I believe it was the summer of 1998.
        I hadn’t been in Iowa long when a storm brewed up in Iowa County, knocking down trees, powerlines and damaging homes.
          I was working in North English at the time and made the trek to Marengo to see how I could help with storm coverage.
           My first stop was the Sudbury Court Motel on Highway 6 to take some photos of the entire roof of the building laying in the parking lot. I then headed to Oxford where I took photos of storm damage for the next issue of the area papers.
            Later that evening, my editor, Al, invited me to his place in Marengo for a meal. He had a gas stove and I was put in charge of cooking hamburgers by flashlight.
            While the hamburgers sizzled in the skillet, I began digging through the refrigerator for a jar of mayo. There was none to be found.
            In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in his refrigerator, so asked about mayo.
            “Mayo,” he said. “I don’t have any mayo, but I do have butter.”
            “Butter,” I’m thinking. “Who puts butter on their hamburger buns for dressing?”
             I believe I passed on the butter and ate my hamburger dry.
            Growing up in the south, I’ve never heard of such a thing as using butter for dressing. Butter is for toast and popcorn, not a hamburger bun.
             Later, I was at my mother-in-law’s house and there on the kitchen table was a couple sticks butter on a dish.
            The Iowa family used the butter and left it on table – all day!
            My family used stick butter in Oklahoma, but we returned it to the refrigerator afterward. In fact, our refrigerator, and I am sure others, had a compartment with a butter tray to keep it cold.
            The idea of butter sitting out on the table all day was kind of foreign to me, but I didn’t let it bother me too much.
            How times have changed. A couple weeks ago, while at the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion, our oldest nephew was placing a couple sticks of butter in a clean Cool Whip container in the camper and placing the lid on it and leaving it on the counter top, not the refrigerator.
            It tasted good and I mentioned to Debbie that we probably should do away with tub butter and place a couple sticks in a bowl with a lid and leave it on the table. That way it will be safe from the bugs and soft for our toast.
            And it actually tastes better than tub butter.
Maid-Rites
         While in college at the University of Missouri – Columbia, there was a drive up eatery near downtown called the “Zip In.”
            I pulled in one day and checked out the menu and they offered a Zip Burger.
            “Sounds good,” I’m thinking.
I ordered two and when I opened up the first one, it was filled with crumbled meat and half of it fell on the floorboard of my truck.
            “What the heck is that?” I said out loud.
            I later figured out after moving to Iowa that it was the Zip In’s version of the famous Iowa-born Maid-Rite sandwich.
            I don’t recall eating a Maid-Rite growing up in Oklahoma. The closest thing we had was Sloppy Joes. Mom would cook some hamburger meat and added Sloppy Joe sauce or a Sloppy Joe mixture packet with water and then pour it over a toasted bun.
            Top it off with some fresh green beans or another vegetable and it tastes great. Sometimes I fix Sloppy Joes for supper. Most often I use Sloppy Joe mixture in a tin can and it is quite tasty.
            I’ve gotten more used to eating a Maid-Rite these days than when I first moved to the Hawkeye State. All one needs is a big spoon and lots of napkins.
Chili
            As I’ve mentioned in the past, chili is not a soup like Chicken Noodle, it’s a meat dish. 
           In my home state, good chili has no tomatoes or beans. Someone once asked about where the liquid in the chili comes from and I responded – the grease or suet, not tomatoes.
           And if you want beans in your chili, you cook them on the side and scoop them a bowl and add the chili and stir it together. It cuts down on the gas!
           The owner of my favorite eateries in Oklahoma always said that tomatoes belong in spaghetti sauce, not chili.
            He had a point as I always eat chili with a fork and not a spoon. Pour it over a cheeseburger and top it off with some freshly chopped onions and sprinkle a little cheese on top. Add in a side of fried okra, another southern favorite, or some cole slaw and a big glass of iced tea and one has a meal fit for king.
            Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.

      Debbie and I enjoyed spending a few days with family at the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion, Sept. 3 – 7, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
        This was our 19th year out of 20 (Covid year) to attend and camp at the Old Threshers Reunion.
     While on the grounds, I stopped at Printers’ Hall in Museum B and purchased the annual publication of “The Threshers Bee” newspaper for $1.
      The eight-page newspaper, which is printed on an antique press, features numerous old-time stories, quotes and advertisements. While thumbing through this year’s publication, I found a story entitled “What Happened To Sunday Dinner,” the namesake of this column.
     The story peaked my interest, so I opted to read it, and the following are a couple excerpts from the story.
       “Perhaps it went out with high-button shoes, kerosene lamps and the dependable old cob-burning stove,” the unknown author wrote.
