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I like the song. My family likes the song. You probably like the song. When it rings out on a beach vacation, everybody just feels a little better, and the […]

Country music, it is said, tells the stories of the common man. And, as I can tell you, of a young woman searching for her way in an unknown world

I write several regular columns for varied publications and have done so for years. As a writer, college professor, and public speaker, I’m constantly being evaluated. I carefully read all

I am going to violate one of my own self-imposed rules. I almost never take public issue with a sitting President of the United States. However, I am going to

Growing up on Flamingo, not much got us more excited than a forecast of snow. A week before the event, meteorologists would let us know of “possible” winter weather or

QUESTION: My 3-year-old is fearful of trying anything new, including things that other kids his age love to do such as swinging on a swing, sliding down a slide, and

An acquaintance of mine once told me a story about television icon Andy Griffith. It’s a parable which has never left my memory. The man had heard it directly from

Although time has changed many aspects about the South, there is still a Southern culture. When I was travelling to Kenya, Uganda, and, later, to the Philippines, I was advised

To be honest, it was a feeling — a presence in the darkness of our bedroom, that awoke me around midnight.  Suddenly the dream of my beach vacation was chased

QUESTION: I recently tried toilet training my 32-month-old, but after a few days of no success, I decided to stop. A friend tells me to hang in there, but my

There are those of y’all who will say that this should have been written a long ways back. I don’t disagree. But the courtly Terry Kay knew how fine a

I was once an orthodox believer in the power of time-out — the practice of having a child sit in a somewhat isolated chair for five minutes or so immediately

As a seasoned adult, I’ve realized there are some things better thought than said. The few times I’ve forgotten and started to say things I shouldn’t, a gentle kick under

As a child of the gothic Southern Appalachian mountains, the screeching echoes of hard times and the bristling sound of the departure of loved ones have been constant bellows in

In the fall of 1980, I was looking for a church job. I had previously been a lay youth worker/minister on the staff of two churches and had served as