There is magic in Gumbo. That’s just a fact. There is no recipe for making gumbo, only a tradition and a culture. You can’t make it without wine and music. You can fudge just about everything else, but you gotta have wine and music. I start with some Cabernet, and some Waylon tunes, unless I… Read more »

May 10th 1994, Landi and I departed Jamaica much wiser than when we arrived there some ten days prior. We were there for our honeymoon. In our ten wonderful days there, we learned much about a wonderful island, its’ people, its’ culture and ourselves. I, for one, learned to never let a drunk woman put… Read more »

Fifty years is a long time. Sometimes it’s hard to remember details. Sometimes, as we age, dates drift further into the deep recesses of our memory and the details blur together. Things become indistinct. There are some things we can’t quite remember. There are some things we just can’t forget. Friday, May 26th I remember… Read more »

While visiting on the phone with my son, Catfish, yesterday, he mentioned that he was going to Nashville pretty soon for a friend’s bachelor party. He was excited about it because while in Nashville, in addition to bar hopping and general fun, they planned to go to a concert by some currently fashionable country singer…. Read more »

On a very hot and exceedingly humid September Sunday night in 1977, I lay sweating in an un-air-conditioned dorm room in Beebe Arkansas listening to a radio station from Little Rock as it was about play an album released by Willie Nelson. Though I had been a fan of outlaw country music (Jerry Jeff Walker)… Read more »

In early 1974, an unknown band from Florida became famous almost overnight when “Free Bird” became an instant southern anthem. With a monster hit song, the album “Pronounced Len-nerd Skin-nerd” kept selling out everywhere. Word quickly spread through Jonesboro that Lynyrd Skynyrd had been booked to play at the Strand theater and there were less… Read more »

It is in the dead of winter that my mind wanders during household chores. While doing something in the bed room, my eye caught sight of something that sent me back in time. On my night stand there stands a small, lonely trophy. It is from the Broadwater Beach Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi. It is… Read more »

There are things worth remembering about growing up in small towns. I remember the oddest of things. I remember pimento cheese. A small grocery store on Flint Street called Lundy’s used to have the finest piminto cheese on the face of the earth. Lundy’s was a neighborhood grocery store right across Flint Street from the… Read more »

Waffle House at 8:00AM is a microcosm of America. The counter and the booths are full. You’ve got the elderly Marine Corp veteran eating alone, looking through the window at memories of rice fields and triple canopy jungles. You’ve got the two debutante wannabes eating in a booth. Four brothers are laughing and eating a… Read more »

There was a time many years ago when exploring new albums meant going to TG&Y at Indian mall, or perhaps KATZ at Caraway Plaza and perusing the bins containing albums. The tiny and sparse inventory was selected and creatively managed by some middle aged clerk in a back room who enjoyed listening to regional classics… Read more »