking and talking at me.

And we walked all the way down to town, got down now, and I couldn't even speak the language, so I'm hoping she could.

And we went to olden stuff.

We went to fleet markets.

We went to places that I never would've thought she would've wanted to go.

And so that fascinated me too.

- Kathryn is her simple self.

She had on her "Alabama Dirt" T-shirt, talking about this, that and the other, and how Alabama was her home, Jeffrey the ghost.

How, "Absolutely happy I am to be here," in her very soft, gentle voice.

- I mean, she helped me through a lot of stuff, and I was trying to do the same thing for her, through reading the crazy menus and stuff.

We all sat down and figured it out.

That's when I seen her as being a wonderful lady, a magic lady, a lady with character, lady with high standards.

And I wanted to get close to that because I wanted to learn about her.

Living next door to her, oh goodness, it's like the 1st of July every day.

- Look out, (birds singing) a witches fingers will get you!

Aren't they menacing and evil looking?

Long claws that could just scrape your eyes out!

Bore holes through your head and ears then right up your nose.

And your throat!

Just slash your throat with these witches fingers.

Homegrown, trumpet vines.

Used to play with them when I was a little girl.

Beautiful blossoms, turn into evil fingers.

Trumpet vine grow most anywhere in the south I think.

I like these.

And if I get too scared with the witches fingers, I always find a little solace in my blue bottle tree.

Way back in Southern superstitions, keep evil away.

And the theory is that evil spirits have a great deal of curiosity.

And so they go up into the bottle to see what's in there.

Once they're in there they're so stupid they can't find the way out.

So you capture all the evil spirits before they can get to your house.

(bright fiddle music) - We're in Jonesborough, Tennessee, for the 30th National Storytelling Festival, which is a great event in terms of festival.

But for those of us who are tellers, it's our family reunion for the year.

- This year, we have 30 storytellers of all walks of life, of all geographies, of all cultures, telling stories to over 12,000 people.

And they come from all 50 states and many foreign countries.

- It's one of the larger storytelling festivals in the country.

There are probably 300 festivals that happen around the country every year.

But the Jonesborough Festival is the oldest and the first.

And this is the festival from which everybody else got their idea.

- It's an honor to introduce Ms. Kathryn Windham.

She's from Selma, Alabama, and she tells stories.

(cheering) (applause) - I've known Kathryn for a long, long time as a storyteller.

To me, she's one of the best.

In fact, all the storytellers say she's the matriarch of all of the storytellers.

Whenever you hear the word, Kathryn Tucker Windham, you wanna hear her no matter if you've heard her once, no matter if you've heard a jillion times, you know, you wanna go hear Kathryn again.

- Well, we first knew Kathryn Windham as a collector of ghost stories.

And we were very familiar with her stories about ghost in Alabama, and Georgia and Tennessee.

And of course Jeffrey, her own ghost.

- I have collected hundreds of ghost stories, true ghost stories from throughout the south.

And I have found only two evil ghost in all of that.

And you know, that's better than the percentage of living people, you know?

(audience laughing) - So I call her up out of the blue and I say, "Kathryn Windham, are you willing to come to Jonesborough to the 2nd Annual National Storytelling Festival and tell ghost stories?"

And she said, "Well, who'd you say you were?"

And I said, "I'm Jimmy Neil Smith, in Jonesborough, Tennessee."

"And you want me to do what?"

she says?

I said, "I want you to come and tell stories, ghost stories at the National Storytelling Festival."

And it was quiet on the other end of the line.

And then finally she said, "You must want my daughter.

She's the actress!"

- But there are simple things you can do to protect yourself.

If you're frightened at night, when you go to bed, if you put your shoes right up on the edge of the bed with one toe pointing onto the bed and one toe in the opposite direction, you're safe all night long.

Nothing bad will ever happen to you and you'll never be afraid of anything.

And I have no idea why it works, but I know it works.

You just accept our Southern superstitions and don't question 'em.

But do 'em right!"

- Well, I said, "No, I want you.

I've read your ghost stories.

And if you can write ghost stories, you can surely tell ghost stories."

I said, I'll send you a ticket.

She said, "Okay."

So I sent her an airline ticket, brought her to Jonesborough, Tennessee, to the 2nd Annual National Storytelling Festival and she became an instant hit.

She has been one of the favorite storytellers of all time here at the National Storytelling Festival.

(gentle, bright music) - It was in this room one bright, sunny, October afternoon.

I was sitting in this rocking chair, reading, and I heard these heavy footsteps clumping down the hall.

And I thought my son Ben had come home from college.

And so I called him, "Ben?"

and nobody answered it.

I got up to see why he didn't answer and the footsteps were really loud and the door to his bedroom had slammed.

That's why I was so sure it was Ben.

It sounded well, like, (clumps down the hall) and then the door to this room slammed, (door clunks) but he wouldn't answer me.

And I got up to see why he didn't answer and there was nobody in the house.

Made me feel a little bit strange, but, well, I didn't mention it 'cause I didn't want the other children to think I was losing it.

A few days later, my daughter Dilcy and I were in that same family room reading, both of us.

And our old lazy cat named Hornblower was sound asleep over in his rocking chair.

He didn't like to be disturbed.

He was old and pitiful.

All of a sudden I heard those steps again.

It's loud going down the hall.

(she stamps her feet) And I looked over at Dilcy, she was hearing, her eyes getting real big, and that old cat waked up out of his sound sleeping, jumped down out of that rocking chair and arched his back and the hair stood up around his neck and his tail.

(imitates cats cry) and he just went tearing out the room.

And I thought, "Well maybe we did have something here?"

We named it Jeffrey.

One of the children named it.

I don't know which one, but, a good pet name.

And we were very pleased later to find out that one of England's most famous ghosts was named Jeffrey that haunted the rectory where the Wesley's lived, who founded the Methodist Church that we all belong to.

And I went over there to England one time looking for Jeffrey and never saw him, but, heard lots of good tales about him.

But sometimes we come in this living room and this rocking chair right here, and just be gently swaying back and forth though there's nobody in it and nobody has been in here and there's no wind through the room to make it sway.

So we called that Jeffrey's chair.

And people, children especially, like to come and have their pictures made sitting in Jeffrey's chair.

But we always ask 'em to, you know, ask Jeffrey before they sit down 'cause he could be in it.

We wouldn't wanna mash him by sitting on him, and.

Although I've never seen him, everywhere there are reminders of Jeffrey.

People give me such nice things.

Ghostly things like, (gentle, bright music) like this little Jeffrey necklace that my dentist, Dr. Mike Mayhan made out of people's bridges and feelings.

