Learning to cook

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When I was growing up one talent that both my parents stressed I should acquire was learning to cook for myself.

Perhaps it was their foresight that it would not be likely to find women in my generation willing to dedicate themselves totally to cooking, cleaning and raising children, or perhaps it was my mother’s independent spirit as someone who was before her time.

My mother began operating her own restaurant when she was in her 20s, so needless to say she was a career woman long before I entered her life.

I think she knew that more and more women in my generation would be entering the workforce and spending more time in the workplace.

However, with my arrival and due to some of my unforeseen health issues, she left the business world to look after me until my health improved enough for her to work again full time.

As I grew I helped out all I could, and one of my chores once she returned to work was to help with evening meals.

With her help I learned to cook a variety of dishes from Hungarian goulash to Southern style meatloaf. My favorites were the sweets, pineapple upside down cake, pecan and sweet potato pie, which of course barely lasted to the table.

When I was around 13-years-old I had the opportunity to solo on my very first holiday meal — turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potato yams with marshmallows, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and turkey gravy, slaw and pumpkin pie. Of course, like any good teacher she quietly coached and helped with some of the odd jobs like peeling potatoes, grating the cabbage and carrots, opening cans, and of course getting the turkey started soon enough to be done by meal time. You know, if you do not take that thing out of the freezer a day before you’ll be having fried Spam instead.

One thing that to this day I just cannot deal with is those little turkey giblets you put in the gravy. I think gravy is just fine with them swimming in the gravy boat.

For the occasion we invited our neighbors, Millie Dobbs and Bessie Yarbray, to join us.

I was also in charge of setting the holiday table with our finest linens, bone china, crystal glasses and silver ware. These were always reserved for special occasions and guests.

I will never forget my excitement as the meal was set on the table and the guests arrived to see what I had done.

The image looked like it could have come right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

I am pleased to report that everyone said they enjoyed the meal and the portions evidenced that. As far as I know there were no late night visits to the emergency room, so I guess you can say the event was a success.

I also may have been inspired to pursue this endeavor by the fact that my brother’s wife could not boil water. They spent many evenings sitting around our table.

As an adult these lessons have served me well, and while cooking is no longer what one might call a passion for me, I do know how. As long as food is available in the absence of someone desiring to cook, I won’t starve. As years go on, I am  sure that will be plain to see as I develop an ailment, which afflicts many of my kinfolk, Dunlap disease. My belly dunlapped over my belt. Bon appetite!

Truth, nothing but the truth

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The importance of truth in everyday life is something that each of us are responsible for upholding.
When thinking on the topic of honesty, I fondly remember back on the Andy Griffith Show episode where “Opie” wants to sell his bike without mentioning all the little things that are wrong with it. “Barney” decides to take on selling real estate and the Taylors are considering selling their house and buying another in the same episode.
Andy neglects to mention the little odds and ends wrong with the house until Opie brings these things to the attention of the buyers. While Andy becomes frustrated by Opie’s honesty, Opie is confused by Andy’s separate rules for adults and children. Andy finally realizes that Opie is right.
When we are in our late teens, we sometimes add a few years to our age so we can do things adults do. As we get older, we tend to shave years off our age so we can appear younger. Are these lies?
When attorneys are faced with defending people that they know or suspect are guilty, does this strain their ability to be honest when they stand in front of a judge or jury to defend a not guilty plea?
While extreme situations like war can sometimes bring on the need for good people to be faced with challenging choices concerning their convictions, it is often on faith and truth that they must rely to get through the bad times.
But there are, no doubt, times when honesty may be strained.
Members of a generation of Americans were disenfranchised by the feeling that our government was lying to them in the 1970’s during Watergate and the latter part of the Vietnam War.
Were they lying?
There is an old joke about how you can tell when a politician is lying — their mouth is moving.
I wonder sometimes what happened to good, old-fashioned honesty.
Honesty does exist in each of us. All we need to do is remember each and every falsehood we utter has an effect on someone else.
It may only be ourselves we hurt as we build a house of cards trying to remember each and every white lie we have told so as not to be caught.
What is the point of being dishonest? Do we gain anything?
There’s an old song called the “Royal Telephone” where the singer asks the operator to get Jesus on the line.
Would you tell a lie in exchange for a conversation with our Savior, Jesus Christ himself, on the phone? I wouldn’t. If I did, what would we talk about?
Remember: “From your lips to God’s ears.”
If you remember that he is listening, it does make you think more heavily about what you do and say each and every day.

