Donna Barton: My momma said . . .

I was chatting with my friend, Deborah Wade, former Anniston resident, now living in Louisville, Ky., about our mothers and the advice they had given us while we were growing up. Stuff that went over and above the “always wear clean underwear” and “mind your manners.”

Deborah remembers calling home a lot when she was away at college. Whatever the topic, she would refer to her boyfriend, (now husband) Dee Wade. “I’d say — ‘Dee said’ — ‘Dee knows’ — ‘Dee believes’ — and one time she stopped me and asked if I even realized what I was saying. She said, ‘you need to form your own beliefs and thoughts. What you think matters!’ That conversation is forever etched in my brain and changed me in so many ways.”