I served as a judge for the 43rd annual Miss Okra pageant, and I’ll tell you what — there are some mighty talented young ladies around here. This year’s winner, Miss Louella Rae Langenhooper grabbed my vote when she appeared on stage wearing a stunning green gown, the exact color of ripe okra. She looked…
Read MoreThis week’s column reminds me of a joke — how much does a sorority girl weigh? Oh, about a monogram! Hahaha! Hey, you know you laughed! Alexis Savannah Smith always complains she can’t monogram her guest towels because no one will use them. Monograms are a very big deal in the South, and a good…
Read MoreFor generations, Southerners have flocked to what we consider to be “our beaches.” Stretching along the Gulf Coast from Gulf Shores, Alabama to Panama City Beach, Florida We make the trek every year, hoping no one else has discovered our spot of paradise. We easily recognize those who drove from far away to reach…
Read MoreI’m fed up with “hair salons” and want to find a good “beauty shop,” or even better, a beauty “parlor.” When I was a little girl, I’d tag along with my mother and grandmother to Bee Bee’s Beauty Barn, which wasn’t in a barn, and considered itself a “shoppe” — ultra fancy with an “e”…
Read More
Laura Jean was asked to chair the new cookbook committee for her church in Prattville, and she’s beyond thrilled. She took the words out of my mouth when she said, “I thought with the availability of recipes on the internet these days, we’d never see another church cookbook again.” Everyone in the South knows the…
Read MoreMy 17-year-old son Joseph, had cleaned the kitchen, taken out the trash and was finally sprawled across the furniture in the family room, arms and legs going every-which-way, while he played on his phone. My husband was out of town, and I busied myself here and there with all the mom-things. The TV was on,…
Read MoreEven though there’s no maternal element mentioned, the Bible story about the loaves and fishes has always made me think of mothers. I’ve never had a problem believing the small lunch was multiplied to feed thousands, but what’s difficult to accept is that out of all the people at the gathering that day, the only…
Read MoreI’m a word lover. A lover of words. A, “logophile.” I’m not claiming to KNOW a lot of words, but I love hearing them, which is why I’m HAPPILY STUNNED and DELIGHTED with the new play at Theatre 98, “On the Verge — or the Geography of Yearning,” written by Eric Overmyer and directed by…
Read MoreMy son Harrison went on a big adventure for spring break with five other college friends. Actually, all of them knew at least one other person on the trip, but none of them knew everyone. They basically said, “Hey, who wants to drive cross-country, camp in national parks, then turn around and come home?” (my…
Read More
It rained the day of my second-grade Easter egg hunt, so our room mothers hid all the eggs inside the classroom. This was back in the day when we called it an “Easter Egg Hunt,” not a “Spring Fling” or other such nonsense. Only one child won a prize for finding the Golden Egg, and…
Read More