       “Most farm families enjoyed three meals each day, but tradition decreed that Sunday dinner should be special,” noted the story. “The efficient hostess usually called her prospective guests during the middle of the week, if she was fortunate enough to have a telephone, which she cranked, and luckier still, to find a time when the lines weren’t busy. Visiting on a party line was both a necessity and a virtue. The faithful telephone operator was praised and condemned according to the whims of the caller on a particular day. If the Sunday guest contacted accepted the invitation, it meant some extra hurrying and scurrying to get all the little extra things done.”
      “Coffee was ground as needed and “settled” with a well-beaten egg; an ultra-clear beverage,” the story noted. “The grinder was usually square with a handle on top, and was held between the knees for ballast. Later, newfangled glass ones were fastened on the wall. Both creamer and sugar bowls were generous in size, and knew no competition from today’s substitutes.
        “Once the Sunday meal was prepared and served, Father sat at the head of the table and returned thanks for their many blessings and asked guidance for the footsteps of his offspring, who sat with heads bowed and hands folded.
      “Mother blushed at the many compliments that came as her delicious food was passed, and humbly apologized for not having had as good of luck as usual with some.
        “No radio interrupted with the noon weather forecast, nor did TV monopolize with a football game. After dinner, the men retired to the parlor, while the ladies did the dishes. Later all enjoyed the newest stereopticon views and the family photograph album.
      “Yes, each week still has a Sunday. People still eat, but with all of our modern packaged foods and efficient equipment it is easier to say, “Let’s go to the Redwood Inn (or some other restaurant) for dinner.”
            “America lost something when we put Sunday dinner “in mothballs.”
The Parker family table
        I don’t recall my mom entertaining that much as young lad growing up in Tulsa. Maybe she did more than I remember. Our dining room featured a large 48-inch round table with four wooden chairs. There were two additional leaves that stretched the table to 72-inches if the need arose.
           Mom kept the fine China in a kitchen cabinet and sitting atop the buffet, which was a bedroom dresser with a large mirror, was my mom’s silverware. It featured every type of China known to man in the large wooden China box.
        Each drawer of the buffet was filled with photos, linens, school papers from my brother and me and many other important papers.
           What I do remember are the many holiday meals, family birthdays and celebrations at our dining room table. In the early days of my youth, we always ate at home on Sundays after an earlier trip to the First Baptist Church to worship God.
            In later years, Sunday dinner was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s finest. And if company was coming, that meant two buckets of chicken.
            We then started eating at the Eastside Café in Tulsa. They had the best greasy onion rings and country foods such as chicken fried steak, hamburger steak, meat loaf or a special of the day. Top that off with mashed potatoes with gravy, a vegetable and dinner rolls and one was in for a feast. And if we were lucky, we enjoyed a slice of homemade pie to top the noon meal off.
           And I would take the dinner check and add each meal in my head along with the tax to come up with a final tally, which I shared with the cashier. I was usually right on or only off a few cents.
          And of course, my dad refused to leave until he’d finished off atleast a pot of coffee, with the waitress stopping often to refill his cup. I enjoyed a cold glass of Pepsi or ice tea.
        What I do recall is the many holiday meals we enjoyed at our dining room table along with birthday celebrations and even my high school graduation party with family. I was tickled to have my family there while opening gifts and cards and enjoying a cake baked by my mom.
        My mom had a cake business and often was called on to bake and decorate a wedding cake or a birthday cake. She probably had 40 or more Wilton character cake pans she used in her business. 
            I remember one birthday when my dad bought me a pair of boots. My dad had to play a joke and hide one of the boots and wrap the other in birthday paper.
          He finally pulled the second boot from its hiding place and I could then wear my new boots.
          One Christmas eve when I was a youngster, I went to bed at 6 p.m., so Christmas would arrive sooner than later. I got up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t sleep any longer, so I woke the family and we all sat around the dining room table and opened our gifts, before going back to bed.
          I hold lots of great memories and enjoying tasty home-cooked meals in my heart and they will be with me all my life.
Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.

        My mom was born on Oct. 12, 1936 in New Madrid, Mo., located along the Mississippi River in the Bootheel of the state.
      She spent 15-years of her life in New Madrid and the surrounding area before her family moved in 1951 to Van Buren, Mo., made famous as the home of Big Springs on the Current River.
        Her dad and my grandfather came to the Bootheel in 1924 from northwest Alabama after my great-great grandfather was caught bootlegging moonshine and had to leave or go to jail. My grandmother’s family, who also was from northwest Alabama and knew my grandfather’s family, followed eight years later in 1932.
        My grandparents were married on Oct. 30, 1932 at the New Madrid Courthouse. They raised seven children with my mom being the third oldest. The seventh child, Genola, died at age 4 after getting sick. I’m not familiar with what happened.