Come as you are

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If there is a place where folks come as they are these days, it’s on social media and often it does not reflect our best. Have you ever wondered what happened to dressin’ up when you go to town or when placing yourself in an environment to be seen such as online? When I was growing up in Chamblee, Ga. we would often make the trek to town.

In our case, town would either be downtown Atlanta or Decatur. Whether we were out for a day of lookin’ and feelin’ at Rich’s department store or a trip to Starne’s Barber Shop for a shave and a haircut on the square in Decatur, when we walked out our front door, we looked our very best.

Notice how I said “lookin’ and feelin’” rather than shopping. That is what women folks would do with youngsters in tow. They would look and feel, only occasionally would the trip bear fruit with something being bought. In those days, many folks, like us, didn’t have air conditioning at home. A trip to the store on a hot summer day was a welcome relief.

I never did get a shave at Starne’s but I sure did lose a lot of hair. Mr. Starnes gave me my first haircut as my cousin Arthur, who was in barber training, watched. I would soon be turned over to Arthur for several of my early haircuts. In looking at early pictures, I can only say they were fond of flattops.

Course as a child, being dressed up often would include a little bit of dirt within just a few minutes of putting on those clothes. I can still hear my mom saying “What am I going to do with you, you get dirtier than an east Tennessee coal miner.” But what is a young boy to do when there is a perfectly good mud puddle just waiting there to be jumped in?

I can still see my mom in a pretty dress gray gabardine outfit with matching black hat, gloves, handbag and high heel shoes.

Maybe the concept of being dressed up has changed. Maybe folks look at designer jeans and a T-shirt or sweats as the fashion of the day. All of them are ridiculously expensive. They are a lot easier to upkeep than walking out in a crisply starched shirt, tie and slacks each and every day.

I just don’t understand what happened to the custom of looking your best. I remember even when we would spend time on my grandparents’ mountain farm, folks worked hard and wore clothes that would carry that load. But when it came time to go to town for something, I remember grandma Kitty going to her cedar wardrobe and pulling out her blue Sunday dress to put on.

Even if folks were dirt poor, they made sure that when they went to town or school or wherever they looked the best they could afford.

Folks generally still dress up to go to church. However, in some churches they don’t even do that anymore. They just say ‘come as you are.’ Now, there is nothing wrong with this. Cause I know God welcomes anyone no matter if they are in overalls or hole-y jeans. But there is just something to be said to giving God your very best effort.

In the past, folks took pride in the way they looked, their dress, their grooming. My dad would never leave the house with a hair out of place. Was that vanity, possibly. But that is one impression of him that people who knew him still remember today.

Now I am not saying that I have never left the house without being perfectly dressed and groomed. I do occasionally run out to the grocery or the gas station in a less than dressed-up fashion.

While I never owned a pair of blue jeans until I was in my teens, I do wear them to town with a nice shirt and even on stage when appropriate.

My parents use to say “We’ve worked hard to get off the farm and out of overalls, there is no reason for you to wear them.”

That was no slight on farming or farmers on their part. When they were coming up, farmers like other country folk were looked down upon by city people and I am sure they endured their share of negative comments from those well-meaning city folks while trying to make a place for themselves in the city. While nostalgic to us today, their roots of walking barefoot behind the mule as the fresh-turned earth came up between their toes was something many folks worked to get away from, especially during the depths of the depression.

