White Christmas

If you like the older Christmas songs you will enjoy this one, and be entertained at the same time!

Just click on the title, then click on "Play" and enjoy!

Alabama Herbalist

This is a picture of Alabama herbalist, Buford Stitcher. I met Buford (that's what he asked me to call him) several years ago. I had a little store at a local Trade Day, or flea market, and he had his regular place where he set up, there.

He traveled around, selling his herbs at various flea markets in the area, and I had met him at one of those, a couple of years before.

He was an interesting person to talk to, very friendly, and the perfect Southern gentleman. I can't recall seeing him dressed any differently than he is in the picture, either.

The following is an excerpt from an article featured in Alabama Folkways/Center For Traditional Culture, which is a division of the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

When he returned to his family farm in later life, he said he began to have a lot of questions about the old herbal treatments. "I got to thinking about it more and more-- what I grew up with. Who’d done this and who’d done that and how the ailments were healed just by simple, little herbs. It could be bark, roots, leaves, or just weeds. It’s amazing how they work," he said. "I would talk to elderly people about different remedies they had used."
In his quest for more knowledge, he met the late Tommie Bass of Leesburg, Alabama. Bass, by then, had gained national recognition as a traditional herbalist. Stitcher visited Bass frequently in order to learn from him. "I spent eight years with him in the woods and the mountains and he taught me his ways. A lot of them were like mine. A lot of them were different."
Among the medicinal lore that Bass passed on to his student, were his recipes for a skin salve and a liniment, both of which Stitcher makes and provides to customers. His business, based in Wedowee, is called Little River Botanicals.
He advises people to consult a doctor first about a medical problem. "That’s one thing Tommie the old herb man taught me. Said, ‘Don’t you ever diagnose anybody. You let the doctors do that. That’s what they’re for.’ "
"We can’t claim this to take the place of modern medicine. I don’t mean to do that," he said, explaining that he goes to doctors for his own medical care. "This is what I like about herbs. Anytime you give the body something to help heal itself, more than likely it will."
Stitcher enjoys educating others about the traditional uses of herbs and is invited all over the state to talk about plants and their medical lore. He brings labeled samples of many of the plants he’s collected and holds each one up for his audience’s inspection, as he discusses its identifying features and medicinal properties. He cautions against using a plant unless one is absolutely certain of its identity. A mistake could be dangerous.
At a recent festival at Landmark Park in Dothan, Stitcher held up a sprig of peppermint and sniffed its distinctive scent. "Anybody that has gas or heartburn, just chew a leaf of this thing and it’s mighty good," he explained. "If you can’t sleep at night, make yourself a cup of peppermint tea and it will calm your nerves."
As another sedative, he recommended peach leaves. "If you can’t sleep at night and you’re just hollering at everybody, strip you a handful of leaves and put them in a cup of hot water. Put a saucer on ‘em and let ‘em steep for about ten minutes, and then strain it up and drink it. Then you’ll feel good to everybody. It’ll relax your nerves and settle you down," he said.
He recommended drinking a cup of peach leaf tea before bed. "If you’re there 20 minutes and you’re not asleep, get up and make a second cup—but bring your pillow with you. You’re going to sleep."
He mentioned catnip as an old-time remedy to soothe fussy babies. "Growing up in the country, people would come up with a baby just a-screaming and crying. And they would get a leaf and crush it and rub the little baby’s gums and just instantly it would quit crying." It works for adults too, he claimed. "It’ll make us calm and sleep at night. You can boil it and make a tea or rub it on your gums."
Buford Stitcher’s pharmacy includes hundreds of native plants. And he can recommend one for almost any health concern.
For gout he advocates eating collard greens twice a week. Drinking a tea made from Queen Anne’s lace will help you lose weight, he said. Chickweed is another plant that will "take the weight right off of you," claimed Stitcher. "You can eat it green in a salad, or you can boil it and make a tea."
According to Stitcher, a tea made from wild blueberry will treat high blood pressure. Smoking rabbit tobacco, also known as "life everlasting," is good for "sinus, head colds, and congestion." Mullein is also useful for treating sinus problems and lung congestion.
"You may wonder why I talk about the same ailment and different herbs," he said. "I have people come to me and they want one herb that does everything. God didn’t make it like that. As a matter of fact he made several herbs for one ailment. Well, why is that? I guess it’s because everybody’s system is different. What works for one may not work for the other one."

*Tommy Bass, who is mentioned here, is probably the most reknown of all Alabama herbalists. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I met several people who had, and all agreed that he was quite an unique individual.

