Cicadas sang me into this world on a July afternoon in North Carolina. Those early years tasted like RC Cola against sweltering heat and felt like the panic of our “ frigid” 70- degree winters, when I genuinely feared my tongue might freeze to flagpoles like in that Christmas movie. Between my mama’s belly laughs and daddy’s bear hugs, I learned life’s twin commandments: laugh hard and love harder.
School meant watching my first grade teacher pirouette in class, my high school principal doing the twist atop tables in the library, and my buddies causing chaos with dead possums in water fountains. College became a grand tour of every southeastern institution with a football team—not that I could tell you much about their academic offerings. Those “classes” they kept scheduling seemed to conflict with my social calendar.
Church-hopping took me from Baptist pews to Methodist potlucks across state lines, never quite finding the right fit. Florida’s siren call grew weekly—that sun, that water. I pledged allegiance to the Gator Nation, cranked Bubba the Love Sponge, and shouted “ Power Pig, hello!”
I learned the true definition of the phrase, hell has frozen over. Like a Southerner, I still miss Lewis, before me; I was held prisoner of war in Chicago. I was one of the lucky ones and I got weekend reprieves to come home and visit with the understanding that I would return at the beginning of the new week and I did for years. I finally returned to NC on a full time basis when I figured out that the best direction you can travel on I 65 was south.
Heaven rejoiced as I reconnected my Southern roots.I have realized that no matter what job I have it does not define me. I am content to sit at Beggars Tomb (yes, it is a real place) surrounded by my family, dogs, books, dabbling in photography, enjoying nature, creating stories and wondering what Susann is making for supper (hopefully not fried or the sawbones will squawk), and where the biggest crisis of my day is that the ice cubes in my vodka and cranberry melt too fast.