“You are sitting on a damn goldmine.”

My oldest and dearest friend and I were catching up via text, and I was recounting the story du jour (this one involving my dad, his brother, and a lost bet on the golf course). This is the way our friendship goes these days-  in fits and starts, via stories from back home, limited mostly to text because real life is complicated by jobs, spouses, kids, and laundry.  She told me, as she and others have so many times before, that I really should write this stuff down. 

She is a real writer, an editor, and a fellow Southerner, and this is me taking her advice. Others have said to write a book, but I don’t yet have the dedication.  What I do have, like most every other person that was born and bred in the American South, are a whole lot of stories worth telling.  

I’m not writing here for anyone else, although I hope that other people find enjoyment in the reading, but instead for me. To keep the memories of all the lives and love that came before me and made me who I am from slipping away. 

What will follow is my life, my history, my storytelling for posterity, preservation, and not-so-safekeeping. Whether it’s gold in anyone’s eyes by mine remains to be seen.