In anticipation of Aunt Daphne and the KFC, the outside table was set and ready, fly swatters in full swing. Laughter and cigar smoke filled the summer air beneath the covered porch. Seemed like whichever aunt in charge of the Colonel’s Original Recipe was always late. As we waited, the grownups stayed busy talking up gas prices and weather, while the kids spread out over Papaw’s vast acre of hardwoods and conifers, muscadine rows and flower beds. We moved from swing set, to playhouse, to leaf pile, to the neighbor’s horse at the back fence, to the garage roof and back again with fleet-footed agility.

Finally, Aunt Daphne’s long-awaited arrival rang out like a dinner bell. “I knew you wouldn’t start without me,” she trilled, her voice bouncing off the loblollies. At once, twenty pair of skinned up legs and two hundred grubby fingers made their synchronized march to the kitchen sink. Eating didn’t happen until a cleansing occurred and cleansing didn’t happen until Papaw prayed a blessing over the chicken, the fixin’s, his children and his multitude of grandchildren. Father Abraham had nothing on Papaw. Neither did Colonel Sanders.