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It’s 7:05 a.m. on a Friday morning and I’m sitting in the newly reopened Coney Island Café on Main Street in Hattiesburg waiting on an order of pancakes and eggs to arrive at my table. For several stressful and grief-filled weeks, I thought I might never be able to do this again. I worried thatContinue reading “The Return”

WATERCOLOR, FL— Sitting here in the early morning dark of a rental house’s front porch— while my son and his three friends sleep the guilt-free, deep sleep of 16-year old boys who have yet to worry about things like jobs and family responsibilities during Spring Break—  it occurs to me that I have a longContinue reading “Beach Music Through Time”

While walking through a gift shop I noticed a magnet attached to a refrigerator door that read, “Nothing tastes as good as being lean feels.” I would venture to say that the creator of that magnet has never tried Benton’s bacon. Granted, I haven’t been “lean” since the George H.W. Bush administration, but I stillContinue reading “The Most Memorable Meal”

On a lengthy, tour of Europe several years ago my wife and I made lifelong friends while traversing Italy. We have returned to Milan and Florence, often, and have spent a lot of time with those friends. Every return visit over the past few years has ended with the same sentence, “You must come visitContinue reading “The Visit (Part II) Annagloria and Enzo Do New Orleans”

“To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.” Yazoo City native, Willie Morris, often attributed that quote to William Faulkner. I have never seen a document verifying that Faulkner uttered those exact words. It actually sounds more like something Morris would say. Nevertheless, I agree with the sentiment that my homeContinue reading “The Visit Part I”

Over the course of my 56 years, I have accumulated a little wisdom. One thing I know for sure is that there are some people who make other people feel good by being in their presence. There are also some places that make people feel good by just being there. Last week, I got aContinue reading “Country bacon at its best comes from Benton’s”

For as long as I remember I have been playing “this or that” type games with my friends and family. I don’t remember the first this-or-that I ever proposed to someone, but it was probably in the late 1960s and went something like this, “Who’s the best band, The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones?” AContinue reading “This or That”

SEATTLE— I’m in the middle of a 48-hour jaunt to Seattle where I am working with an equipment company who will supply the machinery to cook several of our offerings at The Midtowner, the new breakfast-lunch restaurant we’re opening in June. Equipment testing, and its proper selection, sizing, and placement, is one of the keyContinue reading “It’s A Tough Job, But Somebody’s Got to Chew It”

BLACKBERRY FARM, WALLAND, TN— My wife and I first came here in the 1990s. We returned for our 10th wedding anniversary, and then started coming in the summer months after dropping our two children off at summer camp. Today we are here for our 25th wedding anniversary. After all of these years, and millions ofContinue reading “Back on the Farm”