I think most of 'em came from mealy vics, but anyhow, you know, he did a good job with that.

But the first Jeffrey that I got was this one that my daughter Dilcy found when she was in Florence, Italy.

Walking down a side street and looked in a shop window and this little pendant was lying in there.

It's just like the first illustration we had used for Jeffrey.

And she just screamed out, "It's Jeffrey."

And she went in and bought it and brought it home to me.

Been many others since.

People have give me lots of things that might good to me.

And I like it.

I like it.

- Well, you know, Jeffrey is just like a member of the family, he's been here, oh since 1966, which is a long time ago.

And most doesn't stay here all the time, comes and goes, is what we call a free spirit.

And I can't swear he's a ghost cause nobody's ever seen him.

But there is something strange in this house.

(gentle, bright music) - When I first heard Kathryn tell stories, many years ago, she was telling ghost stories.

She kinda started off doing that.

But then the next time I heard her, she was talking about her father.

She was talking about her uncle.

She was talking about her mother.

And that's what oral tradition is about.

Talking about your family, talking about things you know about, not making up a story, a funny story.

And they're places for that.

You know, folk tales and stories that have been handed down through the years and all that, there's a place for that, but we're kinda losing some of that for the oral tradition.

And that means that where we are talking about people that we know, talking about ourselves, how we grew up, what kind of family we had.

And she's bringing that back to some of the others.

(audience laughing) - My father was born in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended.

My grandfather Tucker walked home after being held prisoner on Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi, walked back to a poor dirt farm in Marengo County, Alabama, married his childhood sweetheart.

And the next year my father was born, the oldest of nine sons.

And growing up in those hard reconstruction times, he had very little opportunity for educate.

My father went to school three months in his whole life, but he learned how to read.

And he said, "If you can read, you can learn anything in the world you want to know.

The whole knowledge of the world is at your fingertips."

And all his life he read.

There were books in every room in that house I grew up in, and those books were read, talked about and discussed.

And despite his lack of formal education, he grew up to be president of the bank and chairman of the county school board and superintendent of the Sunday school, and master of the lodge and a great story teller.

And everywhere he went, he came back with a story to tell.

We'd sit around the supper table at night and talk to each other and laugh together as a family, and listen to stories.

And I remember one time he went down to Grove Hill, which was the county seat, and they got entertainment down there that didn't always come to Thomasville.

But they had a little one ring circus down there.

Didn't amount to much.

Had a clown and a trapeze artist, and a juggler, and a pony, and a monkey, and a little three piece orchestra.

Had a drummer, and a trumpet player and a trombone player.

Well, my father said he was sitting by this little boy, about this high, who had never seen any live entertainment like that before, but he noticed that the child was not watching the action in the ring at all.

He had his eyes glued on that little orchestra.

And finally he reached over my father and tugged on his coat sleeve and said to him, "It's just a trick ain't it?"

Said, "He ain't really swallowing that thing is he?"

(audience laughing) (gentle, bright music) - Kathryn Windham single-handedly changed the face of storytelling in this country.

Up until Kathryn began telling personal stories here at the National Storytelling Festival nobody else was doing it.

Kathryn got up on the stage, told her simple family stories and it was as though she opened the gates and said, "Come on in, everybody.

You're welcome here.

You can tell these stories too."

- When you try to tell your personal story, like on a stage in Jonesborough, Tennessee, the hardest challenge I believe is to feel that you and your story are adequate or enough.

And Kathryn does this and kind of did it before me and somehow her encouragement saying, you know, "We are enough in the stories we tell if we're authentic," is I think what empowers us to stand up and tell our own personal story.

And to me, that is a wonderful gift.

(birds singing) (insects chirping) (gentle, bright music) - [Kathryn] Look at all those good tomatoes though, that are coming, plants.

- Look at that.

I ought to tighten it up some, don't you think?

- I think it needs tightenin' We don't wanting them to break like that other one did.

It had 22 tomatoes on it.

- It just fell off.

- Just broke off.

(gentle music) - Me and Miss Kathryn is basically share croppers.

And so the thing was that when I'm off somewhere that she had to pull the duty for me when I'm not here.

So when she's gone, I pull her duty.

And every time you see somebody drive up and they're like, "Can I pull all the way in the backyard so I can look over in this guy yard?"

So Miss Kathryn will be over in it and they'll see her and they say, "Oh, that's the ghost."

And so they get totally confused of what we doing in the back, and they see all of this stuff back here, and me and Miss Kathryn be out here and we basically mind our own business, but we keep each other entertained is what we do.

- You see all my life I like to dig in the dirt.

Even when I was a little girl, I'd plant things in our backyard and nothing ever happened.

Even after I came here and had a house here.

Every spring, I planted something, usually tomatoes, and the squirrels would come and eat 'em.

and nobody believes that squirrels eat tomatoes, but I've watched them.

They'll just pull those tomatoes off and hold 'em in there little paw and just gnaw on 'em.

And the birds would come and pick 'em.

And I never was upset at anything.

So when this little plot was back here and Charlie and I decided, well, maybe we'd have a little gar, I wasn't too hopeful about it.

But not one bird has been in this garden and not one squirrel has been in this garden, and it just flourished.

And I really think it's because of these figures that Charlie has here.

This creations of 10 men.

And I think they think they're scarecrows.

And that horse that he made outta the scuppernong, you know, it may have frightened 'em too.

You know, people are sometimes frightened, I guess creatures could be too, but I do think there's some magic in this art that Charlie has put out here.

It's made the vegetables flourish and it's kept the predators away and, it's just been a delight.

We come out every morning to see what's grown and how much we can expect to harvest that day, go back and have tomato sandwiches, and cucumber sandwiches, and snap beans and butter beans.

Oh, it's just wonderful.

(water hisses out) (gentle music) (gentle, bright music) I was a baby in a rather large family.

There had been a 13 year skip and they thought the family was all born and you know, in the teen ages, and some of 'em married by the time I was born, I was a big surprise to everybody.

(soft jazz music) And I was spoiled, and petted, and indulged and enjoyed.

And I loved every minute of that.

But I grew up around adults.

Now, my brother Wilson, who was nearest my age, he was 13 when I was born.

He was kind of a playmate to me and taught me to do lots of things like, well, how to shoot a sling shot, and how to shoot a BB gun, and how to play baseball, and how to build a kite and fly it.

And then taught me how to dance a little later by letting me stand on his feet when he'd waltz around the living room there with a wind up Vitrola playing "My Blue Heaven."

