I blame my life on white Easter shoes. My maternal grandmother was a stickler for etiquette rules; after all she was the Avon lady for the dirt road that we lived on.
She laid the rules of life out early…You can’t wear white shoes until Easter and you better put them up on Labor Day. God forbid that you attempt to buck the calendar, she didn’t want her friends at Church to “speak ill” of you. (They were GCB before GCB was cool.)
She liked white patent leather shoes. No one asked me what I liked. I am the other side of forty and I do not own and I refuse to this day to ever wear a pair of white shoes. Not even white flip-flops. She loved flats with that glossy white shine, often with bows. White, the absence of all color. White, that attracts the red clay dirt of Southeast Alabama like a bug to a porch light. White, that must remain pristine – which eventually means – the look. Across the walkway of the Church, she’d glance my way while sharing a prayer request with another Church member – I know that sounded like gossip but she said she was sharing a prayer request, so we’ll go with that. She’d bound my way with her eyebrows drawn together like a mouth puckered up after a lick off a lemon. In one fell sweep, she’d open her pocketbook, carried neatly against her side in the bend of her elbow. She would remove a meticulously starched and ironed handkerchief; position it around her pointed index finger – wet it with spit – without ever getting her perfectly matched lipstick on the cloth, and proceed to remove a speck of dirt I had somehow obviously invited – off those danged white shoes.
Now understand, I’ve never been an itty-bitty girl. No one ever came up to me at a family gathering or dinner-on-the-grounds at Church and said “oh honey, you skinny thing, you need to eat” – I’m 5′ 9″ and “big boned” as my Grandmothers both called me. That’s love language for “chubby” in case you don’t speak Southern. I say that to add that the Easter clothing nightmare did not stop at the white shoes and the white lace socks.
She would drag me to shop for an Easter dress in the chubby girl department at Sear’s and Roebuck in Dothan, Alabama. This fate ran a close second place to her first love; spending hours going through the Butterick and McCall’s dress pattern catalogs to find a baby elephant size pattern in my size. The pattern books were always huge oversize paper doll books viewed from a bar stool – again no sense to me. Then she drug me through miles of fabric bolts holding an occasional choice up to my face and framing my blond hair against it. She’d stand an arm’s length away and make a face. I can only assume that the face was her visualization of the splendid creation she was attempting. To me it was the foreshadowing of the whining, high-pitched whirl noise that her sewing machine made. Her idea of “lovely” fabric was most often, not my idea of lovely for my Easter dress. And it seems as if she always had extra material for any dress that she made for me and it always became something loud and large – like a tablecloth.
And gloves. White day-length gloves. I don’t even know where they came from.
Easter in the Deep South was much, much more than a celebration of the resurrection, it was all about your Easter Sunday clothes and those white shoes. It was ritualistic that everyone gathers in their Easter Sunday attire in front of my Grandmother’s banks of traditional fuchsia-blooming azaleas. (And how did they know, along with the dogwood trees when it is Easter, since it falls on a different week every year?) We posed for pictures. Pictures that showed those white shoes, those screaming white shoes that heralded the beginning of the fashion world’s permission to wear white shoes. It was a big deal.
To this day I clutch my pearls when I observe anyone wearing white shoes outside of the rule.

Last night, I voted after work. I was one of 29,578 people who voiced a vote in Okaloosa County as the Republican presidential race in Florida came to a close.
I like voting, I always have an opinion (no shock for anyone who knows me) on everything and I think silence can be misconstrued.
The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution says I can vote. I like knowing that whatever is determined when the voting poles close; I had a part in history. Color me a flag-toting girl.
I’ve voted since I was 18. For many years, I voted in the same concrete block poling place where my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather voted. I grew up with a Daddy who talked politics, and hunting, and crops and weather. He didn’t like a “crooked” politician and voted to make those convictions known.
But last night in the not so glamorous culling of the Republican candidates vying for Florida’s trove of 50 delegates, I witnessed something amazing.
I gave the poling officials my identification in the alphabetical section for my name. A poll worker was standing with a young man in a line to my left. I overheard their talk about his military identification card and he made comment that he just arrived in the area.
I signed for my ballot, walked over to the small stand and marked the name. The young man, obviously an airman, finished just before me and he stepped toward the machine that devours the personally marked election.
An older man, in a red, white, and blue pole worker shirt watched the process and announced “First time voter, let’s hear it for the first time voter!” Everyone in the place began to applaud. The young man made a modest wave of acknowledgment and stuck his hand out to shake hands with the gentleman who announced his history making moment.
That young man is committed to work for our U.S. Military, the very people who fight around the globe to make us free. To give us that right to vote. His last birthday gave him the privilege to vote. That 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution that set the minimum voting age to be 18. Eighteen is obviously, old enough to serve his Country.
I was touched. I thank you young man. You were part of 29,578 people in our County who voted. But to me, you were a whole lot more than that number; you are what makes the American Dream.

