The dusk is reflecting off Douglas Lake. I am nestled in the French Broad River valley, seated on the porch of a log cabin, watching the Great Smoky Mountains continue to be Great.
Heaven is real. Sometimes it’s hard for us to see it. Sometimes the pain of life can make you blind.
‘Twas a Christmas tree lot in Alabama. It was the kind of operation that does business in the parking area of a major shopping complex.
I thought to myself about how lucky I am to live in a place called Magic City. Because it really is.
Earlier this morning, I was on a radio show. The host drilled me with loaded questions. It was a disaster. I was supposed to be plugging my new book, instead the host was asking slanted questions about hot-button, divisive topics.
The hotel parking lot. Early afternoon. He was packing his truck. Slamming toolbox lids. Reorganizing luggage in the rear cab. Iowa plates.
The first day of fall arrived in Birmingham. It came frighteningly quick. Yesterday it was summer, hotter than the hinges of hades. This morning it was cold as gumballs.
Jefferson, Alabama, is the epitome of small. The population here isn’t big enough to form a decent baseball team.
Somewhere in Alabama. It’s an old cafe. The coffee cups are bottomless. The waitress wears jeans. On the walls are mounted bass and a few buck heads.
They called us the TV generation. Because that was pretty much all we had. No smartphones. No computers. No internets.
Some fool once called her “white trash.” And that’s when she made up her mind. She wanted to better herself, and her family. So, that’s what she did.
I stop at a little seafood joint. The place is surrounded by marshland grass, a wide-open sky, scattered live oaks, and roughly 8 million Chrysler Pacifica minivans. The place looks like a tourist trap on crack. But it’s getting late, so I go inside and order a beer.
By Sean Dietrich, Sean of the South The supermarket checkout line. She was white-haired and frail. Her buggy was filled to capacity...
By Sean Dietrich, Sean of the South Remember when you were little? Remember how whenever you were sick your mother made chicken soup?...