With some pairs of jeans these days costing more than a pair of slacks, in a way, I guess they are dressy in their own right. If you really want to get fancy you can buy them with holes already worn in them. I heard of folks in east Georgia making a fortune by firing buckshot at jeans for some company. They can be pre-washed and I imagine somewhere you can buy them pre-worn and be charged extra for somebody else breaking them in. No matter what, they are here to stay.

I guess the days of everyone wearing their best when they go to town is a thing of the past. It is amazing what new coat of paint and little fixing up can do to a house. It only makes since that we do the same for ourselves or we can just “come as we are,” no matter where we go. It could be a little embarrassing for some folks though, depending on what they were doing when they get the invite.

A shave and a haircut

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As I sat and squirmed in my chair trying to scratch a place in the middle of my back, I wasn’t very happy that I made a trip to get a haircut. Have you ever noticed when you go to the barber that those little hairs that fall inside your shirt collar can make you itch for the rest of the day?

It kind of makes you understand the “hippie” movement, at least the hair part of it. Although I never understood my middle brother Alan’s desire to have a six-inch afro, it must have been somewhere in the early 70’s, I ran in from playing down the street to find my brother sitting in the living room looking like he had a fight with an electric toaster and lost.

One thing that makes me wonder is why folks go to a salon to get their hair styled. They can do most anything there from your hair to your nails. They even got them places where you can get a full body wrap.

Now when I was growing up, men didn’t go to a salon. A salon was for women. That’s where women folk went to get their hair glued in place before they went to church on Sunday.

Back then, men folk went to barber shops. If a man was caught going in to a beauty salon, it took a month of Sunday’s to live it down.

While memories of my first haircut have faded, I am told that I was really not too much of a squirmer in the barber’s chair. I knew that if I didn’t behave that would be my last time sitting down for a while.

After our family moved from the big city of Little Five Points out to the country in Chamblee, my Dad and I settled on going to a barber named Mr. Saxon. I don’t believe I ever knew his first name, but Mr. Saxon cut my hair from my third birthday all the way through my senior year in high school.

One thing I have learned in my life is that loyalty to a barber is one of the most important choices a man can make. No matter where Mr. Saxon moved his practice through the years, that is where we went to get our hair cut.

Haircuts back then didn’t cost an arm and a leg either. It took me years to not cringe when pulling more than $2 out of my pocket for a haircut.

Initially, the old barber shop had been in business since the days of Civil War reconstruction. As I sat in a red leather swivel barber chair, I would look up above the mirrors on the wall at the shotguns which were mounted above each barber chair in case some restless mountaineer needed to be reminded that he was in town.

Hill folk would ride into town and not only get a haircut, shave and a boot shine, but  take a shower and house their horse out back while they were in town.

Mr. Saxon always managed to keep my Dad and I properly trimmed. After my cut, I would always help out by sweeping up the hair clippings on the gray tile floor. Through the years, it was amazing how I always seemed to sweep up a dime or two to put in the old red carousel Coca-Cola machine when I was done.

Through the years, Mr. Saxon imparted many words of wisdom on this impressionable lad. Probably the one that stuck the most was “Always remember, no matter who you meet in life, your mom and dad will be the best friends you will ever have.”

By the time I had reached my senior year, Mr. Saxon was growing near retirement. While he was once a whiz, time was taking its toll. The loyalty within me insisted that he would be the one to cut my hair before my senior photos were taken. Unfortunately, that haircut left a lasting memory and was not a great testament to his many years of talented barbering.

By the time I reached Georgia State University, trends in the outside world were making franchise style shops the place where people went for a trim. It was difficult for me to take my first steps into such a place, but eventually I did. Unlike the old barber shop, almost every time you went in there would be a different butcher on duty.

