God Was Just Practicing When He Made Men

Written by Kathryn Tucker Windham

Narrated by Kathryn Tucker Windham

Down in Thomasville, Alabma, a long time ago ... Kathryn Tucker Windham's mellifluous Southern voice guides us—by words alone—through a town where a parrot sings along with the doxology at church and the telephone operator can tell you anything you need to know. We meet fascinating folks—Mose T, who paints a mighty fine sunflower; a daddy who tells potato tales that would make Idaho proud; and Thurza the cook, who explains that "God was just practicing when He made men, but He knew what He was doing when He made women..." Just when you think you've heard it all, Ms. Windham surprises with a bit of original music played on a most unconventional instrument. "Words are fascinating," she says. These tales prove her point.

• Language: English
• Publisher: August House
• Release date: Jan 1, 2001
• ISBN: 9781467611435

Kathryn Tucker Windham

KATHRYN TUCKER WINDHAM (1918-2011) grew up in Thomasville, Alabama. She graduated from Huntingdon College in 1939, married Amasa Benjamin Windham in 1946, and had three children before being widowed in 1956. A newspaper reporter by profession, her career spanned four decades, beginning in the shadow of the Great Depression and continuing through the Civil Rights Movement, which she observed at ground level in her adopted home town of Selma. In the 1970s, she left journalism and worked as a coordinator for a federally funded agency for programs for the elderly. She continued to write, take photographs, and tell stories. The storytelling was an outgrowth of her 1969 book, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. More volumes of ghost stories, folklore, recipes, and essays followed; she has now published more than twenty books. Her reputation as a storyteller led to thirty-three appearances over an eighteen-month period on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, which introduced her to an even larger audience. She has written, produced, and acted in a one-woman play, My Name Is Julia, about pioneering social reformer Julia Tutwiler, has narrated several television documentaries, and is a regular interviewee for national and international journalists visiting Alabama in search of the Old or the New South. It is a testament to the good humor, keen intelligence, and life-long curiosity of one of the region’s best known public citizens that she can guide visitors unerringly to either mythical place.