In the summer of 1986, it might have been hard to choose who was more miserable: The farmers of the deep South or me. Now, I, being the self-centered, newly minted college graduate, would surely have chosen myself because kids that age think that everything revolves their comfort. I was plopped down in Indianapolis at a sports marketing firm where I oversaw NASCAR-related public relations for top companies. I was so homesick that I cried daily. Poor Mama. She was similarly miserable because she knew how I longed to touch the red dirt ground on which I was raised.