Southerner’s are big on sopping. We like to sop our biscuits in lots of things.

There isn’t much that’s better than sopping a cathead biscuit in gravy. Especially if your mom made both.

My mother worked culinary magic in that tiny kitchen on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas. She made biscuits and gravy most meals.

We learned to sop at a young age. Sopping made sure we didn’t leave a drop of country goodness on our plates.

Gravy is good, but it wasn’t the ...

About 40 years ago, my dad gave me a radio. Not just any radio. It was what’s called a farm radio.

According to Texas Co-op Power Magazine, in 1936, just three out of 100 farms had electricity. By the mid-1940’s, it was three out of 10. That still left most farm families without power.

The Philco radio my dad gave me was made around 1946 and it ran off a dry cell battery.

A dry cell battery radio was how those with no ...

If you’re a Baptist from the South, you’re hoping that the Pearly Gates pop quiz isn’t, “What’s the third verse to any song in the hymnal?”

You won’t know the answer.

If you’re laughing right now, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

In Southern churches that sing the old hymns, skipping the third verse is common.

“OK, let’s all stand. We’ll sing the first, second, and last stanzas,” said the church’s song leader.

In the little church in Ashdown, Arkansas, in which I grew ...