Few things shock the eyes like the quintessential “in-love” couple. I’m talking about an aged, well-heeled gentleman with an extremely young woman on his arm. Extremely young. Their age difference runs into the 50s or more. Thankfully, we run across such a sight just now and then. He, teetering along, proud of his high-heeled possession. She, paying oh so much attention to him. Doting. It all seems, well, it seems fake. So out of place. And preposterous. It’s a sight for sore eyes. But when you run across a flock of these couples, it makes you shake your head. Such ...
For Southerners, it’s been a snowy winter. A few December flakes teased us, just hominy snow, no accumulation, but then a February blanket of white cloaked the land. And many of us watched the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, where it snows most nights.
Against that splendid wintry backdrop in a place called Whistler, I saw a Georgian (the far away version) die. Snow and death, what a mix.
Coming out of turn 16, Nodar Kumaritashvili flew off the sledding track at nearly 90 mph, striking a metal pole. And so the people of Georgia, that Georgia in the ...
1945. The guns fell silent. World War Two had ended. Many GIs and other servicemen returned home and with them came the legend of Kilroy. I was young but I remember hearing my folks and others talk about the ever-present Kilroy. He was here, there, everywhere. A cultural phenomenon, Kilroy became the U.S. super-GI who always got there first, no matter where GIs went.
I’m sure a lot of the veterans back home remember their good friend, Kilroy. He was everywhere, quite a mover. Symbolizing the spirit of the American fighting man who went anywhere in the world to defend freedom, ...
No, the title of this piece has nothing to do with punk rock groups. Quite by accident I stumbled across the Science Channel last night. There it was, a doomsday asteroid in high-definition hurling toward Earth, a catastrophe like no other. Far away in space, this menacing, pockmarked mass of nickel and iron, said the narrator, would end life as we know it someday, that is, if science could not find a way to deflect it.
Some of the best minds in science then discussed what might deflect it and what would fail miserably. All this science took me back to ...
That Last Trip To A Place Called Eternity
I was standing by my window/On a cold and cloudy day/When I saw that hearse come rolling/For to carry my mother away. Ruth Ada Habershon wrote the lyrics for that classic gospel song and whenever I see a funeral procession with its hearse leading cars with headlights on, I know someone has gone to “a better home awaiting in the sky.” It’s some soul’s last journey, and I pull over and wait for the procession to pass.
In this hectic world where we rush about fretting about trivial matters, seeing drivers pull over to ...
Once Upon A Time Magic Was Literally In The Air
My childhood days unfolded in a remarkable manner. They were as simple as a hammer. My family and I were, in a way, cut off from civilization. Woods surrounded our home out in the country, and we had a rudimentary phone: a party line that rarely rang.
The Information Age had yet to materialize and in those uncomplicated days, we had no Weather Channel to tell us days in advance that snow was coming. It either came or it didn’t, and most of time, living in eastern Georgia and far from the ...
Along with algebra and Latin, we studied woodworking and welding in shop in Lincolnton, Georgia. Mr. John Hawkins, our shop teacher, was jovial and full of facts, and many of his students wore blue corduroy jackets with gold letters, FFA, stitched onto them. One day he told his future farmers something remarkable: if they saw a hawk flying over one of their future fields, the hawk would be there the next day at the same time.
Not wearing a blue corduroy jacket, I didn’t give the hawk business much thought. I forgot my teacher’s words until many years later when I ...
Remember the first TV you saw? I do. A small, boxy TV that had a pink, metal cabinet. It just caught two stations ’cause that’s all there were back then. For a long time, we caught the two stations through a rickety antenna strapped to the chimney: Augusta’s WRDW 12 and WJBF 6. TV was pretty simple back then. No color to adjust and just three knob functions: on, off, and channel changer—a clunky, clicking knob as big as your hand.
We’ve come a long ways since then what with color, UHF, cable, satellite, digital TV, high definition, and now Blu-Ray. ...
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