A blizzard ... yeah, that's the ticket

My wife, Lynn, and I visited my mother in the Georgia mountains today. It was a belated birthday celebration for Mother, who turned 76 on Tuesday. We took her out to lunch and then visited for a few hours before heading back to the "flatlands." As we were leaving it started snowing. Flakes the size of softballs fell and covered the ground within 30 seconds. At least that's my story. Lynn, however, tells me I must tell the truth. So, in truth, as we were leaving a few snow flurries swirled around in the wind for about 30 seconds. I like my story better, but. ...
I love driving the back roads in the mountains ~ straightening the curves as Waylon sang about. I learned to drive on mountain roads. One day in driver's ed when I was 15 I had to drive in 3 feet of snow. OK, in truth, I drove in snow flurries that lasted about 30 minutes. ...
On our trip to Mother's we cross Nottely Dam. I always get a bit of a chill going across the dam. It was one of five TVA dams my father was in charge of when we lived on the North Carolina side of the mountains in the early to mid-1970s. ...
Little did I know back in those days of my teens that those Winstons I was smoking would come back to haunt me. I can't change the past. I thought when I quit smoking four years ago that I had cheated the devil. No such luck. Will I beat the devil? Who knows? I just hope one day to be like Kris Kristofferson, who wrote: "The devil haunts a hungry man; if you don’t want to join him you’ve got to beat him. I ain’t sayin’ I beat the devil, but I drank his beer for nothing, and then I stole his song."