I was nine, maybe ten. My heart was pounding like a sub-woofer and I could barely hold the wheel with my tiny, sweaty, trembling hands. I was driving the family car down Highway 5 outside Centreville, Alabama.
I couldn’t reach the pedals so my dad was helping with those, but I was driving the car. Sitting in his lap, I could smell cigarette smoke and Old Spice, and feel my own excitement. He also had control of the wheel with his right index finger, although I didn‘t realize that until two decades later, when I did the same with my son.
We ...
Sorry I haven’t written anything in a while but I have sluggish cognitive tempo disorder. My dad used to chastise me for being lazy and he nearly destroyed my self esteem before I found help. All it takes is a few sessions on the couch at $300 per and I’m good as new. At least until I have to fight through another outbreak.
The latest edition of the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the psychiatrists’ “bible” is now being publicized. It is the perfect remedy for folks in our current world who don’t want to take responsibility for their ...
Satisfaction isn’t my favorite Rolling Stones song. I liked Last Time and Brown Sugar much better. But Satisfaction may be the most popular song by the greatest rock band of all time. It continues to receive more air play and is probably better known than any other tune by the scruffy British band.
As teenagers, we loved the Stones. They were edgy and irreverent, much more dangerous than their more popular counterpart, the Beatles, and grittier than other British bands like Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five. Their popularity and talent has endured for half a century.
About ten years ago ...
There has been a lot of conversation about soul food lately. A school system in Denver is in trouble for trying to honor Dr. Martin Luther King by serving fried chicken and collards. I guess if they had offered watermelon the whole staff would have been shot.
The Dew has featured a few tasty stories about grits and other southern delicacies, most of them waxing poetic about not forgotten old times when the living was easy and cooking took all day. Much of what is defined today as soul food was originally just food for those of us who grew up ...
I noticed the shoes first. They were fluorescent white, just out of a shoebox, just out of Wal-Mart. The old man wore khaki pants and a plaid shirt under a light jacket. A faded red Farm Supply baseball cap sat on his head.
He could have been anywhere between 65 and 85, depending on how hard his life had been. The old survivor walked slowly toward the entrance of the convenience store, aided by a spiral walking stick.
Just after the door closed behind him, I noticed the dog. An ancient yellow lab, his face mostly gray, rested in the bed of ...
There are few things in modern life as simple and thrilling as a two seat sports car on a winding faded highway. Guys of all ages love this stuff. Women think it is a sign of a mid-life crisis. I remember such a trip that also involved some youthful stupidity.
The car was an MGA, worn out even in 1966. The trip took us from Tuscaloosa to Guin, fifty miles of meandering, mostly forgotten blacktop. The reason was the same as it always was at sixteen. Come to think of it, that reason doesn’t change much as one gets older.
There were ...
The phone rang in the late afternoon of October 18, 2003. Alabama had just lost to Ole Miss, 43-28. Dad and I talked about what the team needed to do and how much things had changed since Bear died. Then he told me he thought he had cancer. He brushed it off as something unworthy of concern but said he was ready to die if it came to that.
I smiled a little to myself. My dad wasn’t afraid to die; had been content with his fate for a long time. A strong faith made the process nothing more than a ...
Fort Brandon Armory was the National Guard facility in Tuscaloosa. One weekend a month the place was filled with guys playing soldier. The rest of the time it sat empty. A local entrepreneur worked out a deal to bring bands to the Fort on those empty weekend nights. The music was top notch and the place was big and roomy; a perfect concert venue.
One day in 1966 we heard about a new band that was scheduled to play. They were named after a candy bar and featured siblings who lived in Jacksonville. The drummer was a Tuscaloosa guy with a ...
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