Advice from a small town girl

Every once in a while, a reader will ask me where I get my ideas for this column.

That question implies that I actually go looking for ideas.

What most of you don’t realize is that the inside of my head is like a pinball machine. And that most pinball machines were manufactured around 1970.

Shiny ideas bounce around, catching my attention for a moment or two. If I’m lucky, the flippers in my brain keep at least one of them in sight long enough for my memory to capture it. The more times an idea bounces off a bumper, setting off a flash of light and the ding of a bell, the more likely it is tha...