Tag: family
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Some Assembly Required
In those early years of having kids, Christmas was a time of sweet, coupled with sour, highlighted by Christ and offset by the stress test of gifts with the anxiety producing announcement/warning, “Some Assembly Required.” I recall those Christmas Eve evenings where frenetic activity replaced the calm of a Christmas Eve service at church, a…
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Travel Day
My remembrances of Christmases in Crooked Creek always involved travel. First in a black Ford Fairlane station wagon, then in later years a pea green Ford Gran Torino station wagon. Dad was a Ford man and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because his son is a Ford truck man and his grandson…
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Oh Christmas Tree
My White Grandma (my dad’s mom) would typically wait for us to get to her house before she put up her Christmas tree. As I’ve come to realize, now having siblings and friends who are grandparents, she waited for her grandson because her joy was magnified by my joy. If you will allow it, joy…
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I Love to Tell the Stories of Appalachia
I am so excited for my newest book, entitled “I Love to Tell the Stories of Appalachia.” The rich history of my Appalachian family was fundamentally preserved through the gift of story telling from one generation to another. I can so vividly remember as a young boy of 6 or 7, sitting and listening to…
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The Raise
I guess it was around 1975 when I got “the raise.” There was never confusion about Christmas in the Mullins/Mason group of families. In that holler in Rockcastle County, KY, Jesus was (and is) the reason for the Season. He was (and is) the center of the celebration and the focus of all events that…
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Do you hear what I hear?
My wish for my kids would be that for just one Christmas they could experience what God blessed me with for a dozen-plus Christmases. I was the youngest in our family and was robbed of more of the years together than my siblings and cousins, but boy was I blessed. When you have 11 people…
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The Barlow Knife
One of the great memories for me as a child was Main Street in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky. To most this would be just another sleepy town, slowly succumbing to a World fed by Interstates, allowing quick exits and entries. To me, Main Street in Mt. Vernon represented my people, past and present. There were…
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Precious Memories Happening Now
“Precious memories, how they linger How they ever flood my soul In the stillness, of the midnight Precious sacred scenes unfold” “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27…
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Cornbread, Cast Iron & Milk
Did you ever watch that cornmeal and buttermilk get mixed together while the 10” to 12” cast iron skillet was heating up ahead of the combining those ingredients into the marvelous and God-delivered concoction called cornbread? Man as a little boy I remember hearing my mother retrieving her very seasoned 10” cast iron skillet from…
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He sat in the truck!
Hunting in Appalachian Kentucky was a survival event in those early decades, through the Great Depression and beyond. I have heard tales of hunger causing my family to kill and eat just about any animal. My white grandpa (my dad’s father, who lived in the white house), would eat just about anything. If I killed…
Myron Speaks 