Atlanta

As the last of six children growing up in a small town, an “oops” baby born to older parents, I was raised by a crowd. My sisters, already in high school when I was born, were my second and third mothers.

This weekend will be a flurry of activity at Atlanta-based Assured Comfort Heating, Air and Plumbing as staff members and other volunteers stuff hundreds of backpacks with goodies for kids in foster care.

I was eight years old when I spent one humid summer in Alabama, where I visited my great aunt Nell, her grown children and their squirrelly grandchildren. It was there I discovered salty boiled peanuts, pesky fire ants, roaring racetracks, and a lush foliage cemetery devoted to my family.