Viola: Songs My Moma Taught Me & The Stories She Told: #1 Soul and Soil of Americana
Synopsis "Viola: Songs My Moma Taught Me & The Stories She Told: #1 Soul and Soil of Americana"
This is a book about my mother. But not just about her and her family, but about a period of time, a place, and a people wrapped in what one might identify as an Appalachian or Ozarkian rural culture as it developed in Central Missouri 20 years on both sides of World War II.In the classic "Tale of Two Cities," Charles Dickens' famous introduction serves well in this effort to present the life and times of my mother. Dickens depicted there and then (in 1859) as I do here - where and when Viola Pugh was born. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way . . ." The main source for this story is my memory, albeit, as you will discover as you read, I also consulted with old friends, family and neighbors. My mind draws funds from a memory bank of about 10 years - from my earliest recollections when I was probably three years old in 1949 to what I call the exodus of 1959 when reality set in that I would be moving from my boyhood home on Star Route, Sturgeon. That place, 90 acres of wonderful sensory pleasures - smells, sights, sounds, flavors and feeling - is where I was reared, and, like the flint and limestone rocks in my dad's disced and harrowed fields, forever marked and impacted
