In Depression-era Gainesville, Georgia, little E. J. "Gene" Reynolds pretended to be a preacher. At 3 and 4 years old, he "preached" on the porch steps for the amusement of his grandpa and the neighbors. When he was 8, 9, and 10-his third grade years-he sometimes skipped school and wandered through the woods preaching to the trees. When he was 10 years old, Gene decided on my name: his first son would be Randall because he had heard it somewhere and liked it, and Eugene to carry on his name. 9 years later, I was born ...
Read More
In Depression-era Gainesville, Georgia, little E. J. "Gene" Reynolds pretended to be a preacher. At 3 and 4 years old, he "preached" on the porch steps for the amusement of his grandpa and the neighbors. When he was 8, 9, and 10-his third grade years-he sometimes skipped school and wandered through the woods preaching to the trees. When he was 10 years old, Gene decided on my name: his first son would be Randall because he had heard it somewhere and liked it, and Eugene to carry on his name. 9 years later, I was born (first of the six children Violet Appling Reynolds would bear between 1949 and 1958) and Gene's boyhood decision went onto my birth certificate: Randall Eugene Reynolds was in the world. How do I know this? Because my dad told me these stories multiple times per decade from his 20s through his 80s. He was a masterful storyteller in the pulpit as well as on the screened-in porch of the country parsonage near Lee Road in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, (our home for a decade.) There, we sometimes gathered at dusk after our evening meal and listened to his train-of-thought memories. In the 1960s, he also shared his stories during our long drives from Covington, Louisiana, to Gainesville, Georgia, to visit relatives; trips taken at night in an un-airconditioned car. He'd talk through the night, one story after another, his mind in another era, while driving 50 miles per hour on winding two-lane highways. My five siblings and mother would eventually be lulled to sleep by his pleasant voice, but I, on the floorboard behind his seat, paid close attention and visualized scenes as he spoke.
Read Less
