Chicken, Preachers, and Presidential Candidates

Few restaurants can make a Southern staple better than homemade, but Kentucky Fried Chicken does.

If I’ve eaten fried chicken at your house, please don’t take this wrong. I’m sure your chicken is excellent. But one man was able to take a chicken, 11 herbs and spices, and a pressure cooker and hit it out of the park. That man was Harland Sanders.

We all know him as Colonel Sanders — a title bestowed on him by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, not ...

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Cat Help It

“Never again,” I said.

We had lost our dog, Bert, and less than a year later, our cat, Spooky. Both had lived very long lives. Bert was around 15, and Spooky 19, but the pain was just too much to contemplate another pet.

During the days that followed our cat’s departure, I would think that I heard her mewing at the door, or had seen her out of the corner of my eye. I would wait for her to brush against my ...

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Stringing It Together

 

His name was Nelson Carson.

I was a young, white kid. He was an older African-American gentleman. While the evening news was filled with stories of protests related to bussing and school integration, the two of us came together once every week. He to supplement his income, and me to learn from him.

It was the mid-1970s and Mr. Carson was my guitar teacher. He wasn’t my first musical instructor. Mike Hubrel took me as a student for a couple of years ...

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Biscuits, Gravy, and Other Lifesaving Medications

My eyes slowly opened and I would try to focus. The rest of my senses were greeted with the sounds and smells of a 1960s Southern breakfast and my mom moving around in our small kitchen, located on the other side of my bedroom door.

I would turn over, but stay snuggled under the covers, which I kept tightly tucked under my neck. It was a feeling I wanted to hold on to as long as the clock would let me.

Swinging ...

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A Good Variety of Variety

 

The man playing the banjo stood up first. He began to play the opening riff to “Gentle On My Mind.”

Glen then stood up with his guitar.

“It’s knowin’ that your door is always open and your path is free to walk…” “Good evening, everyone. I’m Glen Campbell!”

“The people we have with us tonight are Miss Bobbie Gentry, Liberace, and our own Pat Paulson. And our special guest stars, the very hip, The Smothers Brothers are here tonight.”

“From CBS Television City ...

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