There are times when a day from my childhood comes to me, swirls around me, teases me as I try to catch the memory in my hands, as I try to catch the scents, the sounds, the warmth of the sun on my young face. In bare feet, I reach for it, the memory that [...]
Category: Southern Life
He Wore Brogans
He smelled of the earth, of soil, of the outdoors. His heart would beat to the rhythm of the land. He wore boots and brogans and a hat. He was a farmer. I wish I had his old brogans. I'd like to slip my feet into them and lace them up. I'd like for my [...]
Grandma Gets Stuck in the Elevator
I wrote this post about a year before my mother died. My mother has lived under a cloud of bad luck lately. Presently, she’s recovering from a broken hip and a fractured pelvis. “First I got stuck in the elevator,” Mama said, “then I broke my hip.” She giggled like a school girl. “I think [...]
Dirt Roads with Ahab
I’m going out with one my dog’s today. Ahab. He’s the big one. A mixture of this and that: Lab and Pit and perhaps something else. He came from the homeless shelter for dogs. That’s what I call it. The homeless shelter. The official name to the place that cared for Ahab for so long [...]
Addition and Subtraction
It is a Tuesday. The month is July. In two days my mother will be dead. As a writer I know to build the suspense one scene at a time. Stretch the tension. The rules of style, even those I reject, are tattooed inside me. But this is my story and I will tell it [...]
Cotton Mill Village: A Photo Essay
Plundering through the history of our southern way of life, I can always grab hold of something interesting, dust it off, and examine it. Today, I give you a photo essay of the families whose homes were at Tifton's cotton mill village before it closed. These photos were shared with me many years ago when [...]