My Maggie

In 2010, my wife and I were with our Senior Adult church-friends in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, we were killing time taking in the sights near the “Old Mill” restaurant as we had to wait almost one hour before being seated.  Barbara and some of her women friends were in line, but Mickey Gentry and I found ourselves listening to a three-piece band play and sing old-time Country Music.

I asked them if they took requests, and upon learning that they did, I asked them if they knew, “Precious Jewel.”  Sure enough, they did, and they played it rather well.  Another old tune came to mind, and I asked about “Maggie.” The lead singer thought he had it in his book of lyrics, but the other two weren’t sure they knew the song that began, “I wandered today to the hill, Maggie.” However, once the singer started strumming his guitar, the other two picked up the music right on key.

For those of us who’ve been married forever, and especially those over the age of sixty, there’s a good possibility you’ve sung or heard this song. Some of the lyrics as I recall them are:

I wandered today to the hill, Maggie

To watch the scene below
The creek and the rusty old mill, Maggie
As we used to, long, long ago.
The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie,
Where first the daisies sprung;
The rusty old mill is still, Maggie,
Since you and I were young.
        ------- ~ -------
They say that I'm feeble with age, Maggie,
My steps are less sprightly than then,
My face is a well-written page, Maggie,
And time alone was the pen.
They say we are aged and grey, Maggie,
As spray by the white breakers flung,
But to me you're as fair as you were, Maggie,
When you and I were young.

In this song, I particularly like the nostalgia of the words and the gently flowing sounds when it’s played.  The songwriter sort of draws me into his world in the first couple of lines.  I can closely identify with his return to a once familiar area only to see all that has changed over the years.  I have a place in mind right here in the City of Pontotoc.

Before there was a Pontotoc Lake and Recreation Area (now, Howard Stafford Park), I had found a tranquil place on a hilltop overlooking a stream below.  The undeveloped land held a stand of pines whose random placement led me to believe man played no part in their being there.  An abandoned railroad bed was only yards away.  It was a good place to sit in partial sunlight on a cool, late fall day and contemplate one’s place in the created order.

When I first experienced the solitude of this place, I had not met the woman who would later become my wife, but in the song I am able to picture her as my Maggie.  The first time she saw the place I viewed as special was when the park was being dedicated and the “stream below” had become part of the lake.

The songwriter concludes that people change, also, with the passage of time. Barbara, and I aren’t as feeble or as aged as the songwriter describes, but we’re getting there.  And, somehow, in a way I can’t explain, she is as fair to me today as she was when we were young; she’s as beautiful, no, more beautiful than the day I met her. Yeah, my eyesight’s not what it used to be, but my imagination is better. 

And, I can say with all honesty, “But to me, you’re as fair as you were, Barbara, when you and I were young.”