Storytellers, I often say, are those who find stories in the simplest occurrences. Sometimes, it’s just a phrase or a word that will stop me in my tracks and send me spiraling toward a new story.

Stevie, my long-time chum, has no better friend than me. This honor I bestowed on myself after I took off, chasing Pulitzer-prize winning author Harper Lee. All for Stevie’s sake.

Karen and I exchange recipes often. She’s an excellent cook so I can always count on her recommendations.

Except for the tortilla soup recipe she passed along. It was okay but not particularly enticing. However, as is often the case when I cook something, I’ll call Mama and say, “I’m bringing you supper.”

Three friends and I were motoring our way from the western edge of Kentucky over to Louisville when someone proclaimed a sudden and immediate need for an orange Nehi soda.

The guy was extremely courteous and nice but obviously distraught. The five-page letter forwarded to me from a newspaper detailed the downfall of men.

When I was a kid, I often heard my parents say, as they parted company with others, “Y’all come see us.

And they meant it.

When my sister arrived for the family get-together, she set down a platter on the kitchen island and turned to me with a fretful look.

He’s my “go to” guy. He’s the one when all other romantic dalliances nose dive, he’s there to hear the dismal stories and lend a sympathetic ear.

The man heard us talking and leaned over toward the little table at which we were sitting in the famed Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Mama thought I was crazy. It was not the first time. Nor would it be the last. But it was certainly the most memorable.

They are words that every decent Southern woman hopes to hear from her mother.

My mama said ‘em but I never thought I’d hear ‘em.

Plopped down in a restaurant in the supposedly Southern city of Charlotte, N.C., the proclamation came as a shock to me.

Occasionally, I’ll send Brandon, the nice young man who helps me out around the house, over to Mama’s to do errands or yard work for her.

From the moment I saw it, I though it was the dumbest thing I’d ever seen. I spent 20 years thinking that, too.

“Whatta ya think?” Daddy stepped back, folded his arms across his chest with the look of a satisfied, proud man.

One day I was lamenting to my friend, Patti, who helps me in my office, about my smart-aleck mouth.

“I just can’t help myself,” I complained as she looked over some files. “Somebody says or does something that I don’t cotton to and I just pop right back at them with a dagger-sharp comeuppance. Then, I feel terrible because I smarted off like that. It’s not Biblical.”

You’re not gonna believe what I’ve done now. In fact, it is probably the last thing you’d expect.

I learned to drive a skid-steer loader.

Whenever Miss Virgie, my beloved mentor formerly of Pascagoula, Miss., now of Carson City, Nevada, learns I am dating a new guy, she is quick to pounce.

Now that I live in the country – a lovely blessing – I see slices of everyday life that make my heart smile.

In the little speck of a town that is my permanent address these days, I love my regular visits to the tiny post office where the postmaster, Regina, and her staff including three rural carriers welcome me by name and stop for a friendly chat.

Digging through my purse for a receipt, I discovered another piece of paper with numbers scrawled across it. I pulled it out, read the numbers and smiled.

One of the problems with the world – just one, mind you – is that people don’t do enough porch-sitting anymore. In fact, it is a trend these days to forego porches and settle for patios and decks.

Rodney Crowell is a Grammy-award winning artist, the writer of hundreds of hit songs and the former son-in-law of Johnny Cash.

Claudette, having a new in-law/outlaw travail to report, called the other day.

Before she began her latest in the ongoing outlaw saga, she asked, as many of my friends often do when I answer the phone, “Whatta ya doin’?”

Dixie Divas

Those who know me well will tell you that when it comes to decorating, I have a scant amount of natural talent.

There’s a whole lot of loneliness going on out there. Too many people are caught on the periphery of goodwill and compassion in a society where we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and shepherd the orphans.

After all the trouble I got into over last year’s Mother’s Day column, I won’t be writing about my own mother this year.

Along the winding garden path of my life, I have discovered that F. Scott Fitzgerald was basically correct when he remarked, “The very rich ... are different from you and me.”

Is there anything more essential to true Southern womanhood than a cast iron skillet? One that has been perfectly seasoned and whose weight feels just right in a woman’s hand?

It’s true that you can tell a lot about a person from their friends. Especially when the person has friends who tell a lot.

It just goes to show how big Easter is to the women of the South.

Our group of Dixie Divas, which has about 25 members, voted a couple of years ago to choose a meeting date and stick with it. No changes allowed. That was the firm mandate. So we selected the first Saturday of every other month. Since that time, nothing has been big enough or important enough to change the date.

Mama said the most wonderful thing recently. What she said is something I wish I could hear from the mouths of everyone I care about.