Who is this lovely young lady and why will I be writing a column about her in the next few weeks? Tune in later to find out.

I grew up hating liver. Most kids do. Even when well-meaning cooks attempt to disguise the flavor of a deceased cow's liver by coating it with onions, which I also care not for. Fortunately for me, Mom did not place liver and onions before me very often. But Dad was fond of something he referred to as liver mush. When I was first confronted with the odd-smelling rectangular slab of meat, just its name alone caused me to mentally vomit while my stomach dreaded what my esophagus would soon be offering it.

Turns out it didn’t come from a cow, but rather a pig. Turns out a deceased pig’s liver comprised only about a third of the contents of the liver mush rectangle. It also had cornmeal, which didn’t sound terribly grotesque. But listed on the ingredients were delicacies such as pig ears, pig lips, pig snouts, and other so-called edible areas of a swine’s head.

At the time, a popular commercial was making its rounds on my television. In it, reluctant citizens were encouraged to get past the name of a soft drink and give it a taste. It went something like: “Dr. Pepper, so misunderstood, it must taste good,” or whatever. Still, I was hesitant about the whole liver mush experience. It was traumatic. . . until I tasted it.

Liver mush is now the main ingredient in my favorite breakfast meal. I have heard it referred to as the poor man’s pâté (pronounced “pah-tay”). I have no idea what pâté is, nor do I care much. Pâté sounds too classy. I prefer the flow of the words liver and mush when combined. Here are the things I like about it:

1. It is distinctly Southern, and more importantly, the best of the few distributors who make it, do so within a few miles of my house. I realize there are some similar distributors up north who call it “scrapple,” but it’s a cheap substitute.
2. It is low fat and high protein.
3. It leaves an after-smell in the house once cooked that I think is better than fresh- picked daisies, but that my wife hates. (Which is why I’m seldom allowed to fry it up at home.)
4. Most local restaurants have it on the menu. When you inquire as to its availability, they don’t look at you like you’re an alien idiot like they do in less-cultured locales.
5. It has its own well-deserved annual festival, also near my home.

I enjoy liver mush nearly every Thursday morning in the Gardner-Webb cafeteria. My main man Randy always fries up some rectangles and has them hot and ready for me and few coach friends of mine. We even convinced a new young coach from California to try some liver mush. Bless his heart he gives it a shot each week but has yet to make it through an entire rectangle so far. But I’m still holding out hope for the boy.

In the meantime, I’m sticking with liver mush as my all-time favorite breakfast ingredient. In fact, it goes down good any time of day. Sorry Mom, liver and onions never did if for me, and never will. But thanks, Dad, for introducing me to a true Southern delight. My taste buds and stomach are truly grateful, even if my wife’s kitchen isn’t.

Spell check won't ruin my anniversary column

The moment you’ve waited for. The annual October event when I waste valuable column space to wonder out loud why any of you would ever read the ramblings of a hopeless amateur writer. I call it my anniversary column, and it is the fifth such one I have penned. Actually I use a computer so there is no pen involved, but you get the gist.

My annual admission that I drive English teachers crazy. I butcher proper grammar, places periods after sentence fragments, and invent words at times. Words such as “gonna, gotta, kinda, sorta, prongy, fella, gigantor, vocabularial, and unancientness” have appeared in at least one of my columns in 2008 alone. My computer bleeds red underlinings every time I type the aforementioned words, like it just now did when I wrote “underlinings.”

And ever since partnering up with a gent from Murphy, N.C. on a mission trip, I have used and overused the term “bein’s how” in my columns quite often.

Despite all this, I am allowed to continue. And even more puzzling, a number of you- the reading public- have encouraged me to continue rambling.

While transporting one of my kids from house to house on Halloween night a while back, a nice lady recognized me from my picture in the paper and thanked me for “making an old lady’s day each Sunday.” I was so stunned and blush-faced that I forgot to ask for some candy, though my son grabbed half a bag-full during the conversation.

And then there was the time a nice lady in Wal-Mart approached me and said something like, “Hello, please don’t think I’m a crazy person. You don’t know me but I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you write in the paper.” She had me at hello. But I gotta wonder if she might be a little crazy- not because she approached me in a crowd, but because she claimed to actually read what I write every week.

Recently at a high school football game, I felt a tap on my shoulder and a lady two rows back asked me if I was “the guy who wrote in the paper.” When I nodded, she began a one-way conversation that lasted about thirty seconds, none of which I heard because she commenced at the same moment the band cranked up as the football team stormed the sidelines for the opening kickoff. I got the feeling her words were complimentary because she kept smiling as her lips moved. So I nodded occasionally and smiled back and thanked her when the band stopped. She may have told me to go jump in a lake, but I’ll take whatever she said as encouragement.

Every year I remind you this much. I don’t write for the newspaper. I write for the people who read it. I write for the people who read my blog and for those who get my column by email. I’ll admit I’m slightly embarrassed when one of you stops me and tells me to keep it up. Frankly I don’t know exactly what it is I am doing that makes people laugh or cry or whatever. But bein’s how some of you dare to encourage me, I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on. No matter how much my computer’s spell check hates me.

Thank goodness they only turn 16 once

It was a day I had both looked forward to and dreaded. Only once in a parent’s life does your oldest child blow out the candles on his 16th birthday cake then immediately demand to be driven to the nearest DMV to obtain legal permission to drive unsupervised. Of course this license would allow the child- uh, young adult- to assist his parents in the transporting of younger siblings to appointments such as school, baseball, soccer, and youth group to name a few. But the torture a parent endures during such journeys is comparable to an uninsured root canal. On my son’s first try, the DMV officer was uncooperative. Perhaps her concern was related to the fact that the tires on my son’s truck contacted the curb on his attempt at a three-point road turn. I knew he was in trouble when they returned to the parking lot about forty-five seconds after they left. My fears were confirmed when he gave me the “thumbs down” as he and his examiner approached the side door in silence. While trying to console my eldest on the drive home, I suddenly noticed in the rear view mirror a large black object skyrocketing upwards behind me. Turns out it was the bedliner of my son’s truck. The same truck I was driving at the time. I watched in horror as a man driving one of those over-sized work trucks behind me swerved to avoid the oncoming object, an object whose course appeared destined to meet with the man’s windshield. His success at dodging the bedliner was the most impressive feat I have witnessed since Dale Earnhardt passed Bill Elliott by going off the track and onto the grass at the old Charlotte Motor Speedway. I quickly pulled off the road and sprinted back toward the bedliner, which was still resting in the middle of the highway a couple hundred yards away. My son stood beside the truck- why I don’t know. When he saw his dad dragging the liner in the grass along the highway, he finally decided to join in and help. As he approached me, I knew I had a choice to make. We were both completely outdone and exasperated. When our eyes met as he reached me, I cracked. Up, that is. I began laughing so hard I lost my breath. And he quickly followed suit. “Do you realize how stupid you look dragging that thing down the highway,” he asked. “Yes, I do, that’s why I’m running, you fool.” One week later, my son entered the side door of the DMV after his test and announced that he needed $15. “I guess that means you passed,” sighed Dad. This despite the fact he ran the stop sign in front of the DMV building just before we entered the parking lot that morning. A little later, as he left our driveway and rode off into the sunset, I waved goodbye wondering if I would ever see him again. And suddenly I felt a whole lot older than I had a month earlier. But I was comforted by the fact that he would be returning soon enough. He couldn’t make it too far with the price of gas what it is. Plus, a bedliner held in place by two bungee cords can’t hold out too long.