I want to set the mood for today’s celebration with some words from Dr. R. G. Lee. I quote, “Mother and I were very close. We lived on a poor farm . . . so poor that you could hardly raise an umbrella on the place, much less a mortgage. One day the family was in town, except for Mother and me. She was sitting in a rocker on the old porch, knitting. I was lying on the floor, my face in my hands and my heels sticking up in the air. I looked at my Mother’s hands. They were hard and toil worn. I asked her, ‘Mother, tell me about the happiest hour in all your life.’ She told me, but not what I expected.

“I thought she might tell me about the day my Dad, a tall six-footer with dark eyes, spoke the love of his heart to her. But that’s not what she told me. I thought she might tell me about that …