And it was a strange family age-wise.

(soft jazz music) When I was growing up down in Thomasville, there were things to read all over our house; books and magazines and newspapers.

And we read the magazines and newspapers and we talked about 'em.

And I especially was interested in the newspapers and somehow deep in my heart from the time I learned how to read and to write myself, I knew I wanted to be a newspaper reporter.

It just seemed to me to be the most, one of the fascinating career.

You wouldn't do the same thing every day.

You'd have something new and different every day, and you'd write things that people would read the same day you wrote 'em.

And that's what I knew I wanted to be.

And I had a good training ground in Thomasville.

My cousin Earl had a weekly paper by Earl Tucker, had the Thomasville Times, (gentle guitar music) and I used to hang around his printing office down there.

When I got to be the great age of 12, he made me the official movie review editor of the Thomasville Times.

I even had a little press pass.

and I didn't get any money for doing this, but I could go the picture show any time I wanted to, which was a good thing.

And I wrote marvelous movie reviews for the age of 12.

We had a friend who lived one house between us on the street in Thomasville, Susie Johnson.

She was a semi-invalid and she subscribed to all the movie magazines and she kept them stacked all around the wall in her bedroom, almost waist high, all around the walls there.

When I found out what was the coming attraction at the Thomasville Theater, I'd go to Susie's house and look through the movie magazines and read the reviews in them.

I just was marvelous at writing these reviews.

There may have been a little bit of plagiarism involved.

I hope not, but anyhow, that was my introduction to the newspaper business.

And well, I progressed at the Thomasville Times, and wrote some obituaries and some feature stories.

And the greatest thing I learned maybe, was to read type upside down.

And that came in very handy in my later newspaper career.

Went on to Huntington and was on the paper there and edited it and got ready to graduate and decided I needed to go down to the Montgomery Advertiser and let them know I was ready to go to work for them.

And I presented myself to the city editor, Mr. Harwell Hatton, who looked at me and said, "Yeah, I know who you are.

You do good writing at the college paper.

And if you were a man, I'd hire you, but I'm not going to have any women working on my paper."

And that was the end of that.

This was 1939 long time ago.

I went back to Thomasville, and worked in my mother's insurance office, did feature writing' and sold stories at 10 cents an inch to the state papers.

Then one day I got to telegram.

Asked if I was still interested in a job in Montgomery, the newspaper, the Alabama Journal, the afternoon paper I advertised in.

And of course I was.

I went there and was the police reporter.

And that was something that had not been done in Montgomery, probably not anywhere in the south of a female police reporter on a daily paper.

And I was not very pleasantly received by the police down at the station.

They didn't like the idea of a woman hanging around the police station, I shouldn't be there.

I remember one day one of 'em asked me, he said, "What's a nice young lady doing being a police reporter?

You ought to be covering society."

And I said, "Well, I don't know enough adjectives."

And I don't know whether he knew what I was saying or not, but anyhow, I got it outta my system, but the police beat is the finest beat you can have in a newspaper, it's where things happen.

It's where the people are.

And I finally made some inroads into the confidence of the policemen down there.

They, for a long time, hid things from me though.

They wouldn't tell me about big news that was breaking, they'd, unfortunately, they'd lose the report.

So they just didn't know what happened to 'em or they just, they did me bad for a long time, but they didn't realize, and the police chief certainly didn't realize that I could read upside down.

And I'd go into his office and he'd have correspondence on his desk about various things going on in the city.

I'd be talking to him, but all the time I'd be reading every letter that he had on his desk.

And he never knew where I got the information that I had, but that came from working on Thomasville Times.

And I had worked with Vincent Townson, who was city editor of the Birmingham News on promoting war bond sales.

He did a great job of helping us promote 'em in that section of the state.

And one day he asked me if I'd be interested in coming to work for the Birmingham News.

And of course I would be.

That's the biggest paper in Alabama and the kind of thing I always dreamed about being able to do.

So I went to work with the Birmingham News as state editor.

(bright banjo music) - [Narrator] If you leave Selma and drive southwest for an hour or so, you'll come to the town of Thomasville where Kathryn grew up.

If you continue in that same direction past Thomasville, you'll find yourself in a part of the state that's sparsely populated and largely undeveloped.

Back in 1945, Kathryn was invited to this part of the state to visit the Bull Pen Hunting Club, 29,000 acres located on the Tombigbee Waterway, not too far from the town of Sunflower, Alabama.

That was before Sunflower grew to its current population of around 500.

Kathryn is said to have been the first woman invited to the club, which was founded in 1925.

The purpose of her visit was to cover the hunting trip of Governor Chauncey Sparks.

56 years later she was invited back to Bull Pen to tell stories about her first visit there.

- We're here today.

She was here last in November of 1945, and I hope that all of y'all will help me in welcomin' Kathryn Tucker Windham back to Bull Pen Hunting Club.

(applause) - Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, all of you.

Thank you.

And I'm just so glad I'm still alive and can come back!

(laughing) And I'm glad it was not the same treacherous trip I took in 1945.

Y'all just don't know how awful it was.

It had rained, and rained and rained.

Well, I came from Birmingham, lone female, 1945, in a Studebaker Champion, which was a fine car.

Got to Sunflower and that's about all the directions I had was to go to Sunflower and inquire!

(laughing) Well, I went to- - Just like today!

- Sunflower and went in the store there and said, "Please tell me how to go to get the Bull Pen."

And she said, "Well, I don't think any women go to Bull Pen."

(chuckling) And I said, "Well, this one is."

So, she gave me- - [Narrator] The night before our trip to Bull Pen, Kathryn called me and said, "Guess what I found?

My boots!"

Meaning the boots she wore to Bull Pen 56 years earlier.

They still fit.

And she wore them that night to tell the stories.

- First cigarette lighter in a car in Thomasville, Alabama.

And Earl was so proud of his new car.

Well, back then if you got a new car you took everybody to ride in it to show off all the features and let 'em tell how good it smelled, that all new smell, and Earl was taking his friend, Eric Clark, to ride in his new car and Eric got ready to smoke and he was feeling for his matches and Earl said, "Eric, you don't need a match."

Said, "I got a cigarette lighter in the car!"

Said, "See that?

You just mash it in and it pops out red hot and you light your cigarette!"

He said, "You telling me the truth Earl?"

Earl said, "Yeah.

Do it."

So he mashed it, popped out, and he light his cigarette and threw it out the window!

(laughing) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Around the room were hunting trophies and pictures of hunts from years past.

Pictures of grandfathers, and fathers and sons, and pictures of the governor and of Kathryn with her knee-high lace up boots.

