"Well, I'm Sure That Means Somethin'"

I'm more than a little homesick this week after getting to spend time with my family last week.

I hadn't seen any of them since December, which is about as long as we've ever been apart. And you know, one week with my mother and my brother and three hours chatting with my father at (where else?) a bar just isn't enough to make up for all that lost time.

But I stumbled across this clip on YouTube and it immediately brought me back home in a completely different way. I don't watch The Ellen Degeneres Show - - unless Dolly Parton or Elaine Stritch happen to be one of Ellen's guests - - so I hadn't been introduced to Gladys Hardy, the charming Southern lady who Ellen apparently calls and talks to during her show.

My Grandmother Rader was also named Gladys. She was the funniest, kindest, and in both body and spirit, she was the largest woman who ever lived on Beaumont Avenue in Knoxville, TN.

When we would visit her and my grandfather as kids, she would open the screen door before my brother and I could even step up on the porch and shout...

"Who are these pretty boys comin' up my walk?
I ain't never seen such good-lookin'
boys in all my life!"

...and then, she would kiss us and hug us in her huge arms. Absolute safety and love.

She's been dead for over 15 years, but when I heard Gladys Hardy's voice, all I could think of was that she sounded exactly like my grandmother.

Except my grandmother never drank a drop of alcohol her entire life. She could shoot a pistol with the best of 'em, but drink alcohol? Not on your life.