My Hometown USA

Granny's freezer and antique peas ! Many years ago, a tragedy occurred at my in-laws in Mississippi. Granny's freezer died. Thanks to Hurricane Katrina But it was a second occurrence in a three-year period. Once because it was old and once because of Hurricane Katrina. It has devastated years of collecting frozen foods such as antique peas and vintage deer parts. As Southerners, we understand the culture of the country freezer, but for the younger generation of our day the only reason to have a freezer is to store stuff bought at Costco. Knowing the importance of watching their pennies, the in-laws mourned the need to spend hard earned cash for another large, deep freezer. But in Granny's mind she could not do without one. It only took three months before the deep freezer was full again -- lost was the antiquity of the new collection, but she was secure that the giant cavern was filled.   The ideal behind the freezer is to store mass amounts of food and save m...

Blessed Are the Keyboard Warriors... Said No One Ever First, just because you say you’re a Christian don’t mean you are…. There are many clones out there giving the authentic ones a bad name. However, even a true Christian can be mess up, sin, or act ugly or be mean on Facebook. When I see a headline story that catches my interest, my guilty pleasure is to head to the comments section! And oh my…what people say behind the curtain! That is temptation valley! Get thee behind me Facebook! Opinions dripped with judgment, harshness, and condemnation. And the saddest thing of all? Self-professing Christ followers… attacking another Christian. Viciously typed words compelled to rip people to shreds in order to prove their view. To show how knowledgeable they are. Most disturbing of all, they felt it was their duty to prove you wrong. It was watching Christians trying to win an argument while losing their witness. Blessed are the peacemakers. Not: Blessed are the last...

  Highway to Hell It's vacation season in America, which means millions of families are loading enough luggage to survive the apocalypse into an SUV designed to hold groceries. Dad swears he'll "make good time." Mom packs enough snacks to feed a minor league baseball team. The kids begin asking, "Are we there yet?" before the neighborhood is out of sight. Somewhere in the back seat, somebody forgot to charge an iPad. And just like that...the vacation has officially begun. Every summer we convince ourselves that spending twelve hours trapped inside a metal box with the people we love most is a recipe for making memories. It is. Some of those memories require therapy. No, not everyone dies on vacation, and somehow many wonderful experiences accidentally happen which we record on video and innumerable photos. The family looks back years later and forgets all the fights, the disappointments and the time Dad forgot underwear. You should be mindful of the dangers ...

  I love the smell of ink in the morning One of life’s pleasures use to be leisurely waking up in the morning, cradling a great cup of coffee and plunge into a fat newspaper. Those days are gone. Newspapers can’t compete with the information highway of internet and instantaneous news gratification. By the time I pour my second cup of coffee, I've already heard about three shootings, witnessed four political pundit meltdowns, listened to the announcement of two celebrity divorces, watched a police chase and somehow know my neighbor's cousin is mad at her hairdresser. Sadly, no one needs a newspaper anymore. Today’s youth have tech savvy gadgets, some never perusing a newspaper, not even to cut out a current event for a school project. Our next generation immediately wake up to a soul sucking power drawing them into the screen like a Twilight Zone episode. Students used to look for their name or photo in the local newspaper, recognizing their achievements at school or sports, and...

  The Porch Is America's Last Peace Treaty The Art of Family Gathering Family gatherings used to be as predictable as Sunday afternoon naps. You knew who'd be there, who'd tell the same stories, who'd burn the biscuits, and who'd insist they weren't hungry before fixing a plate fit for a lumberjack. My kids, hubby and I moved away from my family after Hurricane Katrina to the northern parts of Alabama where mountains pop out of the earth, a far cry from the flat piney woods of South Mississippi. For most of my life we had family gatherings, but as the elder folks began to pass, less and less. The Sunday dinners became a distant memory. Now distance separated me from most gatherings. But a few of my family folks will make the journey from time to time, so we gather once again. Every now and then, though, the stars align. Mom flies up the interstate—driving like she's trying to qualify for NASCAR—with precious family cargo. My brother and his crew trav...

  FAKE INTELLIGENCE I haven’t always been a dumb blonde. I was born a smart brunette. I got really good grades growing up. I could program a VCR to record a television series months ahead. But it seems all my life I have been faking my intelligence. They say Artificial Intelligence is changing the world. Some say, like the Terminator, it will eventually become so smart that it realizes we humans are just a useless resource. Then it will eliminate us. AI can write college papers, diagnosis diseases and create music so believable that recently a non-human made the top Christian album list. My so-called intelligence spent twenty minutes looking for my readers before checking the top of my head. AI can translate twelve languages. I still say “thingamajig” because I can’t remember the word “spatula.” AI remembers everything I have told it. I walk into a room six times before remembering why I went there. AI can summarize a 400-page book in a moment while I re...