The young men from these pictures are now grandfathers.

And they sat in the inner circle of easy chairs as Kathryn spun her tales.

The next generation sat in wooden chairs, and the youngest generation sat and stood around the outer walls.

- Everybody, you better listen up!

Kathryn's decided that she's gonna give us her boots tonight!

- Hear, hear!

- Yes, please!

(cheering) - Right now.

- [Narrator] At the end of her storytelling, Kathryn signed her boots over to the club.

I guess she figured she wouldn't likely be there again.

And we also knew that this would probably be our only trip to Bull Pen.

Kathryn had opened a door for us that wouldn't be opened again.

We had a glimpse into a piece of old Southern tradition.

A men's club with respected grandfathers, ambitious fathers, and sons in training who were polite and attentive.

(applause) (gentle bagpipe music) Several months after our trip, the Bull Pen Lodge caught fire in the middle of the night.

And in spite of the efforts of the members of the club, the lodge burned to the ground, and a grandfather, and two of the polite young sons died in the fire.

I read the article in the newspaper.

It made me very sad.

And I wondered if a little piece of Southern culture had disappeared forever?

(gentle, bright music) - All the time I worked at the Birmingham News the other reporters there would keep saying, "Oh, don't we miss Amasa?

Don't you remember that time when Amasa did this and that?

And do you remember that party of Amasa?"

They talked about him constantly.

And I just thought, you know, I'm tired of hearing this name.

Well, one night the door to the elevator to the newsroom opened up and this man in dressed white Navy uniform stepped out and everybody jumped up from the desk and went and running over and hugging him and kissing him and telling him how glad they were to see him.

And I thought, well, that must be Amasa.

And I just kept on typing so I could go home.

And he walked over to the desk and said, "Hello," said, "You must be Kathryn?"

Said, "I'm Amasa."

I said, "Yeah, I guessed you were."

And he said, "Well, we're gonna celebrate my homecoming tonight and going out to dinner, would you go out to dinner with me?"

And I said, "I'm not the least bit interested."

And so I didn't.

(chuckles) And think he was a little taken aback maybe.

He was quite a ladies man.

A lot of them loved him a whole lot.

(gentle music) But about two weeks later, the copy boy brought me a little note that said, "Would you be the least bit interested in going out to dinner with me tonight?"

And I decided, well, maybe I would.

And we went out to dinner and, and we just had such a good time.

And three months later we got married and it was, it was a wonderful thing and moved to Selma and had three wonderful children, and he was the best father that I have ever known.

He loved his children, so.

(gentle music) Amasa was talented in so many ways.

He was a fine artist among other things, a cartoonist and an artist.

And he was a perfectionist in the things that he was doing.

And I didn't know about his scrapbooks until, oh, sometime after we were married, I guess he must have had 'em at his sister Bessie's house.

And he used great big ledgers from the probate office, heavy leather bound, ledgers, big pages and heavy paper.

And he drew on them and did watercolors, and his printing was so perfect.

Every page was just a perfect layout, partly from his newspaper training that was, I suppose?

But his scrapbook went back all the way to college and through World War II and then our marriage, which is the greatest treasure, I suppose, that we own, beginning with the announcement of our engagement and the picture from the Birmingham News society section.

We didn't have but one wedding picture.

This was right after the war.

Things were scarce, everything was.

Then the formal announcement of the wedding.

And our honeymoon, everywhere we stopped along the way, looked pictures, drawn, and little funniest things about it.

Everything of importance had happened to us.

The birth certificates for the children and pictures of birthdays and Christmases, and just happy times together, all through that scrapbook of our marriage.

Until his last fatal heart attack.

(gentle, bright music) (gentle music) In this beautiful after ever Alabama River, deep bend of the Alabama River across the river from Camden in Wilcox County, Gee's Bend.

People all over the world have heard about it now from the quilts that were made here.

And this is a marvelous community.

Strange history of Gee's Bend.

- [Woman] Five of us quilt, and, (indistinct chat) - We works together every day.

- And not losing this art.

But we need to see some young folks learnin' to pull.

They're not interested in that.

- Right.

- I had heard about Gee's Bend all my life, I suppose.

And as I grew old, I wanted to see what it was like.

And when I was working in Selma, came down here, it must have been in the 19, oh 1960s, early '60s.

And I found it extremely interesting and I came several times and talked to the people and went to church with them and attended some baptismal services at the Creek.

And then in the early 1970s, (gentle guitar music) the Birmingham Public Library got a grant from the National Humanities Foundation to do an oral history of Gee's Bend and a photographic history of the Bend.

And they chose me to do the oral history.

So for a year I came down to the Bend four or five days a week, and we spent all day talking to people, listening to their stories and laughing with them and listening to their songs and sharing their memories.

So I got to know nearly everybody in the Bend and I felt comfortable with them and I think, I know, they felt comfortable with me and we talked openly and frankly about things.

And, we didn't always agree, but we were friends.

And it was a friendship that I still cherish, except most of my friends that I made then are now dead.

And it's kinda sad to come back to the Bend and have almost nobody to visit.

But the Bend is full of memories for me.

It's not as, not as impressive as it used to be, so many things have changed.

And so many of the older residents have died and their stories have died with them.

(people sing together) But this place is rich in history, stories, and joys and sorrows.

Rich in life and wonderful people.

♪ Glory hallelujah, I shall not be moved ♪ ♪ Glory hallelujah, I shall not be moved ♪ ♪ Just like a tree that is planted by the water ♪ ♪ And I shall not be moved ♪ (gentle guitar music) - I'm returning to Selma actually.

This is my second time at the Alabama Tale-Tellin' Festival.

I was here 25 years ago at the very first one and it's great to come back and celebrate this year with Kathryn and the other tellers.

Well, I remember that first one that we were down by the river, I'm not exactly sure where, but they had a little bit of a fire and they had hoped for maybe 50 or 60 people.

And 1,000 people showed up and Kathryn was telling about it last night at the concert saying how they had to send out for sound and get some microphones and make sure that we could be heard.

But it was very exciting to be in on the very first one.

And it's so wonderful to think about these 25 years, all the hundreds and thousands of people that have heard stories.

(indistinct chatter) - I did last night from the oldest person in the world, 122 year old lady.

But then I went to see the second oldest and she was 120.

And I remember you sent me that article about the lady who was 108 or something.

And did you ever go see any of those people?

Do you have any stories about the very oldest users?

- No.

I'm saving up to be that!

(laughing) - You're working on it.

And you're doing very well, I might add.