        My mom was quite fond of Genola and when my grandmother died, Mom inherited the family trunk. Inside were clothing items, a couple dolls and other belongings that Genola had.
         Outside of my family ties, New Madrid is probably most known for the New Madrid Fault line that runs from Marked Tree, Ark., in the northwest part of that state, across the Bootheel through New Madrid, the fault line’s name sake, into southern Illinois and on to southern Indiana.
       Between December and February, 1811 – 1812, the area was struck with three major earthquakes. The first occurred on Dec. 16, 1811 and tipped the Richter scale with a magnitude of 8.1. The second to hit the area struck on Jan. 23, 1812 and tipped the Richter scale at 7.8 magnitude. The third and final earthquake took place on Feb. 7, 1812, with the Richter scale tipping out at 8.8 magnitude, causing the Mississippi River to run backwards.
            According to the City of New Madrid, the three major New Madrid earthquakes were the biggest earthquakes in American history. They were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal and Washington, D.C. President James Madison and his wife, Dolly, felt them in the White House and church bells rang in Boston. During the time period, there were more 2,000 earthquakes reported in the central Midwest, and between 6,000 – 10,000 earthquakes in the Bootheel of Missouri, where New Madrid is located.
            Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, south of New Madrid, was created during the earthquakes.
            While a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I wrote a story on the New Madrid earthquakes that was published in Missouri Life Magazine.
         The story centered around Iben Browning, a self-proclaimed climatologist from New Mexico, who predicted some years earlier that a major earthquake would strike in one of three places, including New Madrid, Mo. on or around Dec. 3, 1990.
           The prediction drew news folks from all across the United States to New Madrid. Nothing ever became of the prediction. One of the local eateries, Tom’s Grill, came up with a Quake Burger that sold like hot cakes. Basically, it was hamburger with a cracked bun to mimic the fault line. While in New Madrid doing research for my story, I stopped at Tom’s Grill and enjoyed a Quake Burger myself.
       Anyway, my family often traveled to the New Madrid area in August during our yearly vacations. My mom had family in New Madrid, Malden, Matthews and Bertrand, all small towns in the Bootheel area.
         We sometimes stayed with mom’s cousin and husband, Raymond and Margaret Marrow, on her mother’s side that lived in Bertrand, a small town located along Highway 60 east Interstate 55.
       Margaret was the daughter of Aunt Nova, my grandmother’s older sister. Aunt Nova lived next door with her husband, Uncle Claude.
       The Morrows had two boys and a daughter and were a big time farmers, raising corn and beans in the area, including on Wolfe Island in the Mississippi River.
       Wolfe Island is part of Kentucky, but easily accessible from Missouri. At one time, the Marrow family had around 12,000 acres of farm land on Wolfe Island, plus other land they farmed.
        It was sometime in 1970s and Dad and I rode in Raymond’s pickup truck to Charleston, Mo. and picked up three dozen garden hoes for the migrant laborers to hoe weeds in the soybean fields.
        Being a city boy, I was curious of the laborers and the next day offered to hoe the beanfields for the Marrow’s oldest son.
      I hoed a couple short rows of soybeans, working less than hour, and he paid me $10 by check. 
        I carried the check with me and was with my dad when we were sitting under the carport at Aunt Nova’s place visiting with Uncle Claude.
      Uncle Claude had a small black tackle box for sale and offered it to me for $3. My dad encouraged me to buy the tackle box, so I did with the $10 check I earned chopping soybean weed. He gave me back $7 in change.
        I have lots of fond memories of visiting family in the Bootheel. I remember my Uncle J.B. and Uncle B.C. in New Madrid. Uncle J.B. sold Tom’s Candy and my mom always bought a box of colorful coconut bars every time we visited.
         I remember staying with an uncle in Matthews, Mo. and fixing his broken roto-tiller.
      And in later years, I enjoyed attended Horton Reunions on my grandfather’s side. Debbie and I attended one of last reunions in Sept. 2004, just before we got married.
       I’ll never forget the impact of the blessed childhood I enjoyed and the love and teaching from the Good Book I was given by my parents.
       Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.

         It was Aug. 21, 1974.
       A few days earlier, my family and I had made a trip to Waynesboro, Tenn., about 100 miles south of Nashville, to stay with family on my mom’s side.
       I remember the trip well as our truck broke down near Dixon, Tenn. on I-40 on our way to Nashville. We’d planned to attend the Grand Old Opry, but didn’t make the show in time.
      While in Waynesboro, I saw the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” at the local theater while staying with my mom’s cousin, who had a son about my age.
        We were on our way home and stayed that evening at a KOA Campground in West Memphis, Ark.
       The next morning, I awoke to learn that the legendary Tennessee Lawman Buford Pusser, 36, died after crashing his Corvette into an embankment while driving at a high rate of speed. Pusser was ejected from his car, which caught fire and burned.
