On occasion one wakes to find that his mind has drifted to days gone by. And such was the case this fine morning. I don't know where my biological clock went awry, but I awoke to find myself in times which my father so often recounted, - days quite unfamiliar to most in the modern world. This was a high day in Giles County, the third week of May. T'was in this week, as you may recall, that the cucumber trees are in bloom in Cucumber Hollow. The sweet fragrance of cucumber blossoms fill the hollow (for the unversed, that is pronounced 'holler'). No place on earth could know such divine favor as the enchanting valley which stretches from south of Beech Hill to north of Woodlow.

There are precious few cucumber trees in Cucumber Hollow now days. In fact, there hardly remains a hollow. Interstate 65 runs there. However, on a visit to east Tennessee now some years back, we found cucumber magnolia trees in abundance This caused quite a stir of joy and sadness for my father: joy over both childhood memories and the fact that the species is alive and well, yet sadness over shattering the assurance that nowhere else on earth boasted the graces of the fragrant white and purple flowers of the unusual deciduous magnolia of Frankewing, Tennessee. But memories, even twice-told, can be just as tangible as day they were born.

Especially on mornings like this.