Below is a link to a video featuring Mr. Bass, along with a transcript. If you are at all interested in this subject, you will certainly enjoy this.
FolkStreams » Tommie Bass

The Faith Factor

Here's what columnist, Cal Thomas, had to say about the faith factor, recently:

"Atheists are the only people who appear to have been offended by Mitt Romney's speech about his Mormon faith. Judging by the reaction contained in some newspaper columns, editorials and letters to the editor, atheists are said to have felt "excluded" by Romney's failure to acknowledge that tolerance of the anti-religious is part of America's tradition.
Most everyone else thought it a good speech and that Romney had the correct view of the proper roles of church and state while refusing to compromise his personal convictions.
What no one mentioned (so I will) is the curious practice by a substantial number of voters who require our presidential candidates to acknowledge faith in God. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution prohibits a "religious test" for office, but that hasn't stopped many, especially in Iowa, from requiring statements of evangelical faith before deciding for whom to vote.
Does one expect to know the spiritual bonafides of an individual, other than pastor or religious worker, for any other job?
In the 1970s, a curiosity called the "Christian Yellow Pages" made the rounds of churches and certain businesses run by evangelicals. It contained names of professions one finds in the regular Yellow Pages — plumbers, taxi drivers, auto mechanics, dry cleaners — except these were owned and operated by certified, God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians. The clear implication was that businesses found in the Christian Yellow Pages would do a better job at a better price than the presumed "heathen" who advertised in the bigger yellow book.
I never saw any data that proved a connection between faith in Jesus and the ability to repair a car at a reasonable cost, so I usually went with the shop that did the best job at the lowest price and didn't bother to ask if the repairman went to church.
Voters who require statements of faith from presidential candidates risk disappointment. Many evangelicals who voted for Jimmy Carter regretted having done so when they saw his post-election policies and what they regarded as his incompetence as president. Bill Clinton could quote Scripture, but not many would hold him up as an evangelical icon, given his roving eye and impeachment for lying under oath.
Much of this fixation on audible faith has to do with evangelicals having been ignored by culture following the embarrassment associated with the Scopes Trial 82 years ago. Emerging from their political catacombs in the late 1970s, these Christians basked, if not in new respect, then in the intoxication that comes with public attention. They were told they were now players in the kingdom of this world and in presidential politics. Their leaders were invited into the corridors of political power. They exchanged real power and its ability to transform lives for temporal power, which changes little of lasting importance.
While requiring politicians to express belief in Jesus and the Bible, many evangelical voters ignore Christ's statements about the source of genuine power. They also conveniently forget what Christ said about how they would be regarded and treated by a world that had rejected Him (and still does as the best-selling atheistic works of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins attest).
It was Jesus, in whom Mitt Romney said he believed, who warned, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first" (John 15:18) and "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (John 15:20). Those warnings are not the creed of contemporary evangelicals who think persecution is a negative newspaper editorial or a disparaging remark by a skeptic on a cable TV show.
Too many contemporary evangelicals want the blessing without obeying their real commander in chief, who said doing things His way would bring real persecution.
This election should be more about competence and less about ideology, or even faith. It shouldn't matter where — or if — a candidate goes to church, but whether he (or she) can run the country well, according to the principles in which the voter believes. And, if those principles include a person of faith, so much the better. God can be the ultimate check and balance on earthly power.
If a car hits me, I care more about whether the ambulance driver knows the way to the nearest hospital and the skills of the emergency room doctor than where they stand with God. That's the attitude we should have toward those who desire to be president of the United States in a fallen world."
Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

* I must say that I have been disappointed a few times in people I chose for services based on the fact that they were people of faith. Once, I chose someone to redo my kitchen, based on the fact that his ad in the yellow pages alluded to his faith, and when I called him to set up an appointment for the estimate, I was impressed with his cheerful, "Praise the Lord!" greeting. He was cheerful, alright, but I felt that he overcharged for the work, and not being at home the day he completed the job, I didn't know that he had left damages which, in the long run, were costly, and he denied causing them. The fact that I, in my blind faith in his honesty and ability, had paid him in advance, didn't help matters--nor, did he care that I was a woman of faith.

I would like for our President to be a man of honor and integrity, whose goal is to do the very best for all of the citizens of this country. If his, or her, religion is not the same as mine, it doesn't matter as long as it does not influence his decisions in a negative way, nor cause harm to anyone.


I think that if Mitt Romney was required to explain his religion, then all of the candidates should have to do the same. I'm not too sure that many of our politicians, past and present, would darken the door of any place of worship, if they didn't deem it neccessary to garner votes. That's just my personal opinion, of course--besides, we, as a diverse nation will never agree, totally, on anything, including religion and politics.