Home is where the chips are made

There are three things that almost everyone knows about me. I am married to a wonderful man named Ronnie, I have two great sons, Ronnie and Scotty, and I am from Alabama.

As my Georgia-born husband will be glad to tell you, I consider anything and everything from Alabama to be the best and the greatest.

So when the Golden Flake potato chip company, which is headquartered in Alabama, retweeted me, I talked about it for days.

We were on our way to Tuscaloosa for my family reunion and had just crossed the state line. As is our habit, we stopped at a little store before getting on the freeway — Ronnie sent me inside for snacks. I returned with two Coca-Colas and several selections of Golden Flake products.

“Crossed the state line. Check. Stopped at first store for @GoldenFlake. Check. #Bamagirl. #gettingmygoldenflakefix” I tweeted out.

When I realized that the Golden Flake had retweeted me — meaning they had added it to their page as well — well, it was all I could talk about.

I am an Alabamian who has lived most of my life outside of the state. Born in Birmingham, I left when I was only 2 years old after my father decided to make the military a career. I lived in Mobile when we were stationed at Brookley, in Montgomery when we were stationed at Maxwell and in Tuscaloosa when I attended the University of Alabama. But the rest of my life I have lived in other places.

But Alabama is “home” — the state of my birth, the home of my extended family. For many of us who don’t live where we are from, there is that one material thing that is our reminder of home. And of all the material things in the world, nothing brings back sweet memories of my family in Alabama than Golden Flake.

I guess technically they aren’t “sweet” memories, since chips are salty, but you get what I mean.

No matter the occasion, the event, if we were in Alabama and we were eating, there would be Golden Flake potato chips. Weddings, reunions, after funerals. Lunch at my aunt’s or dinner on the grounds at the church. I see a Golden Flake product and I am reminded of people that loved me, many of whom are gone now.

I can remember my grandmother in Fairfield pulling them out of the pantry where she kept them in a can —adding them for the barbecue or ham sandwiches she had made for my cousins and I as she told us over and over how glad she was to have us all in her home.

At my other grandparent’s house in Tuscaloosa, a bag of Golden Flake chips was always on the counter, rolled up and closed with a clothespin, one of the first things you saw when you entered the house, a comfort after sharing the backseat on a 12-hour drive. My barefoot cousins and I would charge small bags of Golden Flake chips and strawberry Nehis to my papa’s account at the store near their house and then walk down 12th Street to stand at the fence and watch Coach Bryant run summer practice.

In my sorority house on campus, we would lie on the floor in the TV room on Sunday afternoons with our Golden Flake chips and our Cokes, to watch the Bear Bryant show.

I live in Georgia and buy Golden Flake chips here for my family. My children know why. “I am from Alabama” I say, as they reached for a bag of chips at the grocery store. “People from Alabama buy Golden Flake”.

Alabama means home, love and family to me. For me, Golden Flake will always be part of that as well.

This story was originally published June 24, 2017 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Home is where the chips are made."