Category: (Family)
-
Laundromats Are For Swingers
I’ve got a picture that keeps running around in my mind. I don’t know why it’s there. It just kind of appeared a few days ago, and for the life of me, I can’t seem to shake it. As memories go, it ain’t much. It’s just a snapshot of a moment in time when life Read more
-
Tattoos and Muumuus and a Jukebox
Several years ago I was having lunch at the new Waffle House, the one over next to Publix. It was new then, at least; but new or not, it still held that special ambiance particular to Waffle House. Perhaps the floor was a little cleaner, the windows a bit less opaque and the “How you Read more
-
Christmas Dinner, Bobbie Jean Style
My momma was a lovely Southern Belle born and bred in the backwater of the Florida panhandle. She was beautiful in a country girl sort of way. With her emerald green eyes, jet black hair and lithe form, she could turn a head or two with no effort at all. I will never forget the Read more
-
The Blessed Table
Those of you who have read my writing before know that when I was a kid, back in the early nineteen sixties, I spent most of my summers down on the panhandle of Florida with my Granny and Grandpa Tharpe. For a little boy who loved the outdoors and fishing in particular, I could not Read more
-
Check Your Seams
Many years ago I was driving down an old dirt road in Lexington County when I noticed what appeared to be the nose of an old Carolina Jon boat winking at me from underneath a tattered tarpaulin behind a dilapidated outbuilding. So I pulled to the side of the road to take a closer look. Read more
-
The Bullfight
The upward angle of my memories reminds me of just how young we are when our brains begin to crinkle; when thoughts, feelings and memories start slipping down into the crooks and crannies; when our consciousness begins filling the crevices of our mind. I couldn’t have been more than three or four, perhaps younger, as Read more
-
Drifting With Granny
I will never forget the late summer afternoon when my crazy Granny Tharpe proved that she was ahead of her time by having the top part of her left ear pierced. You know, just like all of the young folks do today. Only Granny did it way back in the mid-sixties long before it was Read more
-
Grandpa and the Blues Harp
I can’t recall the exact date. The best I can figure, it must have been somewhere around the middle of June back in 1967 or there abouts. I was eight years old at the time, spending the summer months with Granny and Grandpa Tharpe. As I recall it was a pretty morning. The sky was Read more
-
Great Uncle Wilkie’s Light
Let me tell you a bit about my Great Uncle Wilkie. First and foremost though, let me make it clear that he was my great uncle by marriage. If I was blood kin to him, I would never admit it for fear of being banned from proper society. Uncle Wilkie was indeed one of the Read more
-
Having A Smoke With Momma
When I was thirteen years of age, the Rowell clan lived in a couple of single wide mobile homes way out in the woods a few miles outside of Lexington. The older trailer house was for my brother Mike and me, and the newer trailer was for mom and dad and my little sister, Janie. Read more