Front Porch Philosophy
Life Before Cell Phones
There was a time in the South when you could walk out your front door and vanish for the whole afternoon, and nobody thought a thing about it. You weren’t expected to answer to anyone, […]
Articles by Mickey Lee
Special Features
News Article Detailing the Rose’s Department Store Fire in Marion Virginia in April 1989
News clipping from Bristol Herald Courier newspaper reporting the story of the Roses department store fire in April 1989. […]
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When Lettuce Turns on You, Trust Little Debbie
Every now and then the news serves up a story so strange you have to sit down on the porch and let your brain catch up. Lately it has been all this talk about lettuce […]
Front Porch Philosophy
Piggly Wiggly Fed Our Towns and Shaped Our People
Some names just feel like they belong to the South. They settle into our memories the way porch swings settle into old wood, steady and familiar. Piggly Wiggly is one of those names. You can […]
Front Porch Philosophy
A Good Song and An Open Road
There’s a special kind of peace that comes from easing down a country road on a warm summer evening with the windows rolled down and the radio doing all the talking. You’re not going anywhere […]
Front Porch Philosophy
Grape Soda is Cheaper Than Therapy
There was a time in my childhood when the greatest luxury in the world came in the form of a grape soda in a glass bottle. Not the plastic kind that always tasted faintly like […]
Front Porch Philosophy
Was Dr. Pepper Invented in Rural Retreat?
Every town has a story it likes to claim, a little spark of legend that gets passed around at barber shops, church suppers, and front porches. Some of those stories are tall tales, some are […]
Front Porch Philosophy
When Rock & Roll Was King
I was seven and a half years old when the Rock ’n’ Roll Express came crashing into my world like a double dropkick to the soul. It was 1985, and I was already knee-deep in […]
Front Porch Philosophy
The Sweetest Tradition In The South
My youngest daughter is celebrating her birthday today, and one of our long standing traditions is the birthday girl gets to pick what she wants for Sunday dinner that week. We had that dinner this […]
Special Features
Plasterco: A Small Place With a Big Story
If you drive far enough down the backroads of Southwest Virginia, past the rolling pastureland and the quiet hollers where the mountains fold in on themselves, you’ll find a place called Plasterco. It is small […]