
“I remember, I was probably about 10 years old, and my birthday is in October, the 26th, that’s close to Halloween. So she would load all of my friends up in the van and would go to haunted houses and stuff like that.. I don’t know if I should say this. One of my friends was mooning a car behind us at 10 years old and they followed us to this next haunted house we went to, and they jumped out like all mad like they’re gonna kick somebody.”

“My mom pulled out a tire iron. She’s like, ‘Come on.’”

“When my mother first had cancer, they did a benefit for her here. She was officially titled ‘Red Dirt Road Mom’. She would always bring cookies and cupcakes to all the events. I was always close with my mom and I was there on her deathbed. She was in the hospital and she grabbed my hands and said, ‘I don’t want to die in a hospital.’ I knew she was going soon. So I dealt with it as best I could, but we got her home and she didn’t die in a hospital. I remember it was somewhere around 1am, and she was in a hospital bed, in my dad’s house. I came out and I kissed her, and she squeezed my hand, so she knew I was there. I told I loved her and about three hours later, my dad woke me up and said she is no longer suffering. It was hard, I’m not gonna lie, I mean, my mom was my best friend. You know she was there for me in any manner that I pissed off my dad. She always had my back. But, now, my dad is my best friend. We were always close but we’ve gotten closer since she passed. Dad and I used to butt heads when I was a teenager. I remember one day he said something, I balled up my fists by my side. He gave me a little pop. You know what my hands went like this, I don’t want any of that. We’ve gotten closer every day since. I mean, there’s not a day that goes by where we don’t talk and when we go more than three days without seeing each other it’s like we’re panicking. So we’ll FaceTime and do stuff like that, you know, technology is great but I love my dad, he is my best friend.” -Ronny Berry, The Iron Horse Pub