When a Southern lady enters the room

She walked into the room, impeccably dressed in a blue and white patterned top with matching navy skirt. Her jewelry sparkled and her hair was perfect. Her bright smile was greater than the Mona Lisa yet less than Miss America. Her final, yet essential accessory, was the hint of mischief in her eyes, which instantly…

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Fannie Flagg for Father’s Day

Reading a new book just about every week, Daddy liked a variety of authors and topics. Traditional favorites like Faulkner and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings were balanced by biographies and stories about the wild west. His emergency hurricane cash-stash was hidden between the pages of Jimmy Buffett’s, “A Pirate looks at Fifty” and I once found…

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Real cheesecake is regional

My voice activated music system sometimes acts as if it doesn’t understand me unless I tone down my drawl, which gives me wrinkles around my mouth, because you have to pinch your mouth up in order to squelch a Southern accent. Try saying, “Hey Siri, play Guy Penrod” without a small twang in your tongue.…

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Treasure boxes hold what’s important to us

Before I post the column for this week, let me take a moment to thank everyone who noticed my column hasn’t appeared in the print edition of the Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville papers for the last few weeks. There’s a new computer system at AL.com, and with that comes a different way of loading up…

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Enjoy them now and graduation will be easier

Older women would see my children and say, “Enjoy them while they’re young. They grow up in a hurry.” I’d smile and think, “That’s sweet,” but what I didn’t understand was they were actually revealing the secret for not losing my mind years later when my children walked out the door into the world. The…

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The attack of the thoughtless leprechaun

Feiciano was a college student from Florida A&M University who was one of the full-time aides in my public school Pre-K classroom. At the time, I thought he was a very grown up adult, but now that I’m the mom of young men that same age, I see what a fun-loving big kid he was.…

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