- Thank you.

(applause) Well it's been such a great year to be (indistinct) and be happy today.

Alabama won and Auburn won.

(cheers) Yeah!

You know, I went to Huntington, and they have a football team, which just seems amazing to me, but I don't think they've scored a touchdown yet.

- She says, "It's just a cat."

She walks over to the third tree, says, "Who's up there?"

Her brother up the tree goes, "Moo!

Moo!"

(laughing) I'm always flattered when Kathryn invites me down here, because I look at Kathryn as one of the premier storytellers in the country, folklores, and the work that she has done as a community builder.

- You know, I heard so much about Selma during the King marches.

And when she invited me in, I had a little bit of trepidation because of what I had always seen in documentaries on the news about Alabama and the Civil Rights Movement, but they made me feel most comfortable there.

And I was almost treated like a head of state when I got there.

- Selma was ground zero.

In April of 1865, over 600 of the physical structures in this community were burned to the ground.

In March of 1965, Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge was another ground zero experience for our community.

Many of the people who lived in Selma 1965, still live here today.

We have an old saying that history lives in Selma.

That is true.

Many of the people who were a part of that movement are still here.

I can recall being in a meeting, a community meeting, and the question was asked, "Who was on the bridge in 1965?"

Many of the African Americans in the room raised their hands, but there were two or three white gentlemen in the room who raised their hands also.

And everyone was looking at them strange saying, "Were you there?

What, you weren't there?

They said, "Sure, I was, but I was on the other side of the issue."

(gentle guitar music) - I was born here 72 years ago, 1930.

I was 18 years old before I ever went 100 miles from Selma.

- I was born in Selma.

My dad was a physician, and I lived here till I went off to college, then to medical school and surgeon training.

- September of 1948, I enrolled at Talladega College, little black college, then and now a good one.

- I came back in '53 and I've always loved this city.

And I was anxious to come back to it.

- And I came back here in 1958 as the first black person crazy enough to open a law office here.

And I say crazy, because at that time, Selma was a oppressive, dangerous little place.

- The school board was composed of friends.

We were a self-perpetuating board.

And I think the only board like that in the United States, maybe in the world, I don't know?

We were not elected.

Of course we were not salaried, but we were people that loved Selma and we had lawyers and physicians, CPAs, newspaper boards, all type of people, a cross section of people in Selma on the board.

And we loved Selma, (uneasy music) and we were friends and we respected each other.

- There were black and white restrooms, black and white schools, black and white everything.

- That respect and that friendship was really tested when eventually it came down that we were gonna have to desegregate the schools, which was a nice saying we were gonna integrate, a nice way of saying we're gonna integrate the schools.

- That's part of the reason I came back, not expecting any civil rights movement as such, but perhaps we could make some efforts to move the race forward.

- I remember one of the board members commented one time that if we desegregate the schools, I'm gonna have to teach my children to hate.

You can see that extreme.

That's frustration more than is actual fact, I think, when it was said.

But that opened my eyes a little bit.

I thought, "Gosh, are we gonna be that?"

- The Civil Rights Movement exploded in the streets of Selma.

Now the world thinks that Martin King came to Selma and told us, or asked us, to get in the streets and follow him.

That's really not what happened.

We'd been in the streets here two years, getting beat, whipped, jail, killed, and we finally persuaded him to come to Selma.

And we needed him here because once he got here he brought the NBC, ABC and the nation with him.

And that is what we needed to focus the world, the nation on our struggle.

- And Kathryn was on that board.

And Kathryn, as you know, is her own person and Kathryn, if she sees a situation, she knows how to evaluate both sides.

Probably that was the result of being a newspaper reporter and trying to be fair, but not entirely.

A part of it was 'cause that was the way Kathryn was.

And if she thought it, she had the unique ability to get her point across without making everybody mad.

Everybody was already mad in Selma.

- My friend Kathryn Tucker Windham was a local reporter, female, rare in those days, and she was covering that movement.

Birmingham gave to the nation, the Public Accommodations Law, ended racial segregation in public places.

Selma gave to the nation the Voting Rights statute in 1965, a truly historic event in the history of this nation.

And Kathryn covered that for the local newspaper.

And probably she was the only reporter looking at it as a Selmian plus as a woman.

- We were the heavies in all this conflict.

We were the white folks and there were some real problems that we had to recognize in ourselves.

We had to realize that we were wrong and this situation needed to be corrected, but that this was gonna change a lot of things.

And that was not easy.

- She is a woman, a person who transcends in ways, race, even nationality and even gender.

That doesn't mean that she doesn't know that she is Southern white female, but that is who she is, not what she is.

- And when I thought of Kathryn back then and I thought she was right radical, but that changed as time passed and we realized these things were right and she was thinking clearly about them, which is typical of her.

She was ahead of us because she knew what was coming.

We couldn't see it.

We had to work through it as a board.

- It was a stressful and unusual time, a difficult time in Selma.

But I'm glad I was here.

And I'm glad I know what actually happened.

What really happened.

But I was...

I was glad when that period ended, but people never let you forget about Selma, about those, the ugly times that happened here.

I'd go to different parts of the country telling stories and people would say, "where are you?"

I'd tell 'em from Selma.

And they would say proudly, "Well, I marched in Selma!"

And I couldn't help asking, "Well, have you been back?"

And they were always surprised at that question.

'Cause it seemed to me if they didn't care enough to come back to see what happened after those marches, they didn't care much about this town.

(gentle music) (birds singing) And I would just have to say to 'em, "Well, I was there when you marched and I'm still there.

And I hope I stay here till they take me out to New Live Oak cemetery."

- I don't know.

She seems to be sort of like a thread, some sort of thread that connects the black and white communities together.

And I think it's because of her style that she creates that sort of comradery.

(plays "Amazing Grace" with tissue paper and comb) (laughing) (applause) (cheering) - You see, it's so easy.

Anybody can do it.

And it's a wonderful thing comb playing.

I'm trying to start a movement of comb playing.

(audience laughing) In fact, in my hometown of Selma, Alabama, now, we have had five community comb choruses.

We meet on the lawn of the public library, two o'clock on Sunday afternoons and we distribute the combs.

They are red and green and blue.

And each one of 'em says, "Making music together in Selma, Alabama."

(playing the comb) - You got it.

- I got it, by golly.

(laughing) (several play together) - My wife asked me, says, "Where you goin'?"

I said, "I'm going to sing through a comb!"

- She said, "You losin' your mind?"

- I said, "Kathryn Windham is there," She said "Oh!"

(laughs) - And it's good to have you all this afternoon.

