We were living in west Knoxville the year the city recorded the coldest temperature in the lower 48. That was January 21/22, 1985. It had snowed on Sunday morning—hard. So hard that church was cancelled. My husband, being the adventurous soul that he was, went out and checked on some of our church’s shut-ins. He barely made it back home and he swears it was because he was driving an old VW Beetle. I was just glad when he was safely home.

I was looking at an old picture not too long ago and it was like having a time machine. The picture was of me in cowboy get-up. At the sake of dating myself, I loved the old westerns on TV: Rifleman, Wagon Train, Maverick, Death Valley Days, Zorro, the ones in black and white, during what some call the Golden Age of Television. There I am in the picture, my best sheriff pose, gazing into the camera on Christmas morning. This was in Alaska; Ft. Richardson, to be exact.