It’s February already. I am at the core of my being, an old-fashioned, sentimental girl. I have a heart that is two sizes too big and I have always made the mistake of wearing it on my sleeve. Yep, I’m a stupid, romantic soul and Valentine’s Day approaches.
I remember my First Grade class party for Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Foster’s class at Mount Pleasant Elementary School (no longer there) near Enterprise, Alabama. We covered shoeboxes with pink, and white, and red construction paper and cut out hearts from tissue paper to decorate it using pasty glue. We penned our names, using our very best first grade handwriting and carefully cut out a slot across the top to serve as a mailbox depository for Valentines.
I worried over each small Valentine. Had to get just the right words to just the right person. Conveying feelings started early. The party I don’t remember, probably red Kool-Aid and cupcakes – but I remember pulling those cards out and reading each one. I remember pulling that box out and reading the little cards over and over again at home. Some folks could have cared less, just wrote their name on the back of the card and put one in each desktop box. But others chose the cards and wrote your name across the little white envelope. I was a sucker at seven for sentimentality.
Life came along and love waxed and waned. However, I am still amazed with “happily ever after” love stories in real life, in books, and movies.
I still agonize over Valentine’s cards. I still spend forever on the card aisle till I find something that is close to how I feel.
Cupid is coming for that overly commercialized holiday and I am smitten with all of its gushy, mushy, maudlin, schmaltzy cards. Still.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

Hoppin’ John is a traditional family recipe for New Year’s Day. It’s a Southern dish and we are superstitious and sentimental folks, raised that you must eat at least three black eyed peas (for luck, fortune and romance) on New Year’s Day – if you like them or not – in order to have a prosperous year filled with only good luck. The peas are symbolic of pennies and some families even add a coin to the pot.

Although Hoppin’ John is a meal by itself, we always cook collard or mustard greens to accompany it as they are green, the color of money. And what good Southern spread is complete without cornbread? The reason, we’re Southern – and it’s the color of gold. Obviously most of us in the South are not filthy rich – yet, but that superstition always whispers in your ear and makes you follow the tradition, just in case.

Ingredients:
1 lb package dry Black Eye Peas
2 cups ham – cooked and cubed into bite size pieces
1 medium diced onion
1 ½ cups diced bell pepper – I use a green, a red and a yellow for color
1 T. minced garlic
1 jalapeno (diced with no seeds)
1 can Rotel Tomatoes
1 can stewed tomatoes, diced
1 t. Cajun seasoning (I use Tony Chachere)
1 bay leaf
4-6 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)
2 T canola oil
2 cups cooked long grain white rice

Preparation:
The night before cooking Hoppin John, soak the dry Black Eye Peas in a bowl of water. Cover and set aside until you are ready to cook. Then drain the peas in a colander and rinse with water.
Prepare all of your ingredients – chopping, dicing and measuring.
In a 6 quart pot, heat the 2 tablespoons of canola oil on medium high heat. Sauté the onion, bell pepper, garlic. Add the 4-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock. Add the Rotel tomatoes, seasonings, jalapeno, black eye peas, and ham.
Make sure the mixture is covered with water. Add water if needed. Bring to a boil. Cover and lower the heat to medium low. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours stirring occasionally.
In the last 1/2 hour, cook the rice according to package directions. Stir the rice in to the big pot or serve the Hoppin’ John on a bed of rice.

Oh, and don’t forget, you can’t wash clothes on New Year’s Day according to Southern superstitions. Supposedly you will cry many tears in the New Year if you do. Hope 2012 is a wonderful New Year!