Simply hold your comb, put your paper in front of it.

You don't have to fold it over anything.

And just hum to the comb.

(all hum) Very, very simple.

I'll get a beginning pitch and we'll go from there!

(humming "John Brown's Body") (dog barks) - It has been a healing force in our town.

(laughing) We have had people playing the combs and making music together who've never had any social contact with each other before.

And you cannot play the comb without laughing.

It tickles your mouth.

And to laugh together, draws people together.

(sings through comb) (laughs) - All right!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

That's all right!

(laughs) (people chatter) - Kathryn Tucker Windham, the Alabama phenomena.

I visited Kathryn.

I saw her photographs.

I saw her love of humanity and she doesn't see color.

She doesn't see evil.

She sees the good in people and she tries to pull that good out in and spread it around, and in doing so, you pretend to be docile.

You pretend to be humble, which she does very well.

She's a comedian, an actress par excellence, because this was a strong lady.

This is a steel magnolia that happens to have justice on her side and she's understanding, and she's intelligent, and she's educated, and she's concerned.

And she's not a phony and she's not a hypocrite.

So I tried to do her as this little flop-eared rabbit looking out.

And she just was like the perfect subject for a lady, a docile rabbit sitting between two Civil War cannons pointing straight at you saying, you know, I'll be real sweet and nice, but don't ruffle my feathers.

'Cause these cannons are pointed straight at you and I'll blow you to bits if I see any injustice around here.

So that's Kathryn.

(gentle, bright music) - [Charlie] First when they asked me we's doing a museum in honor of Miss Kathryn, would you like to participate in it?

And so I went to Miss Kathryn I asked, I said, "What is this thing about Thomasville?"

She said, "Oh, Charlie, that's where I was raised at."

She said, "Did they ask you about building a sculpture of me?"

I said, "Yeah."

And I said, "They called me and asked me what size it's going be and you know, give them some idea what it's gonna look like."

And I told 'em, I say, "I don't have no idea what this thing gonna look like."

But it kind of gave me that scavenging look in my eyes.

I wanted to go out and find them the redness of her.

And then I was between Cargo and Selma and this table had fell off of somebody's truck or something.

(bright music) So I stopped and picked it up and I told Miss Kathryn, "Looking at what I find!

She said, "Oh Charlie, those are great colors."

She says, "Is that gonna be a part of me?"

And I said, "Maybe!"

I just got up and start welding on the piece.

And it was a bicycle laying there, so that was the, kinda like the strength, because this lady done rode many times over the world to do things, so that was the foundation right there.

And I had to dance with it.

I had to just laugh and dance and make it play with me.

And once I got into playing with me, it just started coming just natural.

But Jeffrey was the one, was the hardest one to catch up with.

And I said, "Show me where you at Jeffrey."

And it was a piece under the chair I had cut out months ago was Jeffrey face, and I knowed I had it then, I knowed I had all the ingredients.

It was just like a great big old pie or something that I was cooking up.

People don't realize when you create something, if you find the rhythm in it, you can play the instrument all the way to the end of it.

It touched my heart so deeply when I see her cry about something that I had did, and I couldn't have did it no better and I couldn't have did it no worse.

I really couldn't.

(gentle, bright music) ("Just A Closer Walk With Thee" Traditional gospel song) ♪ Through this world of toil and snares ♪ ♪ If I falter, Lord, who cares ♪ ♪ Who with me my burden shares ♪ - My grandfather, James Lee Tucker, pastored this church for a good many years back in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

And when he died, I was about seven years old.

And my family brought me to the funeral.

It was held from this church and he's buried over in that cemetery.

When I came out into this graveyard at Shallow Baptist Church this morning, I didn't realize that my great-grandfather was buried here.

And I had found his grave, James Wilson Tucker.

And my father was named for him.

And I was pleased to see that he had a Masonic mark on his grave too.

It's etched on there.

And my grandfather has one on his.

My grandfather, James Lee Tucker, and I found a whole rows of Tuckers buried.

I'm kin to nearly everybody buried in this graveyard, but I see so many unmarked graves here that do not have a proper tombstone, just have a concrete block, put down into the earth to signify that there is someone buried there, but we don't know who they are.

And I just bet half of 'em were kin to me, at least half of 'em.

(gentle guitar music) There's something reassuring to me about burial places.

The fact that life does go on.

I don't know why we find it so difficult to say that people die.

We use all sorts of euphemisms to avoid saying that my father died.

"We lost our father."

Well, how careless of you.

You know, why would you do that?

"He passed away."

Where did he pass to?

You know, away.

Died is such a good word.

And it says it's so with dignity.

(chuckles) And my favorite expression was what I saw in a Tennessee paper one time.

I always read obituaries.

I like to see how they wrote 'em and how they have what they say about the deceased.

It said, "Brother Hiram Jones stepped off the escalator of life."

And I just think that is just delightful.

If they don't want me to die, just let me step off the escalator of life.

I think that's a wonderful expression!

Now, Ben, somebody has been out here recently and put flowers around the Confederate monument.

That's a Confederate flag flying up there and that's what they have so many kind of arguments about.

- [Ben] Can't climb on it?

- [Kathryn] No, let's, don't climb on it today.

Let's come here and look at these cannons.

- [Ben] Oh yeah.

I wanna be shot outta this.

- [Kathryn] Oh, I don't think you'll fit in that, Ben.

- [Ben] I think I might fit in this one.

- I've never found it sad to come to a graveyard.

Always enjoy it.

I hate the modern ones.

Well, everything is at ground level to make it easy to mow.

And every gravestone looks alike and all those little vases of plastic flowers that are standing up there, it just is an insult to the dead, I think.

You steal all of their personality, all of that.

They don't seem to amount anything.

As if life's just like that.

I wanna take a machine gun and just, (imitates rapid fire) and mow all those old flowers down and all those plastic vases down.

Whereas in a cemetery like this or in any of the old country cemeteries, you walk around and you read the epitaphs, and you read the names and the dates and see how old this person was when he died and wonder what he did in his lifetime?

Often they have the whole life history, sometimes chiseled into the stone and sometimes just the barest dates, born, died.

Over there is the monument to William Rufus King.

Come here let me show you.

- [Ben] Who's that?

- He was a vice president of the United States.

- Cool.

- Yeah.

- Can I climb on his grave?

- Oh no, it's not a grave.

It's a mausoleum.

- [Ben] Oh, can I climb on that?

- No, you cannot climb on anything else please.

I have friends who share my delight in graveyards.

My pleasure and reassurance that I find here, really.

