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| George Buster Singleton |
(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator
George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere
in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Blooming mountain laurels are
just a few days away” was originally published in the March 28, 1996 edition of
The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)
There is a plant that grows wild in the woods that very few
of us know about or take time to remember to see. There have been many songs
and poems about this beautiful flower.
During he early years when this country was recovering from
the dreaded Civil War, and during the war itself, the mountain laurel was most
times the center of conversation when wildflowers were mentioned.
The beautiful mountain laurel is found in the most unusual
places – always on the side of a steep hill or on the sheer side of a rocky
cliff. The flowers are in places where you would think that a flower such as
this could not survive.
The mountain laurel is a distant cousin to the azalea. If
you examine the plant closely, you will find that many of the features of the
wild flower are almost the same as those of the azalea.
The blooms seem to be a mixture of all the azalea colors,
with a considerable amount of blue mixed in. The blooms are soft, yet they are
hardy and strong in their growth. They are stubborn and seem to defy the harsh
and chilly winds that blow across the steep hills and sides of the mountains.
The fragrance of the mountain laurel is quite different from
that of the azalea. The azalea seems to be soft, or maybe cultured, if you
might use this word. The mountain laurel seems to have a wild or restless
fragrance, as though it must be produced within a specified time period or be
left out by Mother Nature, to be barren and without beauty there on the
mountainside.
But each year when it’s time for these beautiful, wild and
lovely flowers to put forth, I try to arrange my schedule so I can go every day
or so and be among these that the Creator has placed here for us to appreciate
and enjoy.
Nothing is more relaxing than to find a quite spot where the
mountain laurels have grown tall and are in full bloom. Then seek a soft spot
and stretch out on the ground and feel the beauty and peace come over you.
Sometimes I think the Great Spirit must have a special place
such as the one that I describe. When things get a bit hectic, he would slip
off, stretch out on the soft ground, take a nap and then lie there and
meditate. He would make the plans for the future of the world, not forgetting
to make the mountain laurel more beautiful so that his next rest would be more
enjoyable.
Such a pity that so many people of the world do not know
about the mountain laurel. A pity, too, that so many of our neighbors spend so
much time looking at a television set when they could be on the side of a hill
absorbing the beauty that the Master has created for us.
Try to visualize the contentment and joy that could be ours
if only we search for it. Think how the crime rate would disappear from sight
if those who would rob and steal would go, as I have done, to the steep side of
Nancy Mountain to rest among the beautiful mountain laurels and find total
peace, if only for a short time.
But I guess that there are some hold backs to this type of
rest and relaxation. If everyone did this, the companies that manufacture
medicine for high blood pressure would go out of business. Also, all the
medicines for anxiety would have to be taken from the shelves of the
drugstores. Headaches would be a thing of the past, and short tempers would
have vanished from the face of the earth.
One of the greatest junk sales that the world has ever known
would come to pass. All the weapons of war would be amassed into one great pile
and sold for scrap. The citizens of this country would have to work overtime
growing mountain laurels that would be shipped to all corners of the globe.
The Japanese would forget about the manufacture of
automobiles and computers. They would descend to the slopes of Mount Fuji to
begin a massive planting of the mountain laurels that we have supplied them. We
might even send a few to China and sit back to watch a massive exit to the
mountains of the north.
Please do not think me strange when I mention the peace and
relaxation that has to be found among the wild things. But I assure you that
once you have witnessed the peace and contentment that is to be found on the
sides of the hills and under the shade of the whispering pines, life will never
be the same.
As you lie there on the soft, warm ground, with a blanket of
pine needles for your bed, and the solitude of the moment wraps around you like
a blanket, remember that there is no better time to talk man to man with the
Creator and have him rid your soul of all that is not good.
When you have talked at length, raise your arms to the
heavens and mount your thoughts on wings of eagles; then and there, life will
take on new meaning. Joy will come as with the sweetness of the mountain
laurels, and fear and worry that once gripped your mind will have vanished with
the winds.
(Singleton, the
author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the
age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born on
Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County and served as the administrator of the Monroeville
National Guard unit from 1964 to 1987. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in
Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are
available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County
Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week
for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work
and memory alive.)
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