      The crash happened four miles from Pusser’s hometown of Adamsville, Tenn. after he had attended the McNairy County Fair that evening.
        I was entering ninth grade in the fall that year and didn’t know that much about the lawman. Something drew me to him and as time went on, I took more of an interest in his life, especially after watching the third and final movie in the “Walking Tall” series in September 1977, my senior year in high school.
      Pusser, who grew up in Adamsville, was a towering 6’6,” 250-pound man who served as sheriff of McNairy County Tennessee from 1964 – 1970.
        Following graduation from high school, Pusser joined the U.S. Marines, but his service ended in boot camp when he was given a medical discharge for asthma.
       In 1957, Pusser moved to Chicago, where he was a local wrestler known as "Buford the Bull." He married Pauline Mullins on Dec. 5, 1959.
     Pusser returned to Adamsville in 1962 and in September that year was elected as Adamsville's police chief and constable.
     In 1964, he was elected sheriff of McNairy County after then sheriff James Dicky was killed in an auto accident. At the time, he was the youngest sheriff in Tennessee’s history.
     He was known to carry a big hickory stick to fight local bootleggers and organized crime, which included the Dixie Mafia and State Line Mob. He targeted Illegal moonshining, gambling and prostitution along the Tennessee-Mississippi border and made a name for himself. He had several alleged assassination attempts on his life.
       One of those attempts came on Feb. 1, 1966, when Louise Hathcock attempted to kill Pusser during an on-site investigation of a robbery complaint at the Shamrock Motel in Corinth, Miss. on the state line. Hathcock allegedly fired on Pusser with a concealed .38 pistol. Pusser returned fire and killed Hathcock. On Jan. 2, 1967, Pusser was shot three times by an unidentified gunman, and lived.
     Life changed for Pusser on the morning of Aug. 12, 1967 when Pauline was killed in an ambush. Pusser said his phone rang before dawn that day informing him of a disturbance on New Hope Road in McNairy County. He responded, and his wife, Pauline, rode along.
      Shortly after the couple passed the New Hope Methodist Church, a fast-moving car came alongside theirs and the occupants opened fire, killing his wife and leaving Pusser for dead.
        Doctors said Pusser was struck on the left side of his jaw by at least two, or possible three, rounds from a .30-caliber carbine. He spent 18 days in the hospital before returning home, and he had several more surgeries to restore his appearance.
       Despite vowing to bring his wife's murderers to justice, Pusser was unable to indite those involved in the shooting before he died.
More on Buford Pusser’s death
      Speculation regarding the cause of the accident that killed Pusser included rumors of sabotage to the steering mechanism and the tie rods. The Tennessee state trooper who responded to the accident, Paul Ervin, later became the sheriff of McNairy County. Ervin claimed that Pusser's death was caused by drunk driving without a seat belt.
        Dwana Pusser, his daughter, a passenger in another car, came upon the scene of the accident minutes later. No autopsy of Pusser's body was performed.
         Earlier that day, Pusser had contracted with Bing Crosby Productions in Memphis to portray himself in the sequel to “Walking Tall.”
         The first two movies, 1973 and 1975, featured Joe Don Baker as Pusser and the third a final movie, 1977, featured Bo Severson as the lawman.
        A television movie about Pusser was released in 1978 and featured Brian Dennehy as the lawman. In 1981, a short-lived television series about Pusser aired.
         As sheriff, Pusser was credited with surviving seven stabbings and eight shootings.
       Pusser was the subject of three biographical books written by W.R. Morris: “The Twelfth of August: The Story of Buford Pusser” (1971), and “The State Line Mob: A True Story of Murder and Intrigue” (1990). In addition, Morris also created a pictorial history book of Buford called “The Legacy of Buford Pusser: A Pictorial History of the ‘Walking Tall Sheriff” (1997).
       Dwana released a book in 2009 entitled “Walking On,” which is also an account of his life. Dwana has since passed away.
      Singer Eddie Bond wrote and recorded several songs honoring Pusser, beginning with "Buford Pusser" in 1968. Many of them were collected on a 1973 LP album, “Eddie Bond Sings the Legend of Buford Pusser.” Pusser himself was also a recording artist, with "It Happened In Tennessee," released in October 1973. Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers told the story of Pusser's battle with organized crime in several songs, "The Boys from Alabama, "Cottonseed,” and "The Buford Stick." 
         The Buford Pusser Museum was established at the Adamsville home he lived in at the time of his death in 1974. A Buford Pusser Festival is held each Memorial Day weekend in Adamsville where an officer of the year is recognized and officers fallen in the time of duty are honored. 
          Always remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.
       Editor’s note: Much of the information for this article was taken from Wikipedia and other news sources.