As my musical star began to rise, a fellow musician from Chicago, Sue Koskela, had taken up the trade and become an award winning stylist. Thankfully for me she was kind enough to take me on as a client and would always travel in to handle photo shoots and album covers. She settled near Knoxville for many years, and I would regularly make the six-hour round trip from Atlanta to have her work her magic. I am not exaggerating; what she did was magic. I knew when I walked out of there, I would not have to do anything to my hair and I would be sporting whatever latest style suited my look and shape of my face. Every time I went elsewhere, I usually looked like a cross between the Frankenstein monster and “Mo” from the Three Stooges.

When I joined the cast of “In the Heat of the Night” as “Officer Randy Goode,” my head and hair became the responsibility of whichever hair and makeup artists were assigned to oversee my look. They had to make sure that we actors looked consistent throughout scenes that were filmed out of sequence. In one of those happenstance moments, we got a new and short-lived hair artist who decided to give me a different look for an episode entitled “Heart of Gold.” I had one of my largest feature appearances of the early series. It was amazing to me how detrimental that look on camera was for me. I never realized until that point how much a person’s hair style has to do with how they are perceived by other people.

Good grooming is something we can all do to make the world a better place, but finding a good barber these days can be as hard as finding a six-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola for a dime.

The Sign Jumping Contest

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I drove up on the mountain and when I arrived, I found that the sign I had carefully placed had jumped out of the ground and was lying on its side. It had jumped out of the ground the day before that and I had received a call the night before letting me know it was down. Once again the same lady called to let me know it was down again, it only made it about three hours.

When I arrived back the day before from putting it up, there were three others along my route which had also jumped up out of the ground and laid down on the ground.

Well, one of my cousins once wrote a short story about “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

His story was amazingly entertaining, I am afraid this one will not be.

I am not quite sure yet whether the worms in our neck of the woods are rebelling against us, frustrated by the addition of so many metal sign posts being pushed down into the ground.

Of course, it might be a joint effort of the gophers, chipmunks and the ground hogs. They could have formed an army and are slowly and strategically digging beneath the ground finding each and everyone and pushing them up until they jump out of the ground and land a few feet away.

There might have been a geological shift in the hydrology of our community and water could be forcing them up. Although no new springs are found.

Maybe Mark’s jumping frogs from Calaveras have moved to my county and are hiring out to push the signs up out of the ground.

God has blessed me with knowing many great people in my life, some were friends, some were relatives, some were encouragers, some were up lifters, some were acquaintances, and some were just folks I have met.

While I know there are bad people in the world with ill intentions and a desire to hurt others, I have only had limited encounters with their type. When I started in reporting on politics, and eventually running in local elections that continued to be true until just a few years ago. Then a new breed of folks began entering the fray and with them they brought along the school yard approach to attacking their opponents.

This year as I am running in my local election cycle, they are having a ball encouraging the signs from jumping out of the ground. Of course, I am only seeing this primarily with mine and others are left standing within sight of them.

Perhaps I need to check in with my sign company, perhaps it is the metal sign stakes, maybe it’s something in the metal. I want the think the best of everyone, but the evidence seems to continue to pile up against my keeping a positive opinion on some.

Activity helps strengthen each day

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Click, click, click, click, emanates from my sneakers as I walk along the hiking path ever hopeful that with each passing mile I am a little more fit and well on my way to losing the few pounds I am seeking to shed.

After opening boxes, and pulling jeans up only to find they will not close and a crowbar will be needed to get them back off. Read more

NQC is a slice of Americana that fills the soul

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I entered the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. and found myself in a sea of smiling faces.

They were looking forward to hearing and seeing their favorite gospel music performer either on the stage or in their booth at the National Quartet Convention.

The people walked gleefully towards their seats for the event only pausing as they passed a familiar artist standing in their booth where they stopped to say hello or to see their latest album.

Once inside the auditorium, the seats filled the room that guided your attention to the stage where stood one of the up-and-coming acts performing three songs for the crowd.

The talents of act after act crossed the stage only broken in speed by the emcee’s introduction.

A non-stop cavalcade of stars and upcoming talents kept the audience in the Spirit of their performances with old and new gospel songs.

