Happy Thanksgiving! I thought this would be a good week to share an old notepad I came across many years ago. From 1950, it included some real gems, including a note written to Santa from my mom, Clara Mae, in my Grandmother Hale’s handwriting. The letter that was still in…
Driving down Shadden Road in Gray, Tennessee, will bring you by a neighborhood development called “Cargille’s Crossing.” The sign there depicts a silhouette of a man wearing a hat, carrying a cane and what appears to be a bucket. That’s my Granddaddy, and much of the surrounding land used to…
Ahhhhh…..that feeling of crawling into bed with clean sheets that have been dried on the clothesline. They smell like the fresh air and sunshine! Wait, isn’t that a dryer sheet commercial?!? When I was little I remember wanting to be big enough to hang out clothes on the line for…
Recently I saw a picture on social media of a kid swinging on a grapevine. The writing on the picture said “How many of you remember doing this?”. So that got me thinking of all of the fun times I had growing up without constantly sitting in front of the…
When I was growing up in East Tennessee, my family wasn’t a regular church-going family. We were more special-occasion attendees, but my faith formed and grew through three different churches—and through many kind people that God used in sometimes the simplest of ways. Gray United Methodist Church The Methodist church…
On the farm, along with the daily milking routine, came seasonal work that had to be done to get ready for winter. In the Summer hay had to be cut and “put up” or stored in barns and sheds. In the Fall, the corn that was planted in the Spring…
Sloppy Joes…….yep, that is one of the first things I think about when I hear someone mention the Comers Rock Community Club. When I was young the Comers Rock Community Club met the third Friday night of every month in the old Comers Rock Schoolhouse. Everyone would bring potluck and…
High on a hilltop overlooking Piney Flats, Tennessee, sits a portal to 1791. It’s Rocky Mount State Historic Site, the first capital of the Southwest Territory. Rocky Mount was home to the William Cobb family, who in 1769 came to this part of the western frontier from North Carolina. Years…
One, two, three, four, five……… One of the first memories I have of milking was getting to go with Daddy sometimes to the Kraft plant fifteen miles away in Independence. Every morning Daddy would load the milk cans full of fresh milk on the back of our old farm truck…
Thanksgiving Day – To most people when they hear these two words thoughts of gathering with family and friends for a wonderful meal of turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce, football and an afternoon nap dance happily through their minds. When I hear someone talk about Thanksgiving,…
