“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 ...

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 ...

It was hard to see her go. She and I have been together for many years. No longer will I wake up each morning and see her. Be with her. Go everywhere together.

Someone else had their eye on her and just like that, she was gone. She’s with someone else now.

But, to ease the loss, I look on the bright side. She had a lot of miles on her, was showing her age, and I’ve already found another. 

Isn’t it ...

I’m pretty sure that every Southern family I’ve ever known claims that they’re part Native American.

My family is Southern and is no different. I heard stories from both my mom and dad’s sides of the family of how much Native American we had in us. I was told who in our family’s past was Native American, who they had married, and when and where they had lived.

I even knew a couple of them. Most of my family had married young ...

There are some things in life that are reminders of who we once were, yet also of how we’ve changed into who we are now. The telephone is one such item.

As I recently dialed my parents phone number, just to check in on them, I thought about how their set of 10 numbers, randomly assigned to them by Ma Bell when Lyndon Johnson was the president, has been a constant for my family for over five decades. No ...

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who like leftovers, and those who won’t eat them.

I’ve never understood the resistance that some folks have to eating them. I’m not one of them. I love making a meal out of what wound up in the Tupperware containers over the previous few days.

Even the great comedian George Carlin mocked the word “leftover.” He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Leftover is such a sad word. Who would want to be ...