As part of the week-long event, the stage also featured the Singing News Fan Awards, the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductions, numerous ministerial messages, special showcases, and special feature events.

There were numerous worthy award winners at the Singing News Fan Awards outstandingly hosted by my former bosses Jeff & Sheri Easter. Two of my favorites presentations included two of my friends Karen Peck Gooch won Favorite Soprano Award, while The Inspirations, including my former Americana Youth of Southern Appalachia participant Isaac Moore (Favorite Young Artist Award), won Favorite Artist Award; Favorite Soloist was Joseph Habedank; Favorite Mixed Group went to the Collingsworth Family; Triumphant Quartet took Favorite Quartet; Connie Hopper received the Favorite Alto Award; among a list of other recipients. Visit singingnews.com to find out more.

This year’s Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductees included Sue Dodge, Danny Funderburk, Norman Holland & Reagan Riddle! I was especially please to see my encouragers Norman Holland who helped me launch my career at Benson and now retired Primitive Quartet performer Reagan Riddle. Their music fueled my youth and performing hopes. Be sure to support their new museum at Biblical Times in Pigeon Forge. Find our more at Sgma.org.

Friends, if you would like to experience a true slice of Americana, I urge you to make the National Quartet Convention 2024 in Pigeon Forge part of your plans. Great music, great people and down home fun. Visit NQConline.com to learn more.

The Little Things Mean a Lot

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When I was growing up, I had many role models. My parents were great role models imparting many lessons. Some were easily learned while others took a bit of strict discipline to get them through my thick head.
My grandfather Jesse and both my grandmothers were role models. My older brothers in a way, even though they were ahead of me a few years on the learning curve, taught me a lot. Some of the key lessons was missing out on the discipline they received by proper coaching away from some of the mistakes they made.
Several of my parent’s friends and extended family also at times found their way into role model list as I was growing up imparting bits and pieces of wisdom on various topics as life’s opportunities afforded. When we remodeled our bathroom, I learned a lot from my Uncle Clarence about building and doing tile work. My Uncle Waymond taught me a lot about trapping and hunting.
Standing alongside my father as he worked on various projects, I saw him pull his tools from his black tool bag. He would lay out the tools he might need, in a neat order, he then began his diagnostic approach to figuring out what was wrong with whatever device he was fixing.
I stood there watching what he was doing as he strategically isolated the potential issues until he deduced the solution and used his tools to make it work again. He then cleaned up his tools and packed them away into his leather bag like a doctor with his instruments.
He told me that it might seem like a little thing to clean off your tools and properly pack them away until next time they are needed. But if you do it, he said. You will have them ready when needed again.
It’s a little thing, he said, but if you don’t take care of the little things, you won’t take care of the big things.
As time has went by, I have learned that lesson well. I have seen people who do not care for the little things lose sight of the importance of caring for the big things.
Perhaps that is why I have always looked towards the details in every project.
If you take care of those, all the others parts will fall into place.
Learning the lessons passed on from others can make each of the tasks we take on in life find greater success.
The little things really do matter!

Uncle Dud Doolittle and the rickety ladder

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I am sitting on experience overload as we all are dealing with the nationwide pandemic shutdown and my local region is reeling due to tornadoes and flooding. So, I am turning us to a bit of levity to raise the spirits:

My great Uncle Dud Doolittle was an entrepreneur extraordinaire who operated the little general store at Flintville Crossroads.

Now Uncle Dud was as swift as could be. He stood about five-foot-five and was wiry as a well-strung bed frame.

His circular Ben Franklin spectacles offset his gray hair, and he was seldom seen outside his wool, dark green-striped suit and favorite gray beaver hat.

When working in the store, he also wore a black visor on his head that looked odd because it made his bald spot shine as he worked below the store’s light bulb.

With the variety of folks who made his store a regular place to be, he was always finding himself in unique and unusual situations.

