I have dictated stories from an airport after writing the story out in longhand on the plane that I got from phone interviews and then was applauded by editors for 'working magic.'

If you cannot eat what you want in the South, life is not worth living.

Finally, I must thank the boy, for forgiving me for all that I have fumbled, broken and lost, and the simple fact that, sometimes, I just don’t have good sense.

They named him James, for Charlie’s daddy. In the South, you do not have to love someone a real whole lot to name a child for them. It is just something you do, naming the first boy after his grandfather.

I wonder if, north of here, they might even run out of stories someday. It may seem silly, but it is cold up there, too cold to mosey, to piddle, to loafer, and summer only lasts a week and a half. The people spit the words out so fast when they talk, like they are trying to discard them somehow, banish them, rather than relish the sound and the story. We will not run out of them here. We talk like we are tasting something.

That is where a big part of the Old South is, on coffee tables in Greenwich Village.

I could not even ask myself how in the fuzzy hell I got here, because I knew precisely how it happened, year by year.

It is one thing to be sure of yourself. It is another to have someone tell you to quit dancing, look them in the eye, and tell them the truth even if it hurts your pride.

She had hoped for a daughter to pass her skills and stories to – that or a thoughtful son, someone worthy of the history, secrets, and lore; instead, she got three nitwit boys who would eat a bug on a bet and still cannot do much more than burn a weenie on a sharp stick, and could not bake a passable biscuit even if you handed us one of those whop-’em cans from the Piggly Wiggly and prayed for bread.

I guess nostalgia is our sanctuary in sorry times.