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Rhoda Apple, former owner of the Hope Springs Eternal Hotel in Grantsville, besides sending French teenagers my way also introduced me to Root Lady Reverend Rose Sharon. The Rev was a prophet and a Baptist minister. Rhoda Apple had been consulting her for years—that’s how she got into coffee futures and why she sold the hotel to an oil company in a town that didn’t like outsiders unless they got gas and went.
I had consulted Root Lady on occasion. I liked Root Lady. Root Lady lived near Pimlico Race Track. On consultations an appointment was made at her house. The waiting room was a clean living room usually in the company of her nephew, Wee Willie who was constantly on the phone either taking appointments or bets. When it was your turn a door would open. Wee Willie would nod and the short walk past the aquarium and through the opened door was always accompanied by Wee Willie’s smile and play by play chatter: “He’s up and stretching—I think he has a bad back—the spread is four points—he’s in…” and then it would be through the door into Root Lady’s bedroom where she was sitting in a comfortable cushioned chair with a Bible in her lap and a small TV turned on to some sporting event with the sound humming on low chatter. After sitting across from her Root Lady read a short verse from the open Bible. Finished reading, Root Lady sat quietly smiling with the open Book in her lap. After a donation was inserted in the Bible Root Lady closed the Book and said a prayer asking for guidance in the prophesy. Root Lady saw me driving a truck; she saw me making movies; she saw me on the big screen; she advised me to get a passport for unexpected journeys.
Root Lady organized a bus trip from Baltimore to a small wooden church and hall south of Saint Michaels on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The trip took place on a Sunday in August and packed the church with singers and chanters and people who sweat including me. After singing and anointing and a walk to the Chesapeake Bay for baptisms, a supper of baked chicken and greens and salads and corn bread filled the void where spirit and passion worked up an appetite and Wee Willie sat on the sidelines smiling and chattering a play by play of what happened.

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