Mama Hattie stood a scant five feet. She never learned to drive. She didn’t go to college. She stuck around the community—a cluster of houses and stores alongside a bend in the road. But she towers in my memory because of the magical summers spent with her in the north Georgia mountains.
Tag: humor
A Mom to Love: Wonder Woman Without the Skimpy Suit
My clearest memory is my mother’s crescent-shaped blue eyes dancing while we taste freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and sip from cool glasses of milk. I feel her gathering me onto her lap because the boy I loved broke up with me. I hear the mellow dinner bell ringing in the backyard and her voice at twilight calling us to come in for supper. Her love did not overlook. Not one of us. Not once.
The Game of Naming a Cat (with Thanks to T.S. Eliot)
T.S. Eliot’s whimsical poem, “The Naming of Cats,” inspired this post about my bright-eyed black cat, Ellie.
Spunk and Spark: Nannie Rewrote the Rules for Love and Marriage
From day one, Nannie was in charge. In 1915, she demanded driving lessons. She played basketball in finishing school and supported herself as a stenographer after a stint in business school. Her rules after marriage: 1) two children only; 2) her own car; 3) an annual bridge party vacation with “the girls” on St. Simons Island (no family, no questions).
You Can’t Take the Country Boy out of the Man
Was I lucky to have a dad obsessed with transplanting north Georgia mountain tradition to Alabama soil? I didn’t think so, especially on Saturday afternoons. While the neighbors’ kids played kickball on the cul-de-sac, our family tended the crops on the utility easement. There was nothing sentimental about growing squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, corn, and beans, beans, beans—until now.