TweetNo doubt some will cite this as evidence that my Ménière’s has reached the point at which I need a hearing aid. But in my defense, my wife was out in the hallway when she said this, and I was in the bathroom with the exhaust fan running — although the door, I admit, was […]
Tweet As previously mentioned, I was in Memphis over the weekend. It was quite a trip — seven of us (all adults; the little ones either traveled separately or stayed home) packed into a minivan. All the way there Friday, all the way back Sunday. Except for a couple of brief stints while I wolfed […]
Tweet Went to the Rendezvous for Charlie Vergos’ famous dry-rub ribs Friday night, and was really surprised when I looked down at the menu. Is it just me, or is that guy a dead ringer for our own Joe Neal, preacher and legislator? I don’t think it’s just me. When I got back and took […]
TweetFolks, this is just a quick note to tell you that if I seem a little detached from the Blogosphere, there’s a reason for it. My father-in-law died Thursday, and so we gathered up all of our kids and in some cases their kids, and made our way in three cars to Memphis through all […]
Tweet FYI, I’ll be celebrating the New Year in Memphis this evening. Things are going fairly well here, although as you can see, the weather’s a bit dingy. I’m writing from the pictured Starbucks, the one at White Station and Poplar. This location has significance for me because my wife worked in this very building […]
TweetI was sitting in a tiny coffee house on the corner of Poplar and Perkins Extended in Memphis when the drugs failed to kick in. Second cup, no buzz yet, although my leg is jiggling a bit. This High Point Coffee just doesn’t have something that Starbucks has. (As Mike Myers would say in a […]
Tweet I almost skipped over my email about “The Musicians We Lost in 2025,” figuring it would be about people I’d never heard of. But no. It turns out that at my age, the people I remember are the ones dying. Which makes a sober sort of sense, I suppose. The NYT’s Amplifier feature does […]
Tweet One or two of you out there are into genealogy. I wonder whether you’ve noticed patterns similar to what I’ve seen, and what you’ve concluded as a result. When you’ve built a family tree to more than 10,000 relatives, you start to notice certain trends. Especially when you look at incoming DNA matches on […]
TweetIt’s been so long since Buford Pusser was a household name that this didn’t make all that much of a splash, near as I could tell (maybe it was bigger on TV, which I don’t see). Fifty years ago, it would have been as big nationally as Alex Murdaugh’s crimes — maybe bigger. Certainly bigger. […]
TweetYou don’t want to see certain portions of my college transcript. Or rather, I don’t want you to see them. I had what you might call a very slow start in higher education. When I left Hawaii to travel all the way to Columbia to attend USC, I thought I was ready, and had everything I […]
TweetI mentioned that Paul DeMarco had inspired me to reflect on his latest post with a separate post of my own — or “perhaps more than one.” This will be the second, more tangential, such post. Paul shared this brief anecdote: In another bookstore mentioned above, the name of which I shall not reveal, I […]
TweetWhen I’ve mentioned it, other people have told me this happens each year. Not that I’ve noticed. This is the first summer it’s made an impression on me, anyway. By “it” I mean this: We don’t have cold water anymore. You turn the handle with the “C” on it, and you get a liquid that […]
TweetA brief Easter reflection. And no, it’s not too late. The Easter Season just started Sunday, and lasts until June 8… My wife told me this one yesterday. Her youngest brother has had the same Nativity set on his lawn every Christmas season of his life — first at his parents’ home growing up, now […]
TweetAs you know, I’ve been fascinated by history my whole life (and I still fail to understand why everyone else isn’t). Not as a profession, more of an avocation. I’m into it the way some people are into football. I earned a second major in it at Memphis State, completely by accident — I just […]
TweetWe’ve discussed this before, but now we have a fresh reason. From last week: COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s death penalty history could be rewritten March 7 if condemned state inmate Brad Sigmon is executed by firing squad, as he has chosen. Though the firing squad is authorized as an execution method in five states, it has […]
TweetGerald Ford was a pretty decent guy. I would have been fine with him continuing as our president back in the mid-’70s. But he never had a chance of getting my vote in 1976. That’s because he was up against Jimmy Carter. I had voted for the first time in 1972, and I had a […]
Tweet Excuse the archaic language from my beloved Patrick O’Brian novels, but I enjoy that way of saying that today marks 50 years of marriage to my true, original, and eternal beloved, Juanita! It just means “congratulate us.” Even lubbers should know that. It’s been quite a celebration, and it will continue through the day. […]
TweetOne of these just smacked me in the face a moment ago when I was innocently looking for something entirely unrelated. It came from a supposed institute of higher learning — although I assume it was written by an undergraduate intern or some such in the press office. (I did a word-study job like that […]
Tweet I may have mentioned that I finally got fed up with the fundraising texts from Sherrod Brown, which sometimes came multiple times in a day. So I said STOP, and they stopped — except for once or twice, when I assume the algorithm was referring to the wrong list. So now I mostly only […]
TweetDoug brought up the subject, and Barry weighed in, and then I started to, but realized I had several different things to say about it, and might as well make it a separate post… Here’s the relevant part of Doug’s comment: University of South Carolina has announced a record number of freshman in the upcoming […]