Color me old school but I never thought college football would become a fashion show. I never believed for a moment that my Saturday football viewing would become worthy of Joan Rivers’ Fashion Police panel. I thought football was about offense and defense and scoring and tailgating.
I have watched their wardrobe expand in the privacy of my den and I am amazed at marketing and how far it can go.
Do they get a new Mojo from their new threads?
I first noticed this break-out-of-the-box uniform craze with Boise State’s Smurf blue attire. But in my logic it was just their way of getting an unfair advantage on their famous hold-my-breath-till-I-turn-blue home playing field. Electric blue cleats and socks – just throw the ball to the blue camouflaged receiver Mr Visiting Team Quarterback. I think in their blue haze they were going for the alien’s active camouflage from the Alien v. Predator movies, except not as bloody. Just when I got used to the Smurf blue, my College football world takes a Cosmopolitan Magazine Cover turn.
Nike designers are having a wonderful time with their Nike Pro Combat Uniform series and every week the unveiling sounds more like a fashionesta commentator on a catwalk in a designer collection unveiling than football pre-game highlights.
Georgia unveiled some red stuff in the place of uniforms that looked like a salute to the Red Power Ranger. I got the blackout look but really Georgia? Monochromatic looks in decorating and fashion I understand. I just never equated it to football.
There have always been ‘home’ jerseys and ‘away’ jerseys. Not complicated, very classic. Black dress and pearls kind of classic. No one was craning to see what the team had on when they took the field for warm-up.
Is somebody keeping track of what Oregon’s new combination is each week? I would hate for them to commit the unpardonable fashion sin of wearing the same green and yellow crazy combination two game days in a row! Good grief, neon yellow gloves, cleats? Would have been much less expensive for the University to just smear them with grass and glow sticks and call it a day. How many uniforms with duck wings is too many uniforms?
Last weekend West Virginia wore screaming road construction yellow uniforms. Who knew mountaineers were jaundice?
There are matte finished helmets at Southern Miss and Cincinnati and funky new college finger motions that are not unlike throwing up gang signs after some touchdowns.
And new logos on jersey fronts, ooooh they need to read it when you approach the line of scrimmage? ‘The Herd’ Marshall what does that even mean? Louisville shortened their name to ‘The Ville’ on the front of their jerseys. And North Carolina State shortens their name to ‘State’, which makes their IQs look like single digits. Things that make you go hmmmmm?
Maryland…ok I looked it up. The bright gold, or the all black, are Terps rocking the football fashion phenomenon. Then came the addition of the jerseys with the shoulder pads graphic art motif. A combination of their State flag, and a bunch of historical and cultural references but the creation looked like the deck of cards from Alice In Wonderland gone very awry, hallucinogen drug overdose kind of very awry. So it is Oregon’s full closet all over again with a whopping possible 32 combinations. One of their helmets looks like the old television commercial car crash test dummy helmet, well that will strike fear in the opposing team’s hearts.
The list goes on. LSU has glowing purple tiger-eyes on the inside of their gloves. Western Kentucky even has new number font – which looks like a vintage baseball number jersey. Hawaii has new inlays in their pants to accent their backsides; how sweet of you to think of the mindless women watching football for the tight uniforms. Fresno State added an inlay under their shoulders to make even the widest lineman look like his waistline is stealth. Then there’s Temple with candy cane stripe pants. Florida State’s Seminoles got some Seminole looking piping added to their jerseys and the TCU horned frogs lost their horned frog off their helmet. Indiana looks like ‘Where’s Waldo” hit the green playing field. I stop here, there is too much fashion to fumble over.
By the way, all this new Nike uniform hype is available for the consumer; I mean fans, to purchase at their favorite online vendor, sporting goods store or University clothing outlet.
One recent Saturday, I look up to talk to my basketball brained ‘baby boy’ who stands 6’4”, and weighs 200 pounds at sixteen about the new craze. He is all about “looking good”. He gets this new uniform re-design fever. I am obviously getting old. Because it all boils down to the draw of a cool uniform, even if you are just standing on the sidelines on any given Saturday in October.
I have heard football commentators actually say, in their out loud voices, that a recruit’s decision as to where to go to school and getting new equipment every week is a great motivating tool on the field and a big money maker for the schools and for the manufacturers.
I get it. I’m not a sports writer, a college football announcer, or a recruiter. I’m a fan of College football, and did not know uniforms would be vogue this year. Silly me.

For over 50 years the live oak trees at the corner of Magnolia and College streets in Auburn, Al have been the center of celebration.  A buzzer sounds the end of a football victory and the mass of fans exodus in a migratory pattern past Sanford Hall and toward the intersection.  Where what was once a practical joke, toilet papering – “TPing” – a tree is seen as a beautiful thing.  During the final quarter of a home game, toilet paper in a bathroom is difficult to find.  Rolls are packed as a part of tailgating supplies and added to diaper bags, back packs and purses on game day.

