You don’t forget a man like Dr. Calvin Hanrahan. At least I can’t. I wonder, from time to time, if he remembers me. Read more
If you drive past my house early in the morning — about 7:30 a.m. that is — and again at 6 p.m. or a little later, a strange sight will grab your attention.
Since I will turn 84 when my birthday arrives in November, I feel it is past time to put my affairs in order.
Tink is like a child with the mail. He can’t wait to get it. Since there’s always a chance that there’s something in there that is going to ruin my day, I don’t mind waiting. At. All.
Yesterday, as I was half dozing, and half listening to TV during the wee hours of the morning, of course the channel playing was the ID show — true stories of murder and mayhem.
Many years ago, I was visiting an elderly woman in a nursing home. I did not know her well but I knew she was lonely so I’d try to stop in from time to time.
Yesterday, as I was half dozing, and half listening to TV during the wee hours of the morning, of course the channel playing was the ID show — true stories of murder and mayhem.
Do you want to know what I have been purchasing lately? Are you curious about whatever I have been looking up online?
To put it in the words of my country kin: In 19 and 35, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that created the Rural Electrification Administration.
Some of my friends call me a pessimist. I tend to see the glass half empty, and it is definitely not lemonade.
When I was a child of five or six, I loved my little record player but other than children’s storytelling albums, I owned only two albums, both gospel. Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash from The Holy Land.
The frigid weather we have been experiencing the last couple of days has literally —well, almost — brought me to my knees.
While playing around on the computer the other night, I happened upon a website entitled “Habits That Make You Age Faster.”
When the nubile Britney Spears sang “Oops, I did it again,” I’m sure she was singing about love, romance or something similar.
In its way, 2018 has been a very hard year as loved ones left us behind to face life on this earth without them.
I kicked off December with a whimper instead of a bang.
You’ve heard me whine a few times about no longer being able to dance. I still regret that I never learned how to do a proper line dance to a country swing song, and I was always out of sync when I tried to keep up with other dancers doing the Electric Slide.
I hate rude awakenings. I really do. And the older I get, the more rude these awakenings can be.
To put it in the words of my country kin: In 19 and 35, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that created the Rural Electrification Administration.
When I arrived to begin first grade, I had already formed an independent nature that was far older than my actual years.
I have been placing the obituaries for our local newspaper for more than 20 years. And during that time, I have been personalizing these obituaries with a small comment under the name of the deceased, a comment expressing the personality or the passions that drove each individual.
A letter came the other day. Just like an old-fashioned epistle from the past, a time when people sat down, took pen in hand, used stationery, put it in an envelope and send it through the mail.
For almost three years of my life, my parents and I lived 10 miles out of town in beautiful countryside located in the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina.
In the past year, a friend of ours has chastised both Tink and me for how much we work and the spare attention we pay to her.
It’s incredible. Exactly three weeks ago in the early hours of the morning, I was doing the exact thing I was doing this morning — listening to Jim Cantore and Stephanie Abrams warn coastal residents about a hurricane that could reach the coast as a Cat 4 storm with winds exceeding 140 mph.
She just came to mind, tripping through the years that lay between now and the time we buried her so long ago.
Have you noticed all those pretty tops women are wearing now — the ones with the cutouts over the shoulders?
Yesterday, the UPS man left a box on my front porch — the result of my latest online Amazon shopping.
It was back in the summer, when the sun hung high and hot in the sky and the droplets of humidity fell like unwanted drops of rain, that one of my precious friends called.
The other day, Tink forwarded a story link to me. In an effort to know all things Southern and to love better this different life he has chosen, he often checks things online then forwards interesting pieces.
As I write this, it’s 5:30 a.m.and I’m coming off another night when sleep played hide-and-seek with me and, naturally, being discovered when it was almost time to get up.
Several years ago, a soldier serving in Afghanistan, wrote me a fan letter. I believe, though I am not certain, that his admiration came from having read my book “My Life In the Pits.”
When the Rev. Billy Graham passed away, there were wonderful tributes that poured forth from people who knew him or had been inspired by his life and preaching.
Yesterday after a hard day’s work, my son Jeff and I sat in a specially marked parking spot outside the Olive Garden restaurant, waiting patiently for our orders of eggplant parmigiana to arrive.
I had to laugh at my son Jeff yesterday when we were having dinner at a Chinese restaurant.
The other day I was at Mama’s house, digging through kitchen cabinets trying to find a cast iron skillet that had once been there, when I stumbled across a large blue glass jar filled with various utensils that Mama had long used.
There was a woman and her husband I loved most of my life. Many people loved them because they were merry, kind and loving to all.
The realization that I spend a lot of time thinking came to me the other day as I was watching one of my favorite soap operas.
Tink and I sat in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, one of the South’s grand hotels. It was Christmas Day and for three hours, we sat on chairs covered in rich brocade and did what seems to have become something of the past — people watching.
I suppose you think I watch a lot of TV since I often refer to it, and you would be correct.
Now that I think back on it, I see how I was prepared and schooled at every turn to be a storyteller. Stories fascinated me. I listened to those who told them and practiced telling them myself.
I know I spend a worrisome amount of time thinking about food — at least three times a day everyday without fail — and that doesn’t include midday or nighttime snacks.
When I was a child growing up, we always had enough. If you asked Daddy, I am sure he would have said that we had an abundance.
This is “What I Did on My Vacation,” part three.
This is part two of how I spent my vacation. Last week, I wrote about the special two days I enjoyed visiting and remembering old times with my cousin Virginia.
There were violations of certain rules that were guaranteed to aggravate Ralph Satterfield. Ralph was my daddy and I aggravated him more than a few times.
You probably know that the crying songs of the blues rose up from the flat, silvery cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta.
I’m beginning to realize that I’m turning into a hypochondriac — just ask my son Jeff.
At about 9 a.m. Monday morning, if I had taken my blood pressure, I’m sure it would have been high enough to cause the monitor to shout DANGER.
Several years back — I believe it would have been eight or nine years ago — I was in Nashville on book tour for my publisher. Nashville was always good to me with lots of radio and television appearances, good crowds at the signings, and a spot on its best-seller lists.
The steam of a Mississippi Delta morning was starting to take hold as I sat under a magnolia tree in front of the grand, old courthouse in Greenwood. Fifteen yards away was the muddy Tallahatchie River. The cars hummed over the bridge as I sat quietly reading the works of Miss Eudora Welty.
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