I’m an early riser. I guess it was ingrained in me from my youth. My parents were sticklers for punctuality. They expected my brother and me to be at the breakfast table when Mother brought the biscuits from the oven to the table with the sausage or bacon and eggs. He expected us to be ready to go to work with him as soon as he finished his breakfast and put on his work boots. And he expected us to get our jobs done when they were supposed to be done on the job site. I guess

Mother—Hazel Margaret Summers Peterson—came from good stock. The Summers family of Heiskell, Tennessee, were special to me, and, although I don’t get to see them often any more, they remain so. Nannie and Paw taught their children well. Mother was a woman of firm convictions and deep devotion to both her faith and her family. One of my most vivid memories of Mother is of an incident from my childhood. Just before the school bus came one morning, I suddenly remembered that I h