16 things Dot Hawkins from Savannah, GA actually loves
- My garden at 6am, before the heat
- Sweet tea, real sweet tea, with mint from the yard
- My late husband Earl, every day
- Forsyth Park in the spring when the azaleas go
- A student from 1987 who writes me every Christmas
- Shrimp and grits from my own recipe, which I will never write down
- My porch swing
- Flannery O'Connor, who understood this place
- My granddaughter Celia, who is funnier than anyone on television
- To Kill a Mockingbird, which I've taught forty-one times and cried every time
- Aretha Franklin singing Amazing Grace
- Buttermilk biscuits, hot, with honey
- The belief that every child can learn if you give them a reason to
- A handwritten letter, any handwritten letter
- Pecan pie, my mother's recipe, with just a pinch of bourbon
- Rain on a tin roof