We like to have picnics here.

(gentle music) It seems an unlikely spot, maybe for a picnic, but we get sandwiches and bring out here in spring and fall, pleasant days and walk around and decide which family we want to have our meal with.

Look at all the markers a little bit and then settle down on one of the families copings like this, the bricks around their lot and eat our picnic and tell the stories we know about that family.

Well, some people might find that objectionable, might find it morbid and sad, and pitiful and disrespectful even, but I've never felt that way about it.

I think we are coming back to places that, well are sacred in many ways.

And we're coming to a place where the people, of what is left of 'em, their bodily remains here, they were just like us at one time and they would've enjoyed joining us in a picnic.

And I think it lends a feeling of... Of the fact that life does go on.

A relaxed feeling, a hopeful feeling, a feeling that everything's okay.

And that the people here are glad for us to come out here and laugh and talk and have a meal together and wonder about what life is all about.

- In a way it's just like my grandmother done come back up into my life again.

And she there for me for many things and I thank her for it.

And lots of people need that kind of help sometimes.

She really showed me how to just going up there and take the bad and listen to my heart more than worrying about what people think about me.

And I guess I was trying to please too many people in my life.

And so she told me, said, "You know, you got to do things for Charlie and stop worrying what people look at you and say about you so much."

And that was the best part of her coming in my life was that she didn't worry about was I rich or poor?

And that was a good thing too.

'Cause I really was poor.

She brightened my life up more than anything that I can imagine right now.

And I needed that part of myself.

I needed to know where it was and she showed me where it was.

And I think a lot of people need that in their life.

We walk around in the world thinking we got everything on a platter and you find out that you eating on paper plates.

(upbeat banjo music) ♪ Little birdie, little birdie ♪ ♪ What makes you fly so high ♪ ♪ It's because I have a true little heart ♪ ♪ And I do not fear to die ♪ ♪ Little birdie, little birdie ♪ ♪ Come and sing to me your song ♪ ♪ I've a short time for to stay with you ♪ ♪ And a long time to be gone ♪ (applause) (cheers) Thank you.

Storytelling at its best and its at its purest is, in my mind, is really unselfconscious.

It's like a conversation and I don't know anybody who is as unpretentious in her storytelling as Kathryn.

I've sat down and had conversations with her just about someone new that's moved into her neighborhood and has been riveting, and it's been enlightening and entertaining and it was totally unselfconscious.

It's just the way she looks at the world and processes, the ways, her ways of describing it.

- 30, 40 years ago, we didn't have much of storytelling.

And now there's storytellers all across the country, all across the world.

And some of 'em are helping us keep the oral tradition alive and some of 'em are not.

And some of 'em are just performers.

Some of the storytellers are just performers.

- When I was a beginning storyteller, I think that I thought storytelling was about performance.

And it isn't, it's about relationship.

And I thought that storytelling was about being perfect.

And instead I think it's about being present and that's what Kathryn's always brought.

When she comes out, she stands there and her whole culture stands behind and around her.

And she's always known that storytelling was about relationship, and she's always known it's about being present.

And that's what she just does beautifully.

- Kathryn is authentic.

She's real, she's genuine.

She's a piece of Americana that needs to be passed on to the next generations.

We'll never see another Kathryn Windham and people realize that.

- There's one part of storytelling that's definitely a show at an event like this.

But even when you know Kathryn is doing a show, it's as though she got up and just decided to start talking to all her friends as though you were having a glass of ice tea on her porch.

And that's the real gift that she gives me every time I hear her, and I hear her a lot more over a glass of ice tea than I do on a concert or festival stage.

And if I could ever be a storyteller like that, I'd consider myself worthy of being called a teller.

(gentle music) - A very, very strange feeling to be on this end of life, where I have outlived most of my childhood friends.

There are three or four of 'em still living in different parts of the state, but the real close ones that I grew up with playing every day with 'em, they've been dead some time.

And I miss 'em so at times.

I would read something and think, "Oh, Ruth would just love to see this."

And I'm inclined to cut it out and wanna send it to her.

She's not there.

And I'll read something that would remind me of another instant, and I'd think, "You know, I ought ask Hughie about that."

And he was not there for me to ask, They're gone.

But I've had such a wonderful life, a varied life, all sorts of experiences in life.

And I've tried to savor every one of them, but I know it can't, I'm 85 years old, and it can't go on much longer, but I'm enjoying every day that comes.

But when I, (applause) when I turned 70, I remembered what the Bible said that you have three score years and 10 and I figured I'd used up my allotment.

And it was time to make some plans for the future.

So, I thought, well, I will make my funeral arrangements and my children won't have to be bothered with that.

So I went out to the funeral home and walked in there and this man who, well, he looked like a professional mourner, (audience laughing) came up to me and he said, "May I help you?"

You know, in this sweet, soothing tone of voice.

(audience laughing) And I said, "Yes, I'd like to look at coffins."

And he says, "Which loved one has died?"

(audience laughing) I said, "Well, no loved one has died recently.

I want it for myself."

And he was a little bit shocked, but I said, "May I look at 'em?"

He says, "Yes, yes yes.

We have a display room."

He took me into the coffin, he called 'em caskets, I called 'em coffins just like, I think that's what they are.

(audience laughing) It was like a automobile display room.

You know, all the models.

(audience laughing) I was just astounded at the variety you can have.

I didn't know there were that many kinds you could get!

And of course he started with the highest price up here and I was just appalled at how much those things cost.

Now I sent three children to college on what one of 'em cost.

You can get 'em with scenes painted in the cover, did you know that?

You can get the last supper there.

(audience laughing) I dunno who's gonna see it once they closed the cover, but.

(audience laughing) I kept saying, "Don't you have anything less expensive?

Don't you?"

And we finally got down to the cheapest model there.

It was still more than I had any idea of investing.

Why should I put that down in the ground?

It just seemed a little obscene to me to bury that much stuff in the ground when it didn't matter, who's gonna see it after it's all covered up with dirt?

So I said so him, "Well, don't you have the boxes that these were shipped in?"

(audience laughing) And then he was appalled, you know?

He said, "Well, that wouldn't do it all."

And I said, "I think it would."

(audience laughing) So I went home and I called my friend, my master craftsman woodworking friend, John Moss, who taught woodworking and carpentry at the community college, and I had taken several semesters from him.

And I said, "John, would you build me a coffin?"

He said, "What'd you say Miss Windham?"

(audience laughing) - The day that Kathryn came to me and asked me to build her coffin, that literally knocked her breath out of me.

In the first place, my dearest friend is asking for a coffin.

