Roswell's favorite farmer, Billy Albertson, has collaborated with author, Renea Winchester to release a short-story titled: A Hardscrabble Christmas: Remembrances from a Georgia Sharecropper.
The story is available online free the following dates: December 14, December 21, December 24 and 25th. Download it here.
Below is an excerpt:
"In rural Georgia, Christmas trees weren’t purchased from a commercial grower. No sir. Finding a tree was a family affair. “Momma and Poppa and us kids lit out in search of a tree. After everyone decided on the right one, Poppa chopped it down with an axe and we drug it home. Didn’t cut one till the week before Christmas, lest the pine needles dried out and fell off. Poppa nailed the tree to a stand, one that was made from planks he fashioned together in the shape of an x. Back then we had us a big old field of corn, had plenty. We popped that corn and strung it on the tree. That’s all we had for ornaments. Weren’t no lights on our ole pine tree, didn’t have ‘leck-tricity.”
Look for more stories of Billy and his friends when Mercer University Press releases, Farming, Friends, and Fried Bologna Sandwiches in October of 2014.http://tinyurl.com/nnpwd7p
