Family stories are the best. Aunt Charlotte, my mother’s only sister and my granddaughter’s namesake, loves family stories as much as I do. Sometimes we laugh and carry-on during a phone call like nobody’s business!  I can seem to get Charlotte to laugh at almost anything, and we enjoy every moment of it.  When we’re not discussing politics, religion, or Auburn football, we are recalling and re-telling our family stories.  Aunt Charlotte and I are truly oral history junkies.

In the early 1970’s Charlotte, Elton, and their two young children moved to from Tennessee to southern California. Elton’s company needed him to pioneer a new office on the west coast. Having lived in the deep South all of their lives, Charlotte and Elton feared that they were plunging their little family into an abyss of cultural craziness.  Images of hippies, protests and urban riots swirled through their minds as they drove across the country to their new home, far away from family and the safety of the Bible belt.  Charlotte was secretly praying that their sojourn in wicked Egypt would be a temporary one– that Elton would soon be given another opportunity much closer to home– hopefully before those California schools ruined their children forever!

Traveling across the New Mexico desert, little Susan, the youngest, developed a fever.  Finding a doctor sounds like an easy task, but when you are “in between”– having no address, no phone number, and no home, it’s not that easy.  By the time they finally arrived in Los Angeles, Susan was getting worse and Charlotte was getting worried.  They felt a bit like migrant workers, like displaced persons.  (It’s not that they were homeless– they just hadn’t found a house to buy yet.)

Unsure of what to do for little Susan, Charlotte found a random pharmacy and went in to ask for advice of what to do.  She asked to talk to the pharmacist personally and the clerk agreed.

“Can I help you?” the pharmacist asked.

“Yes, thank you.” Charlotte answered.  “I know that you don’t know me from Adam’s house-cat, but we are newcomers to California and we don’t have an address yet, or a phone…..”   The pharmacist interrupted her in mid-sentence.

“Where you are from?”  he asked quickly.  Charlotte’s emotions were on edge.  His abrupt interruption startled her and she feared another closed door. She was on the verge of tears as she answered his inquiry.

“We’re from Tennessee, and originally from Alabama, and….”  He interrupted her again, this time with a smile.

“Ma’m, I haven’t heard anyone say ‘Adam’s house-cat’ in a long, long time.  I’m from Mississippi!  When I heard that phrase, I knew you had to be from my neck of the woods.  I’ll be glad to help you,” the kind pharmacist pledged.  And he did.

Within an hour, and after a few phone calls back to Tennessee, the Denson family had their meds and were on their way.  Recently Aunt Charlotte recounted that story to me. Upon arriving she had discovered that two things were indeed alive and well in California:

1. Adam’s house-cat;

2. Some of the friendliest people in the world.

Elton, Charlotte, Elton Jr., and Susan spent several years in California and would have loved to stay longer, but they finally relocated to central Florida.  Still, their time in far away California was where God proved that His care extended far beyond the Bible belt, and that He really knows how to “work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”

 Charlotte also learned that those silly Southern sayings that we say on automatic pilot are nothing to be ashamed of.  God can use them too!  Really, what were the chances that of all the pharmacies in Los Angeles county, they would randomly choose the drug store of a transplanted Mississippian who “didn’t know Charlotte from Adam’s house-cat?”

[For more vintage Southern sayings, I have two recent blog posts you might be interested in: “Snake Doctors and All Things Southern” https://www.marksimsblog.com/Christian-discipleship/snake-doctors-and-all-things-southern/ & “Skin a Cat and More Things Southern.” https://www.marksimsblog.com/Christian-discipleship/skin-a-cat-and-more-things-southern/  And look for more in future posts– I’m remembering more of those southern sayings regularly.]