In the home in which I grew up, the daily newspaper was almost as important to our everyday lives as the Bible.

Daddy came home every night, finished his supper – which Mama brought to him on a tray as he relaxed in his favorite recliner – then picked up the paper and read every page.

Like any self-respecting Southerner, it’s hard for me to pass up reading a well-written obituary. Especially when it runs in the Wall Street Journal and begins with she was “a dash of Southern class in a raucous old boys club.”

It is the absence of simple things that has made life so complicated. Those simple things cost nothing yet can make you feel like a million bucks.

When our friendship was new and still most interesting, Poet sought to impress me. But when the new wore off, Poet cast me into the ring with his other friends who are familiar and comfortable so there is no longer a need to impress.

There is a friend I have who cannot, for the life of her, tell a story.

Sadly, she thinks she can.

This often leads to drawn out phone conversations, dinners and afternoons over coffee that can be nothing less than a yawning bore.

For some reason, I’ve always loved full moons. Every time I see one, I stop in my tracks, fully absorb and appreciate its beauty and then thank the good Lord that I lived to see another beautiful full moon.

It’s true. Some things you have to see to believe. And then, even though you’re certain of the reliability of your own eyes, you don’t believe it.

Funny how situations in life can slip up on you and turn your feelings completely around.

Sometimes it’s downright tragic.

Unlike many people, I’m not a maker of New Year’s resolutions. Mainly because when I see the need for change or improvement, I resolve to fix it then, even if it’s July 23 or Oct. 1. I don’t wait until the first of the year.

Last year’s best present was from neither friend nor loved one. It was gifted to me by life: One of those rare lessons that grows more beautiful in memory as time passes.

Every trip to the beauty shop is, for me, an adventure in some way. And, without fail, it’s immensely entertaining.

It wasn’t intended to be a long conversation, but I should have known better than that. No call to Poet is ever abbreviated.

Sometimes two old souls can find each other and form a friendship that is anchored in rock-solid respect and like thinking.

Thanksgiving is a time to come together and celebrate a family’s beloved characters, the ones who give us many stories to declare and laughter to share.

In Belfast, in the stunningly gorgeous building dedicated by Prince Edward in 1932 (he who abdicated), where the Northern Ireland Assembly convenes, I learned why I can never be president of the United States.

The dawn was barely breaking, the morning just beginning to wrestle the new day away from the black night as the train traveled with a jolting purpose from Dublin to Belfast.

There’s nothing like a trip to Hollywood to remind you of the fantasies that grow there as rapidly as kudzu grows in Southern summers. There, I often find people who are not exactly my people.

When Mama died and the remainders and reminders of her life had to be sorted, distributed and, in some rare incidences, disposed of, my sister Louise and I marveled constantly at the historian that Mama was.

Poet and I were having one of our hour-long conversations. I was driving somewhere, with a wireless piece tucked into my ear, catching up on Poet’s stories and sharing a few of mine.

Optimist that I am, I have high hopes that this economic down-turn will make people kinder.

It could happen.

When folks experience set-backs, it’s humbling. Humility, in turn, makes the heart kinder and the spirit gentler. Too many people have become mean. Downright, spirit-crushing mean. It sickens my soul.

No sooner had I proudly written the column about the young boy who had named his new pet chicken after me than Ronda the Chicken proved to be as unpredictable as Ronda the writer.

A dear friend of mine, bless his heart, has to work every major holiday. Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter are days on which he labors while his family celebrates without him.

I’m still laughing about it. Well, kinda. It’s one of those situations that you have to laugh about to keep from crying.

It’s sometimes amazing the coincidences that can bring a person into your life. How they can be plopped down into your life, just like they’ve always belonged there.

One fall afternoon, I was lunching with a close friend of mine at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. A man from another table tentatively approached us and explained that he and his wife were fans of this column.

Just this morning, I turned the page of a book and was immediately and delightedly reminded of the power of words on paper.

Early on that Saturday morning, the phone had rung as I puzzled over the recently acquired digital camcorder, wondering why on earth I had purchased such a sophisticated one.

Not long ago, headed down Interstate 20, somewhere near Augusta, Ga., I saw a sight, not particularly unusual but thought-provoking, nonetheless. One detail caught my attention.

Not that I know everything. Not that I even know many things.

But I do know a few things.

And one of the most important things I have come to know in life is the necessity of controlling my thoughts so that destructive thoughts don’t control me. Having discovered a tried-and-true method for doing so, I decided to share it with a couple of friends who were obviously in need of my advice.

Never have I been interested in estate sales or bothered to attend one. But the two-day sale of Miss Henrietta’s life caught my attention when, by chance, I happened to see it in the newspaper classifieds.