And the next thing out of the many things that I had built, I had never built a casket or coffin before.

So it said, "What about this?"

I knew one thing though, she had asked me and she was not gonna be one of those people I was gonna turn down.

I could not do that.

So I wound up building the casket.

- He said, "I'd be honored to."

But he said, "You'd have to come out and let me measure you."

(audience laughing) Well that, you know, that never had occurred to me that you would have to be measured for the coffin, but that seemed reasonable.

So I went the next day and went in his class and all the young men working on saws and planers and lathes and everything.

I stood there and John got out his tape and he measured how tall I was and how broad through the shoulders.

And the work kind of stopped.

And John said, "Go on back to work.

I'm just measuring her for her coffin."

(audience laughing) Well, they all left the building then.

- So we drew up some plans on what we would like to build that would haul the remains of my dearest friend when that time would come, which I hoped never would.

(audience laughing) - So I said, "Now, John, just one thing I'm gonna be peculiar about.

I want solid pine coffin and I don't care anything else, but I want pine, a pine box."

He said, "Yes."

And said, "I know what you want."

- The casket had to be durable.

So we had to think of the materials that we were using with it and for it, and there came to mind, one of the native woods, I guess you would say a wood that was from this locality would be old fashioned heart pine.

It came from the heart of a special type pine tree.

Another thing I knew, knew in the flavor of her person, I knew it had to be built in an old fashioned way that looked like something perhaps that came in on a stagecoach and had to be little way out in the woods and something of that nature.

- But said, "With your permission, I'd like to build it the old fashioned way.

Six-sided.

Wide at the shoulders narrowing down to the feet and narrowing up to the head."

I said, "You can build it any way you want to, John, just let it be pine."

(gentle guitar music) Well, time went by.

Course I didn't have any great need for it at the moment, (audience laughing) but you don't hurry a real craftsman.

And one day John called me and he said, "Well, your coffin is ready.

So I think you're gonna like it."

And I do.

Said, "I built it out of 150 year old heart pine that I got from a warehouse I tore down."

He said, "It's all finished except for the handles, but I can go downtown to the hardware store and buy some metal handles.

But with your permission, I like to use the old fashioned rope handles."

I said, "John, you're building it, do it the way you want to do it."

Well, more time passed by.

And he called me one day and said, "Well, your coffin's ready, what you want me to do with it?"

And I said, "Well, bring it on out to the house and we're gonna put it in the back of the garage, on the garbage cans back there where my insulators are."

I have 20 garbage cans full of insulators that I have collected through, you know what insulators?

You know those glass knobs on telephone poles and light.

I don't know why I was obsessed with collecting 'em, but, (audience laughing) for several years I walked old lines and picked up insulators and bring 'em back there.

And my neighbors thought it a bit strange too.

Some people do not understand that you do not have to have a reason for collecting you just do it because you want to.

(applause) Well, I was out in the backyard one day, had a big metal tub and I was washing some insulators I just brought in and one of my neighbors came over and said, "What are you gonna do with these things?"

I thought, what?

I said, "Well, I'm going to make humming bird nest out of it."

(audience laughing) And it's satisfied her completely.

And it's okay.

There was a reason for it.

But anyhow, I do have these 20 garbage cans full of insulators out there.

So I said, "John, bring it on out here and we'll put it on top of the insulators."

Well, he and an apprentice came, brought it in a pickup truck and they were lifting that out and coming down the drive.

I had neglected to tell anybody in the neighborhood that I was having a coffin made and created a little stir.

They came on and put it on top of the insulators there.

And, and it's ready and not entirely 'cause my children, somebody's got to clear it out before they can put me in it 'cause it's a wonderful storage space.

(audience laughing) It has in it rose point crystal service for 12.

(audience laughing) One of my relatives died and left me all this crystal that I have absolutely no use for.

And my children didn't want, so I just wrapped it in newspaper and put it in the coffin, (audience laughing) and that will not be my problem, so, you know, it'll be ready and they clear it out and do whatever they want to with it.

And it is a beautiful thing.

It is sanded and smooth and it's put together with walnut pegs.

Oh, it's gorgeous.

And John handed me a little brown paper sack and he said, "There are nails in here."

He said, "Those are the nails I took out of that old warehouse, square nails."

He said, "That's for you to have the top of the coffin nailed down 'cause I figure you wouldn't want to be viewed."

And I said, "You're right, John, I don't want to be viewed."

Just wrap me in a quilt and put me in there and let's get this thing over with."

(audience laughing) (applause) But I have picked out the epitaph.

It's from a poem by Jan Struther, a British poet.

It's from a long poem.

And of course it'll have only two words maybe from a few words, but the whole poem says, "Some day this life will end; and lest Some whim should prompt you to review it, Let her who knows the story best Tell you the quickest way to do it; Then write, 'She was twice blessed.'

Say, 'She was happy.'

Say, 'She knew it.'"

(audience applaud) Thank you.

- Two summers have passed (bright music) since we started filming this project, Charlie and Kathryn are working their garden again and there are more sculptures now so the harvest should be finer than ever.

When the two neighbors are home, they're inseparable, best of friends and partners in mischief.

Last week, Kathryn called me and announced her decision to limit her traveling.

She said she's not going west of the Mississippi for storytelling anymore.

Some folks will say, "Well, she's slowing down," but I figure she just wants to spend more time with people she likes and less time alone on airplanes.

Our lives are cluttered with fancy devices designed to help improve our communication, but the best communicator I've ever known doesn't have a cell phone, a fax machine, email, or even an answering machine.

As she says, technology is not the same thing as communication.

At some point Kathryn's friends will come and wrap her in a handmade quilt, lay her in John Moss's simple pine box, nail the lid shut and carry her to the Live Oak Cemetery in the neighbor's pickup truck.

A great lady'll be gone, but the lessons that I've learned during my short time with her will stick with me for what remains of my own lifetime.

("I'll Fly Away" by Albert E. Brumley) ♪ Some glad morning when this life is over ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ To a home on God's celestial shore ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ I'll fly away, oh, Glory ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ When I die, Hallelujah, by and by ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ I'll fly away, oh, Glory ♪ ♪ I'll fly away, in the morning ♪ ♪ When I die, Hallelujah, by and by ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ Some glad morning when this life is over ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ To a home on God's celestial shore ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ I'll fly away, oh, Glory ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ When I die, Hallelujah, by and by ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ ♪ When I die, Hallelujah, by and by ♪ ♪ I'll fly away ♪ (birds singing) (insects chirp) ("I'll Fly Away" instrumental)