My mother’s parents were Wilson and Wilma Thompson. I share my grandfather’s middle name, Wade. We simply knew them as Tomp and Mama Tomp. When my sisters and brothers and I were young, my parents would drive us two hours north from Star to North Carrollton, where they lived, to spend a week with Tomp and Mama Tomp. We only saw them a couple of times during the rest of the year, just for part of a day each time, so we looked forward to our week in North Carrollton each year.

The drives to Tomp and Mama Tomp’s were adventures enough in those days before mandatory seatbelt laws. I remember the six of us piling into the two-door...

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