Georgia Green Stamper – Georgia On Her Mind

My daughter and I were five hours into a road trip with two grandchildren bored in the backseat. They’d exhausted the usual diversions and had sunk to the level of bug-your-sibling-until-it-squeals. That’s when I pulled out an old compact disc of Tom T. Hall’s Greatest Hits I keep in my car.
The 13-year-old began to gag. Inspired by her humor, the 9-year-old joined in with noises only a boy can make. I restrained myself from giving them my opinion of current pop music. Every new generation celebrates its own, I understand.

 “We’re steel magnolias,” Sondra said.
That, I thought, pretty well summarized the spirit and character of the women around our table.  
The girls of summer again, 12 of us met to eat Willy-Whoppers at The Smith House, the same little place where we discovered them when we were teenagers.

Though I’m a grandmother now, I can slide without warning through Alice’s looking glass, where I catch glimpses of the girl I used to be. When the near forgotten scents of a spring night in May sneak up behind me, when – well, it happened again on Sunday morning, about the time my large congregation of city Methodists hit the chorus of that old gospel hymn, “In the Garden.”

January in Kentucky reminds me of a difficult relative. You know the kind I mean, the eccentric ones you put up with because you’ve known them all your life, shared the good times and the bad, and so you love them.
But why oh why can’t they have a better disposition? If she tried harder, couldn’t January learn a thing or two from a Bluegrass May or June?