"My mother Rayanna never graduated from high school. She lived in Arkansas as a child, on a farm, and grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Maybe she ran around without shoes; I don't know, but I suspect she did. She knew how to pick cotton and hitch a mule. She could make corn bread (she called it corn pone) in a big black iron skillet. And she played the piano from a very early age. She didn't own one; they were too poor, but the church...