That historic corner spends all of autumn looking as if a blizzard occurred in the Deep South. Auburn fans love the faux snow.  In fact, the City of Auburn parks a cherry picker near the trees just for clean up after the celebrations.  No one in the downtown area ever complains of the paper remnants, most are too busy smiling over the win that is reflected on that corner.

My first trip to Auburn was when I was in the 6th grade; it was love at first sight.  When you are born in Alabama, or upon establishing residency – you are asked where you allegiance lies, with the University of Alabama or Auburn University. Auburn feels like home, feels like good ole Southern boys playing football from their heart, feels like homemade lemonade and people sprawled out under trees studying subjects that will shape their futures. And although my wonderful Daddy and his family were devout University of Alabama fans, I chose where my heart sighed and wore blue and orange.

Like all good Southern women, I love College football.   Toilet paper in the oaks at Toomer’s Corner is a tradition older than I am, that ground is considered almost sacred to us Auburn fans.

But the over 130-year-old oaks are dying.  Not from age, or something in nature gone a rye. But from a deadly application of an herbicide, Spike 80DF. Agronomists testing the soil say that one sample showed 500 times the level required to kill one tree.

Enter the bad guy here…Harvey Almorn Updyke, Jr, 62 of Dadeville, AL has been charged with first-degree criminal mischief for allegedly poisoning the Toomer’s oaks; the event is also under FBI investigation.     He has been released on a $50,000 bond form the Lee County Detention facility and after three court-appointed lawyers refused his case, one from Birmingham has finally taken it.   Updyke is seen in his FACEBOOK photos wearing a University of Alabama hat and called a national radio show to admit his guilt.  The Paul Finebaum Show airs on not only Alabama radio stations, but the world-wide web and was recently picked up by SirusXM radio.  After the 2010 Iron Bowl, a caller said, “The weekend after the Iron Bowl, I went to Auburn, AL from Dadeville, because I live 30 miles away, and I poisoned the two Toomer’s trees.  I put SPIKE 80DF in them.” He went on to jeer that “the trees were not dead yet, but that they definitely will die.”  He also took responsibility on The Tider Insider website, and his voice is on a voice mail to an Auburn University professor.

Spike 80DF blocks photosynthesis and is 80 percent tebuthiuron, designed to clear thick underbrush, trees from fencerows and to keep railroad right-of-ways clear for passing trains.  It kills from the root up; it forces the tree to give up its life. Shoot, this stuff can contaminate groundwater.

Horticulture experts on campus believe that it will take a “miracle” to save the trees.  The tainted soil has been removed from their root systems and an activating charcoal; to draw the toxins has been added.  The trees underwent radical surgery to remove a good portion of their canopy to give a greater chance for essential nutrients to reach throughout the tree. Seeing them is a shock.

Wayne Barnes, Updyke’s friend told media “His children are Crimson Tyde Updyke and Bear Bryant Updyke and he wanted to name another child Ally Bama Updyke, but her mother wouldn’t let him.” Really? Wow, what a fan.

Iron Bowl rivalry gets ugly, I mean real ugly.  But I’ve never know it to get illegal, and certainly never saw any fan retaliation on either side make this sort of impact.  Impact made not only on the small town of Auburn but also on the world of Auburn fans.  I have a friend who fusses that if you did not actually attend the College, you should not get so “involved” with them.  He also points out that many of the fans never set foot in the town where the College they love is located but they seem to be the loudest of the fan base.

I do insert my maternal grandfather’s wisdom here, “just because you stand under the car porch – don’t make you a car.” Just because you pull for a team does not make you an I-worked-for-my-grades-alumni.  It makes you a fan and sometimes it makes you flat-out crazy.

I certainly do not blame the University of Alabama for the poisoning. Updyke is obviously not a well man.  He stepped over a line and justice should speak now.

But he’s robbed from me.  He’s stealing memories that I made under those over 130 year old trees. The kind of memories that make you break out in a smile and almost cry they were so good. And he has killed the future of my teenaged son’s celebrations under the oaks and his children to come. Before you start writing hate mail to the paper, I am not screaming over a dead daisy in the backyard while a house is on fire, I’m just an Auburn fan with a voice, and a lot of great memories under those trees.

Alabama native, Helen Keller once said, “What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” But I am losing something, those trees can’t be replaced in my mind and I won’t live long enough to see the next generation that will be planted in their place.

