Tami Jo’s big summer adventure 2016

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee! As you read this I am in the part of the country where gravy is very popular but is different than what I serve here Saturdays. It is the land of sweet tea and country and western music. The Country Music Awards are being staged here this weekend but that is not the reason I made the trip. My favorite aunt and uncle, Pete and Nada Kirk, reside in Thompson Station, a suburb of Nashville. I love these people to the moon. They were such an important part of my childhood. It should be no surprise that I was a difficult child. Calling me precocious is a very nice way of describing it. Brat is much more accurate.

Nada took care of me when my mother was sick, which happened frequently. Being married to my father, taking care of three children and a varied menagerie of livestock on five acres while working full-time as a nurse was overwhelming. Add to that she was active in local Democratic politics, the March of Dimes charity, served as president of the Parent-Teachers Association, room mother and Girl Scout leader. She was worthy of intense admiration. My mother was formidable and bi-polar.

Nada and Pete raised two daughters who were the closest thing I had to sisters. I spent as much time with them as I could manage. I had two bruiser brothers but would have loved to have a sister. Their surviving daughter, Lori, and her husband, Van Woody, live here in Nashville, too. Their daughter Taylor and her husband, Johnnie, have 2.5 children, and they all live in the Nashville area...