“My fondest Christmas memory happens to be every Christmas from the time I could remember to the time I was around 15. We do things a little different down here in East Texas.

We lived about 1000 feet from my Uncle Buzzard, my Mom’s youngest brother.

He had a huge metal barn where he worked on everything from lawnmowers to classic cars.

Over in the corner was an old wood stove sitting right there in the dirt with a pipe running straight up and out of the roof. I will never forget the smell of the pine burning and filling up the barn with smoke, which was probably not very healthy, but no one cared back in those days.

Every year on the weekend before Christmas, the entire family would gather around that old stove. With kids and musical instruments in tow, they would eat until they could hardly move, post up by the stove and proceed to jam.

While my Uncle Charles Lee and cousin Charlie played guitars, my Uncle Curtis played the mandolin and my mom played the fiddle. In my youngest days I remember playing on the dirt floor with my cousins while trying to keep 4 to 6 dogs from their wallered out holes by the wood stove.

In my later years, my interest turned toward the music. Since then Uncles Curtis, Charles Lee and Buzzard have passed away but there memory is still going strong. I guess the fact that they’re all gone is the reason we have not gotten together in a while.”