“What’ll it be, darlin’?,” the woman behind the counter of Pop’s Barbecue asks my daughter, who has stopped by for a quick lunch. The barbecue place is a staple of the St. Florian community, frequented especially at lunch by working men, those who come in wearing oil-stained work pants and matching company shirts. Having taken Jenn’s order, she turns to other guests, and you can’t help but notice the Jesus, BBQ, Sweet Tea logo on the back of her bright blue t-shirt. That pretty much sums up the philosophy of most small communities south of Kentucky. And really, what else do you need?
As Jenn finishes lunch and pays her bill, the cashier smiles broadly and says, “Now don’t forget to go slow!” reminding her that the St. Florian speed limit has just been dropped to 25 mph and people are “getting stopped all the time out there.” Returning to an afternoon of harried paperwork and phone calls and aggravating deadlines, my oldest daughter reflects on the flashpoint of knowledge gained at a simple, forgettable, barbecue joint on a roadside in Alabama—“Now don’t forget to go slow!”
Scads of writings and songs and movies have been designed around the idea of enjoying life at a slower pace, of not letting moments escape us, of meditating and breathing in certain ways, of the value of yoga and decompression therapy, and on and on. A popular country song from a few years ago laments, “I’m in a hurry to get things done, Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun.” An Andy Griffith episode centers around the quest to “just slow down” on a Sunday afternoon but ends up with everyone working so hard to just slow down that they’re exhausted.
We all know what we should do, but it’s just so much effort to stop doing stuff sometimes. I’m quite sure there’s an app for that, by the way. I don’t know how educated the lady behind the lunch counter at Pop’s is, but she taught a graduate student a valuable lesson that day in just one sentence without even knowing it. Even though we in the South are accused of being slow in speech and action, the truth is that we’re often just as hurried and harried as mid-town Manhattaners. We’re just a lot more gracious about it.
There are exceptions, though. Here in the South we do know how to slow down when the mood hits us. Last night, my husband and I went to Florence for a first-of-the-month downtown street festival with music and crafts and all the things that small Southern towns are known to celebrate. On one blocked off street, an excellent band was set up on a makeshift stage, playing their heart out to people seated in lawn chairs emblazoned with school logos and equipped with cup holders to minimize the effort required to enjoy both liquid refreshment and musical entertainment at the same time.
A local celebrity of sorts, known by all on a first-name basis only, frequents the festival, dressed much like a leftover Village People guy in a hard hat and jumpsuit in the local university colors. I don’t know his background or where he lives or anything else about him. But I do know that he WILL be dancing with the band on that street each month, enjoying nothing but the moment. His smile is constant. He is in no hurry. On the same street, dancing to the same band, is a small girl in a twirly dress that she’s pretty proud of, with a neon green glow-stick necklace that she spins as she dances with sheer abandon, taking a bow at the end of the number as if the subsequent applause is absolutely meant for her.
Whatever stresses, whatever challenges, whatever disenchantments of the day, are set aside for those few moments of shared enjoyment in a small Southern town.
Southerners are sometimes accused of being too incredibly slow. Under the breath, we might even be assumed to be a bit limited in thought and intelligence. Maybe it’s the weather, the heavy blanket of humidity that permeates most seasons and makes it difficult to breathe or move quickly. Or maybe it’s the ingrained sense of community and caring for those who share it with you that makes us take a bit more time with others. You have to slow down for both of those, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence, thank you very much.
That same daughter from Pop’s Barbecue is spending the day today kayaking down a slow creek that meanders from its origin in Tennessee to its exit in the Tennessee River. Just fast enough to require little to no paddling, but slow enough to stretch the day spent among the turtles and leafy shade and crystal clear water, the creek has a “have-to-stop” lunch point with a gravelled beach and a short cliff that just begs the fearless to leap into the cooling waters below. You get nowhere fast in a kayak on Shoal Creek but you sure do enjoy the day. And even if you want to use a cell phone—even if you’re dying to check in to someone for something—you can’t because there’s no coverage that far off the path.
You know, we may not have tomorrow, but we do have today. For whatever reason, we’ve been blessed with one more day on this earth that we can spend in a harried rush and aggravation at the slowness of traffic, the inevitably of the missed deadline, the looming appointment that we’ve dreaded for some time, the sad current state of our financial affairs, or just a general disappointment in life, OR we can thank God for the gift of today.
We can join the crowd at Pop’s and enjoy a plate lunch. We can dance on the street if only in our imagination. We can drift down a backwoods creek, feeling the spray of cool water as the paddle makes contact. Just make sure you watch the speed limit on the way home.
