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An Ohio Story
Day 10 of our virtual road trip takes us north from Kentucky to Ohio. We lived in Lima, Ohio during my high school years. One of my memories from those years is the time my 95-year-old great-grandmother visited us. Granny lived in Eldorado, Oklahoma. (She was the 1918 “Mama” in the story I told about Oklahoma.) Mother had invited her to come…
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A Kentucky Story
Day 9 of our virtual road trip takes us north from Tennessee to Kentucky. The main thing I remember about Kentucky is going to church camp in Wilmore every fours years from 1976 – 1988. The small denomination we were a part of had a “general camp” every quadrennial (seriously, that’s what they called it!) at the Holiness campground that was connected with…
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A Tennessee Story
Day 8 of our virtual road trip takes us northeast from Georgia to Tennessee. My family lived in a suburb of Nashville for about 6 months when I was 6 years old. Since we were there such a short time and I was so young, my memories are pretty vague. I remember playing with the neighbor kids on our swing set……
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An Arkansas Story
Day 4 of our virtual road trip takes us east from Oklahoma to Arkansas. We moved so many times over the years that no one place really seems like “home” to me unless it would be Grandmother and Granddaddy’s home place in the Ozarks. They lived there as early as I can remember, and when they finally sold it in their retirement…
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An Oklahoma Story
The third day of our virtual road trip takes us north from Texas to Oklahoma. Three of my great-grandparents were still alive during my growing-up years. They were all three on my mother’s side and they lived in Eldorado, Oklahoma–a tiny town in the arid southwestern part of the state where my mother grew up. We went to visit them several times…
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A Texas Story
The second day of our virtual road trip takes us west from Louisiana to Texas. The summer I was 8 Dad accepted a call to pastor a church in Lufkin, Texas. How exciting to be moving again. We lived in Arkansas at the time. We had never been to Texas before. It sounded so exotic. It would be really hot there,…
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A Louisiana Story + My Gumbo Recipe
Today kicks off the Write 31 Days blog challenge which runs through the month of October. You may remember that I participated last year without a set topic. I planned ahead a little better this year, and decided to share Stories of 31 States as a “virtual road trip.” I hope you’ll come along! My series begins in Louisiana, because…
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Blackberry Cobbler
I remember going out into the woods to pick blackberries when I was growing up in the south. Summers were hot and humid then. I guess they still are down there, but I don’t live there any more, so I really can’t say for sure. The blackberry bushes were covered in briars–“stickers” we called them–so we would inevitably get scratched…
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Cousins Day
Did you know that National Cousins Day is this weekend? I didn’t either until one of my cousins tagged me on Facebook a few months ago with a “Happy Cousins Day” graphic. I had never heard of Cousins Day before so I Googled it to find out more. Well, turned out it wasn’t actually Cousins Day when she posted that,…
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Baby Sisters
When I was 19 months old my parents brought home a set of baby sisters for me. I took very good care of them. I taught them to play the piano… …and how to count to three… …and how to build a snowman… plus lots more useful stuff. My parents couldn’t always give me everything I asked for, but…