Folks were always eager to give a hand, especially Cousin Clara who made a drop by the store a daily ritual.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in July of 1948. Uncle Dud stood on a rickety wooden ladder putting a shipment of canned peaches in his favorite pyramid display. As he drew his task to close Cousin Clara came in saying, “Sure is hot out there.”

She noticed a can lying below the ladder so she walked over and stepped under the ladder to pick it up. As she raised up, she knocked over the ladder sending Uncle Dud to the floor.

“Doggoned it,” Dud said. “I told you before to stay away from that ladder. Don’t you know it is bad luck to walk under a ladder?”

“I didn’t know you were superstitious,” Clara said.

“About the only time I am superstitious is when somebody like you walks under a ladder and deliberately sends me to the ground,” he said.

“Do you believe it is seven years bad luck to break a mirror?” Clara asked.

“No sireee! My Uncle Corn Walter broke a mirror, and he did not have a bit of bad luck,” Dud said.

“Why didn’t he?” Clara asked.

“He got bit by a rattlesnake and died two days later,” he said.

Throughout the conversation, Dud remained as he had landed on the floor — standing on his head.

“Why are you still like that?” she asked.

“When I stand on my head the blood rushes to my head, but when I stand on my feet the blood don’t seem to rush to my feet,” Dud said. “I didn’t know why, so I wanted to just stay here and think about it a minute or two.”

“Why, that’s easy to figure out in your case Uncle Dud,” Clara said. “Blood can’t go in to your feets because your feets are full, but it can go into your head cause your head’s empty.”

(The characters of Uncle Dud Doolittle and Cousin Clara are the property of Peach Picked Publishing in association with Katona Publishing and are used by permission.)

A refuge under the covers

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When I was a little boy, my brother and I shared a room with two maple single beds, a maple night stand, and a maple dresser with six drawers – three on each side with a large mirror spanning its width. The beds had pineapple finials on their posts. My older brother left me behind in the room early in my life after he graduated high school headed off to the Navy. There was 15 years between us. The room was lonely once he was gone. He often had friends over that allowed me to be the annoying little brother! I reveled in all the mischief I was able to cause as a toddler.

That room became like a cavern to me. In the dark, there were definitely monsters under both beds, in the closet and walking down the hallway leading to the room. I could hear every creak and pop. Any little thing would have the handmade quilt pulled so high over my head, it was doubtful I would ever dig myself back out again.

When the fears of nightmares were too hard to bear, my parent’s bed was a refuge, and off I would run up the hall, open the door, and jump in between them in their cedar bed. After they calmed me, I would soon settle in warm and snug between them.

As I grew, my bed became also a sick bed, as my tenuous health caused me to take extended stays there. The maple night stand became a regular place for bottles of medicine, damp wash rags would remove the vanish over time as they would hang there between my fevers.

In my childhood, the room had none of those things children have today. There was only one TV in the house in the living room. Only what could fill my imagination with the toys from my closet were what I had to keep me occupied in the healthy times. I also had a candy red tricycle which allowed me some freedom in the back yard and, of course, like many I had my own cowboy outfit, with a cap pistol, so I could chase after the bad guys.

That room was my world as a kid. I knew every flaw, every loose board, and where I could hide from company if they came. Despite being alone, I filled it with lots of imagination.

As the years passed, I remained there until I was in my teens and the den was converted into a more adult bedroom for me and the childhood bedroom became a guest room.

Years later, we decided to sell the suite and it moved along to a family that had a set of twin girls who would then call it their own. I hoped they found as many happy hours there as I did and experienced a few more joint memories as siblings. The bedroom suite was second hand to my brother and I, so I imagine it has moved on a time or two more since then.

While furniture does not carry memories with it, the pieces certainly can leave a memory legacy within each of us. Today, I still sleep in that cedar bed I once jumped in as a toddler. A few feet away are the dresser drawers which served as my bed as an infant. I imagine, if it is the Lord’s will these items will be with me the rest of my journey and then will pass along in the family.