...sweet land of liberty.....

Oh. My. Goodness!!!!! We had a wonderful and somewhat unexpected treat tonight!! I'll backup a little. Last week at sisters' training meeting, Sis. Jones--another senior missionary--and the wife of one of Pres. Hanks' counselors were talking about a patriotic program put on by the two stakes in Huntsville.......that it was really good and we should go. Sis. Jones let me borrow her phone right then to make "reservations".......but you don't have to have a ticket and the seating is first come...... Our "reservations" were for the 5:00 performance. I wish so badly I had a picture for you......but I don't. I will try to "paint" one for you..........picture a large stake center--like Rhodes Valley or Delta--very large. About 5-6 rows of middle benches removed and a platform set up with a military band on it! The entire open floor space is filled with chairs. On the front wall, about the size of the projector screen is a flag and then, on either side and around the walls where the "cove lighting" is, there are red, white and blue buntings......the entire length of the chapel. All the seats--with extras--on the stand are filled with a 70 voice choir. They had short narrations between the songs--narrators being members of the legislature, city councils, school board president, etc. After prayer we all stood and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner". Oh. My!!!!! Then short narration and "America, the Beautiful". The tears would come............Thankfully, they stopped. Other numbers were "God Bless America", "You're a Grand Old Flag", (I'm doing this from memory as my program is out in the car.) all the "service" songs and the veterans stood, (there were even a few World War II veterans!..........I thought they would have been awfully young to serve......... They ended with "Battle Hymn of the Republic".......which we just learned about--written during the Civil War for the northern army--the army of the Republic............I wondered how that really goes over here in the "heart of Dixie". I like to think we have healed, but on the way "home" we saw three or four trucks and cars with Confederate flags--big ones--in the beds of the pickups........and I wondered more about how that flag is viewed--decided it's different here than how I have thought/felt about it all my life.......anyway, that's beside the point. The military band played "Stars and Stripes Forever"!!!! WOW!!!!!! It wasn't a big band,  so it wasn't "full" and "grand" like it would have been with a bigger band, but they were good!!..........they had the piccolo player stand up in front when it got to her part (and I'm having a total blank about what that part of the march is called--the Trio?) She did a fantastic job!!!!! I've tried to play that part, and she made it look easy!! The whole program had us on our feet repeatedly. It was superbly excellent!!! Wow!! And what a thing to know that it could be repeated in nearly every area of the church............there is that kind of talent--in music and organization. We are an amazing people.

On the way home Roger decided we should stop at a couple of grocery stores to see if we could find some rootbeer extract for our lunch on Tuesday........took us quite out of our way, but oh! we saw some pretty places. These I do have some pictures of...........not really good ones, because, as you probably know, I take most of them "on the fly".........

I was anticipating this one, we saw it on the way up.......but........you will understand my excitement....

This is the Tennessee River above one of the thousand dams they have built....(and the railing and mirror.........sorry.......you really can't see much of the river)

And on some little county road east of I-65........beautiful country........this is why you leave the Interstate.......lovely.......I told Roger I want to live here.......(one of several other places I'd like to live)      ............I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills. My heart with rapture thrills...............

No........we did not find any root beer extract...........