Serve by Design

My family and I have been eating black-eyed peas with ham and corn bread on New Years Day since January 1, 1978. We had moved to Granbury, Texas, four months before and quickly began learning the culinary ways of Southerners. On that first New Years Day in the Lone Star State, some close friends invited us to dinner and introduced us to the tradition of eating black-eyed peas. We soon learned the reason behind this perceived good luck and prosperity! Photo: Compliments of our Texas son, Marc! This tradition is thought to have had its roots in the post-Civil War era when African American slaves celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation with hopes for freedom and a new beginning. While many northerners would consider black-eyed peas to be nothing more than animal feed, Southerners knew that these peas with ham hock had kept them from starvation during Sherman’s march. I cannot imagine the great suffering and loss behind the tradition that emerged from those awful days in our country’s his...

I recently had a meltdown! No, not exactly the kind you are imagining. This one was a literal melting down of a part on the engine of my new riding lawn mower. In late fall, the mower had unexpectedly been delivered about a month before promised. I was so excited to get on it and take it on a trial spin around the yard. I had only intended to mow and mulch leaves around the grass area adjacent to the circle driveway. I knew that our teenage grandson would enjoy using the new machine during the next official mow. Oops! I Forgot!! The backstory to this “meltdown” is that on the day the mower was delivered by the implement dealer, I thought I would compare the air filter on this new engine with the one that I used on my previous mower. These engines were similar, and I had a couple of expensive filters left over that I hoped I could use on the new rider’s engine. The issue occurred when I failed to secure the filter’s plastic cover. On the next day’s trial run, I had only been mowing fo...

I have been uncomfortable in closed spaces for several years. It has nothing to do with claustrophobia induced by elevators or large crowds of people. My issues causing panic and anxiety emerged during the advanced diagnostic testing (MRI Scans) my doctors repeatedly prescribed to determine the source of chronic back spasms thirty years ago. As it turned out, regular exercise and dropping forty pounds of excess weight were the needed remedies! While I haven’t had the need to undergo another MRI in recent years, my urologist recently recommended that I undergo a PET C-Scan to track how my prostate cancer was progressing. I immediately became anxious about that test. Although C-Scans are not as confining, they do require the patient to remain completely motionless for about 30 minutes while the scanner passes from head to toe. I thought, “Oh boy! Here we go again! To tolerate this, I may need a light sedative this time!” "Don't be a baby! Man up!" Two days out from the te...