How Do You Relate?

by James E. Bradford

When Kathy and I moved to Knox County, Tennessee, in the Community of Concord, we very quickly found out that being from Middle Tennessee was not a thing that one talked about. It was hard for us to understand why there was so much hate and resentment for Middle Tennessee. They referred Middle Tennessee as the "Land of the Devil Worshipers" and to Andrew Jackson as "The Devil himself walking on earth".

by April Heath Pastis

Maybe there's something to the Scottish stereotype of being thrifty, because my mother has always appreciated a good deal. And this was a great deal. When I was about 10 years old, my mother had saved enough Blue Chip stamp books to buy my brothers, my sister and me each a fishing pole of our own. Now, I don't know how many stamps or how long it took her to save up but I do remember that every time she went to the grocery store, she got Blue Chip stamps.

Have You Checked Out The Past Lane? In that section of our website, members share family stories. Since Valentine's Day is coming up, I thought I'd share this story with you. If you have any stories you would like to share, click on Submit An Article, when you are logged in.

by April Pastis

Steve's great aunt, who speaks in broken Greek-lish (a mixture of Greek and English), told me a lovely story about how her mother married her father when he "crashed" the wedding.

A day before her wedding, Sophia's brother's happened to be arguing about it when this man overheard. He snuck over to where Sophia was and took a gander at the beautiful, but unwilling, bride to be. It was love at first site for him.

Through some diplomacy, he offered to pay the snubbed groom for a lossed "dowery" (the best word I can find to describe it), and then asked for Sophia's hand. A frustrated father of the bride threw up his hands over the whole thing and gave his daughter freedom to make her own choice. Sophia decided to take a look herself and without hesitation completely agreed to this arrangement. (I don't blame her, from the photograph I have seen, he looks exactly like Steve.)

They didn't even reset the previously set marriage date. The cake, food, decorations were all the same, except the groom had changed! Apparently they were happy and in love throughout all their married life.

These are some notes from Gilbert Sullivan's memoirs as transcribed by his son Dan Sullivan

Within hours of my Father's death I sought to be alone, and found myself in a bedroom of my parent's home, the one away from the rest of the house, the one over the garage. As I grieved his death I felt all of a sudden very much alone, and I asked:
Where have you gone Father, and why have you left me alone. Who will I turn to for advice and counsel for the thousands of choices I must make. Who will teach me of the old signs. When to plant corn.