By the 1840s a typical hush-harbor meeting of African Americans had become “an amalgam of African initiation practices and camp meeting Christianity,” which included “bits of Christian doctrine and ritual” with a “focus on African initiation and ritual events.” […] A lined hymn or a “sperchul” provided the opening music. In “linin’,” also called “deaconin’,” an elder would sing two lines of a hymnbook song, perhaps one of Watts’s hymns or an older one, which would be repeated by the group of worshipers in “wailing cadences.”

I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us, that might easily be.

I don't believe I've ever known a woman named 'Whitney', I said, trying not to look too deeply into her bright blue eyes. Or, hell, even a man for that matter. You've never heard of Whitney Houston? Who's that? I said, realizing that I had never gotten really serious about a woman with blue eyes.

The robe and slippers were so warm and comfy she just fell asleep in her chair.