The Istoriaphile’s Corner

There is something special about a Southern Mama.  I used to explain it by saying I moved to Alabama because, “I married a Southern Boy.  And Southern Boys don’t get too far away from their mamas.”  That usually got a laugh because, on one level, it’s true.  Southern mothers are strong women and their children respond to that strength.  These women have raised generations of kids who know Mama is stronger than anyone except Grandma or God Almighty.  Dads are dads and everyone should have a good one but no one’s more certain than Mom.  That standard was true of my southern mother-in-law and it is certainly true about Rick Bragg’s mother.  In All Over But the Shoutin‘,  his mom is the heroine of the story and the center of his life. To hear Rick tell it, life should have been nicer to Margaret Marie Bundrum.  Although she was born into a large family in one of the poorer areas of the United States, the country was beautiful, her family was loving and her father provided for them all by building houses and making moonshine.  It was a reasonable childhood for that area and at seventeen, Margaret Marie had the…