David Housel, retired athletic director for Auburn tried to put the oaks into perspective for those outside the SEC.  “In New York, Times Square is considered the crossroads of the world.  In our world, Toomer’s Corner is the crossroads.” Housel said.

Several weeks ago, Updyke had a day in court. Charged with four felonies, he could get up to 10 years for each. The Environmental Protection Agency is also considering charges. The court gave Updyke permission to relocate to Louisiana until the late October trial begins, he says he can’t go anywhere without someone recognizing him. And did I tell you that his lawyers entered a “not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect” plea? And that he plans to go to the Alabama v. Ole Miss game on October 15? Did I mention that Alabama head coach Nick Saban even turned on Updyke?

Trees die slowly so Auburn University is allowing the Toomer’s rolled oak celebrations to continue this season. Volunteers are removing the celebration paperwork by hand after game days. Guardrails to prevent people from touching them now surround the trees.  By next season, they may be completely gone.

It’s obvious that Updyke craved attention.  I really hope he enjoys it.  I am certainly not one of his fans.

War Eagle! Toomer’s Oaks thanks for celebrating with me and for loving the Tigers with me.

I am fixing to have a hissy fit. (For those not from the South, fixing is about to and a hissy fit is much greater than just being upset.)
I have a slight commute to and from the newspaper everyday and I cannot for the life of me understand the driving habits of the residents and visitors to northwest Florida.
I took driver’s education at Coffee Springs high school, and I learned to drive on a dirt road so I am not the expert by any means. However. I understand and comply to one rudimentary rule of the road that others do not…. the left lane is for fast cars and passing and the right lane is for slow cars, gawkers, tourists, fossils still driving and lost souls.
Those of you, who insist on seeing the beautiful Emerald Coast or the magnificent pine trees of the Eglin AFB acreage ad infinitum, then drive your vehicle in the right lane. If you cannot drive the speed limit – or a little more – for some physical or mental reasons then drive in the right lane. If you have to put on your make-up in the car, eat your breakfast, laugh uncontrollably with others in your car, talk or your cell phone or (shame on you if you do) text, Twitter or Facebook in your car then drive in the right lane.
If you are going from point A to point B and you have no intention of impeding anyone else’s progress as they do the same – then drive in the left lane. However, if someone runs up on your bumper – close enough as to allow you to read their vehicle VIN number – then put on your right blinker and move safely into the right lane to enable that car to pass you. Should you choose not to move over, do not be surprised if they brink their lights at you or rapidly accelerate as they jump into the right lane and cut rapidly back in front of you in the left lane.
If you are the only vehicle on the road at the time, the right lane is a perfect place to dive.
Cruise control is a wonderful invention, and I do not think you have to be omnipotent to know when someone is driving along with theirs set on a constant speed. Should you be poking along in the left lane and see someone ahead in the right lane with their cruise control set, do not drive alongside them and pretend that you are a pace car about to start a race. I do not want to drive passenger door to driver door with you. I do not know you, and certainly do not trust you to stay nicely in the center of your lane. Or if I am driving nicely with the cruise on in that right lane and you jump from slow to the exact speed limit in the left lane and I come up behind a right lane slow moving vehicle then expect me to turn on my left blinker and pass in the left lane. Do not make me slam on the brakes because you decide to play passive aggressive person and block me in. This is how road rage starts.
Road rage is a hissy fit gone into a whole other zip code. It makes blood pressure increase, wishes ugly untimely endings on the other driver, and usually ends with someone talking ugly about someone else’s mama.
I am telling you these things for your own welfare and to decrease the number of hissy fits I have as a result of your driving skills, or lack thereof.

This may come as a shock and revelation but we Southerners can be ugly without sounding that way. Prime example, we often talk about someone, share information with another, gossip – whatever you want to cal it. However, when we do, out of some strange guilt, we end the conversation with the words, “Bless his/her/their” heart”.
One of my favorites falls out of my mouth all of the time. I will be talking with a friend, about someone who does not look exceptional in a new dress, with a new hairstyle, or just looks a little peeked (that’s Southern for tired). Then it happens, “She looks terrible in that color, bless her heart”. And to me, OK, ‘us’… admit it. Those three little words added to the end of the insult make everything all right.
Sometimes I just laugh out loud at the way we do this. I overheard two people talking the other day. One woman commented on another woman and I knew the woman she was talking to just hated the third party. But to be nice she just smiled and replied, “Bless her heart”. In Southern code that read she had no reply, at least that she could say out loud.
My Daddy used to say ‘If you can’t say something nice about some body, don’t say anything at all’. And I just don’t remember him talking ugly about other people because he usually took his own advice. However, Southern women just cannot seem to do that. We are much more prone to say, ‘If you can’t say something nice about somebody, come sit close to me’. Bless our hearts.

