My Hometown USA

 “In a galaxy far, far away…” If you are not a Star Wars nerd, you just cannot understand what that line does to us — especially when it’s followed by the blast of a full symphonic horn section and those scrolling white letters drifting across a dark space screen. On May 25, 1977, the world changed. Well… it took a few extra weeks for the Force to reach South Mississippi, but eventually it landed at the Ritz Theater in downtown Picayune, and this 13-year-old girl was sitting in a packed house completely mesmerized by lightsabers, romance, adventure, stormtroopers, and a walking carpet named Chewbacca. If only I could go back and be so full of wonder at a movie again! I cannot fully explain why I became such a Star Wars nerd, but I was hooked, so much so that I even named my second child Luke. Enough said. Fast forward several decades, and honestly, I had become disappointed with much of the newer Star Wars universe. Disney seemed more interested in reinventing the fra...

 

 Do Wrinkles Hurt? One of the twins asked me an innocent question years ago: “Do wrinkles hurt?” Yes, son. Yes they do. Every wrinkle has been carefully handcrafted through aggravation, frustration, exhaustion, bad decisions, stress eating, raising children, paying bills, and trying to remember why you walked into a room in the first place. Wrinkles are not random. They are life’s receipts. Every line tells a story. Some people have laugh lines. Some have worry lines. Some of us have “I raised twin boys and survived on caffeine and prayer” lines. The harder the life, the deeper the crease. Now men? Men somehow get away with wrinkles. A gray-haired man with wrinkles is called “distinguished.” A woman gets one tiny line beside her eye and suddenly she’s online researching miracle creams made from seaweed, snail slime, and the tears of financially broken women. Women are spending billions trying to fight nature. Starting at ages that  Creams. Serums. Masks. Rollers....

 

At the Buffet This past weekend I came down to visit the Aunties, and to guarantee they have a decent meal take them to Golden Corral for one of those gigantic all-you-can-eat feasts that ought to require signing a medical waiver at the front door. Now let me just say this… time with the Aunties is precious. We laughed, visited, reminisced, and solved at least three world problems over yeast rolls and peach cobbler. My heart left fuller than my plate. Unfortunately, so did my waistband. Why is it that at a buffet, people suddenly lose all sense of reason and dignity? Somewhere between plate number two and the buttered yeast rolls, your brain starts whispering foolishness like, “You know what would go good with this fried chicken? A brownie.” You need to get your money’s worth! That’s the lie we tell ourselves at buffets. Nobody walks into a buffet saying, “I’ll just have a sensible portion.” No ma’am. A buffet turns ordinary church people into competitive eaters with glazed eyes and or...

  NO Excuses for Inept Murdering! For somebody living in the golden age of surveillance cameras, DNA testing, cell phone tracking and true crime documentaries, criminals today sure can be astonishingly dumb. Twenty years ago, if a criminal wanted to get away with murder, they had to put in some effort. There was planning. Strategy. Details. A little mystery. The bad guy in old crime stories had to be smart enough to outwit investigators armed with nothing but a notepad, bad coffee and a fingerprint kit from 1978. Not anymore. Today, investigators can practically solve a crime before the suspect finishes posting vague Facebook quotes about betrayal and “fake people.” We now live in a world where your car tracks you, your phone tracks you, your watch tracks you and your neighbor’s Ring camera tracks you sneaking home with Taco Bell at midnight. Yet somehow criminals still think, “I can totally pull this off.” Bless their hearts. Crime television certainly hasn’t helped matters. Betwe...