On Highway 67, atop Priceville Mountain, stands the Cross of North Alabama. The 121-foot cross stands proudly in a flawless blue sky, overlooking a rural Morgan County.
Today, schoolkids across the nation will sit at desks, forced to write at knifepoint the same essay we all wrote each November: “What I’m Thankful For.”
I love the sun. I need the sun. When it disappears, I start to miss the sun in much the same way I would miss trees, grass, or ice cream, if those things were to vanish behind clouds.
You can’t get away from canned music. It’s everywhere. Like the IRS. Playing in public spaces just loud enough to hear the music thumping.
Although letter writing is not efficient; although it is time consuming; although I can think of more important things I ought to be doing, I still remember the impact handwritten letters have had on my life.
Running was a way for me to feel special. Just for an hour out of my day, I could feel a little better about me.
Lives are being saved. Heroes. Each one of them. They are carrying the wounded of our kinship toward safety, on their own backs.
The Mexican restaurant was crowded. There were twinkly lights. Terracotta tiles everywhere. Trumpet music.
When I first moved to Alabama, people said the weather was going to be the worst thing to contend with. And they were right, to a point.
The average American will spend 11 years of their life on their phone.
But now they’ve taken things to a new level. When my brother-in-law told me you could have a realistic, vocal conversation with ChatGPT, I had to experience this for myself. So I downloaded the app.
The weather is great. Meteorologists call it “fake fall,” when summer weather, for whatever reason, undergoes what the local weatherman called an “identity crisis.”
Hate turns your insides black. Hate shrinks your heart. Hate will make you clinically depressed. You will lose weight. Your teeth and hair will fall out.
I could not understand what he was saying, per the impediment. The cashiers had decided, apparently, to ignore him. This had to be embarrassing, but it never stopped the kid from trying.
And all at once, she realized that she did not want to die. There was fight left in her. She did not want to leave this earth. Not yet. So she said a word to the ceiling as her car sank into the river water.
Long ago, a friend wrote a short biography for one of my magazine articles. In the bio, my friend referred to me as a “biscuit connoisseur,” and the title stuck.
Many of us had experienced flight delays. But the kid in U.S. uniform wore a smile. A big one. When the soldier got closer to the halfway point, a woman shouted.
When I coached their Little League team, a hundred years ago, I was a young man myself. It was my friend’s son’s team. My friend was the coach. I was his assistant coach.
Dan Lovette became an usher at the Baptist church on Easter Sunday, March 26th, 1961. He stood at the door shaking hands, passing out bulletins. Nobody knew Dan.
My sister and I grew up hard. It wasn’t the kind of childhood depicted in Hallmark Channel movies.
Childhood is nothing but a continual buzz. A non-stop adventure novel.
I don’t know much of anything. But I will tell you this: Find a way to help other people. For I am convinced, wholeheartedly, this is the only path to happiness. And if that doesn’t work, you can always try ice cream.
The more I learn about people, the more I like my dogs.
My nieces have enough energy to power an average suburban electrical grid. They arrived in our driveway last night after spending upwards of six hours in the car. By the time they got here, they were not unlike compressed atomic matter contained in a jar, just waiting to explode.
Someone once told me that tomorrow is a day with no mistakes in it.
Tomatoes from Geneva County, Alabama, are different from common varieties. They are superior tomatoes.