My Daddy, Willie C. Stokes, taught me life lessons in a million silent ways that only he cold have. He was a tall, powerful man who had the reputation of being a “bear”.  Truth was he had one huge weakness – his two daughters – my sister and I.  He was an incredible father, with very strict rules about everything under the sun and the ability to just adjust his belt buckle and my sister and I would scatter like a covey of quail.  He laughed goodheartedly about the “fear” that he could put in you for the wrong doings of childhood.  But he loved with a strong silent nature that fills my heart to this moment.

He taught me about life with fireflies on summer nights in southeast Alabama.

He’d bring Mason jars out of the garage. They were supposed to be put up in their respective boxes until next canning season, but a few would go to us as learning tools – disguised as incredible fun. Each emptied of the fig preserves that we had smoothed out onto hot buttered biscuits made from my grandmother Stokes and her floured dough bowl.

He’d pull out his well-used pocketknife and carefully poke holes in the jar lid.

“Closing something up without any air just ain’t right,” he’d say in that big voice that was only his. Lesson One: Everything and everybody have to have breathing room.

He loved their yellow-green glow that dotted the hot summer nights in the forty-acres of pines behind our house.  The more the better once you had one in the jar because in his words, “Nothing wants to be lonely.” Lesson Two: Alone is ok, lonely is not and the two are very different.

He loved to watch as we ran through the dark, completely unafraid of anything or anyone, to include the Boogey Man. We kept a quiet watchful eye for the next trace of their flicker.  He seemed to know when they would be there next and orchestrated my sister and I from his aluminum lounge chair. We followed his shepherding commands, as if he knew their flight patterns and anticipated them in the branches.  The small insects were often just out of the reach of the reach of our childhood arms, but he would keep saying, “try harder, stretch – or he’s not worth getting.”  Lesson Three: The easy things to acquire are not as rewarding as the things that require effort and sometimes stretching beyond your comfort zone is necessary.

Daddy said we had to let them go by bedtime.  This was often painful.  After all, we spend all night chasing the little prizes, rolling the Mason jar in between our hands surveying and enjoying their episodic light show.  But before he called us in for the night, we had to open that lid and let them go. He firmly believed that “nothing lives long when it’s all caged up and unhappy”.  Lesson Four: Boundaries and bars are not the same thing.  Boundaries are necessary and show respect, care and concern.  Building bars around someone will always make them wonder about their freedom.

I had no idea what I was learning from him, without lectures and speeches.

This August 8th will be three years since we buried Daddy.  And you don’t see many fireflies any more.

My sister, Amy Stokes Hudson, and I with Daddy, Willie C. Stokes, in 2006 after his stroke.

“Who are your people?” What a delightful Southern question. I love it when someone asks this, and I’m happy to spout my bloodline. And although I haven’t found anyone that I am related to yet, people keep trying. I’m new to Crestview – this is my fifth month in this job and I can genuinely say that I love this place.
I grew up in a small town, smaller than Crestview but with the same ‘feel’ to it. This job is exactly what I want to do, write for a newspaper that people call their ‘hometown paper’.
I love it when I ask someone directions to their home for an interview and they say, “Go seven miles down the main road, turn right onto the dirt road, go across the creek, past the Church, up the hill, and my house has an oak leaf hydrangea blooming out front.” Those instructions are Southern and I get it. I was raised on a dirt road till I was in junior high when the county commission dumped gravel onto the red clay.
You know that you have been welcomed when you are introduced to someone and they reach out and hug you instead of shaking your hand. I came from a touchy-feely family so I am great with that.
I’ve met a myriad of folks already and Southern people are quick to ‘share’. Some share information for a story I am writing, some share gossip – but it’s stuff I will need to know at some time in the future, I’m just sure of it. I’ve even shared tears with several story interviews. One precious lady shared a mason jar full of her homemade fig preserves, and yes, some of her people are from near where my people are from. Many share sweet tea with me, which is the way to any good Southern woman’s heart.
But the one thing I get most from this job is the heartfelt acceptance by the communities that we serve. I thank you for taking me in, but most of all, I thank you for trusting me enough to share your stories, and I want to tell them the way they are felt.
And if you are wondering about ‘my people’ – I’ll share with you.
Thanks for the first five months.