It's never too late to go home in author Betty Sue Smith's engrossing new memoir, I Was a Country Girl and Had the Time of My Life. Brimming with recollections that are at times hilarious and heartbreaking, this collection of stories details Smith's idyllic childhood on her family's Tennessee farm in the 1940s and 1950s. Smith's fondness for her loved ones and upbringing shines through in vignettes about playing outside with her cousins, attending revival meetings at her small Methodist church, and marrying her high school sweetheart on the day she graduated. Also included are tales from her own parents, including her mother's reminiscences about living during the Great Depression and Smith's memories of World War II: the food rationing, the fund-raising, and the anxious waits for her uncles to return from the front lines. Through it all, readers will experience what life was really like on a farm in that time period: the ups and downs, the hardships rural Tennesseans had to endure simply to survive, and, most importantly, the love that sustained them as a family and a community.