Get in my belly

Auburn just got a new one of these.










*image from here

Trust me. You won't be disappointed.

Back to my roots

No matter how many times I say that Charleston or Charlotte or San Diego are my favorite U.S. cities, I've decided that there is just no place in the world like Luverne, Alabama. If you ever have the privilege of passing through this one red light town, you're almost guaranteed to receive a wave from a passing driver whom you most likely have never met- hence the name "Friendliest City in the South." You see, that's the thing about small towns. No matter how hard you try, you just won't meet a stranger.

With a population of only 3,000 and no sign of even a Wal-Mart for 22 miles, it is only reasonable that Luverne be considered non-existent by the majority of Alabamians living outside it's city limits. Highway 331, nonetheless, begs to differ. If you've ever traveled by means of this straight shot to the gulf coast, you've been to Luverne. If you don't recall ever being a wayfarer to "the Lu" or "L-town" as we natives call it, then you probably just blinked and missed it.

A short time ago I was thumbing through the June edition of Southern Living and was surprised to find an article hailing The Chicken Shack and Annie's as two of the top "Dining Detours" on the way to the beach. This surprise had nothing to do with doubting the culinary skills of these hometown skillets (I have yet to taste a better chicken finger, strawberry milkshake, or fried hush puppy than the myriad of ones I've consumed at these diners over the course of my lifetime). I was simply surprised that Southern Living was actually living up to it's name and acknowledging just that: the value of a Southern life.

Here's a Southern life instance that I'll never forget. The summer after my freshman year of college, one of my roommates was passing through on her way from the beach. She wanted to surprise me but had never actually been to my house. She decided, by what she thought was a long shot, to ask the cashier at the BP if he knew where I lived. Obviously he did because she showed up at my house, unannounced, and I to this day have no idea who that cashier was. Only in a small town, or should I say Luverne, would something like this happen. It's these ridiculously silly things that I love most about home, but how much more profitable it is that "our citizenship is in heaven." -Philippians 3:20