During Watergate and up until President Richard Nixon’s resignation from office in 1974, my mother was crazy. Really. She was obsessed with every detail of the scandal and talked of nothing else. Her hatred of Nixon was palpable. And this is the crazy part: It was also visible.… Read full post »

This isn’t something I want to admit right now, but I live in Georgia. I’m not native-born. After 20-plus years of making the Peach State my home, I guess I can say I’m a Georgian. An elderly neighbor, a woman whose family settled my south Georgia town, still routinely… Read full post »

My husband and I were on a 30^th wedding anniversary trip to New Mexico last fall and I wanted a special keepsake from a Native American Indian Pueblo we were visiting.  The place was magical and mysterious. I had never experienced anything like it before.  I took photographs… Read full post »

Technically speaking, my nest has been empty for four years. Both children, a son and daughter are, as I write this, completing their last semesters as undergraduates. My son, the older of the two, has taken a bit longer to complete his college journey.… Read full post »

            My father didn’t keep a gun in his bedside table but he did have a cannon in his closet. It wasn’t battlefield-sized. It was a Civil… Read full post »

White House Christmas Card, 1971

In our minds, it was an act of defiance: I’d put a joint in my purse. When my sister gave me the signal, we’d each say we had to go to the bathroom where we’d meet, light up and take a few quick hits… Read full post »

(Our tournament participants. My father is kneeling on the left)

Fish. That’s my family’s Thanksgiving tradition. Not as the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, although I’m sure the thought crossed my father’s mind. A monster blue fish, head and tail… Read full post »

            “Here comes one,” my friend whispers as we sit on the steps to my front porch Halloween night. She is speaking to my teenage son who is splayed out on the grass in front of us, his head hidden beneath an enormous… Read full post »

             I was with President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

            The month had started out warm, as fall i/… Read full post »

            I used to approach Labor Day with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The holiday always marked the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year… Read full post »

I collect pine needles. I store them in the shed where they tumble off the wooden shelves onto the floor or bury the saws and paint brushes on the work bench. In the garage, plastic bins overflow with pine needles. A limb from a recently fallen tree is pushed… Read full post »

The day I quit my job I went to the garage, pulled out a trash can, two wheelbarrows, and a dozen or so rakes and shovels, until I could see it: my little red wagon.

            For years I had threatened. Every time I got mad or… Read full post »

            My father was a news photographer. When he talked about his work he would say he didn’t take photographs. He made them. There’s a difference, he’d say.

       &nbs… Read full post »

Sometimes people don’t understand my sister so I try to do the talking when we’re out shopping or eating at a restaurant.  I make eye contact with whoever is helping us and hope they can read my expression. This is what I’m trying to say: “I know she’s weird,… Read full post »

My brother says the fishing is off. We were talking Sunday morning, a habit dating back to when phone rates rather than news dictated when he called. He’s the captain of Miss Oregon Inlet, a 65-foot headboat that takes tourists out for a taste of… Read full post »

Two weeks ago, sitting in a restaurant with flat screen televisions hanging from the ceiling like decorative plants, my daughter leaned toward me from across our table and whispered, “Is the World Cup over yet?” We both looked furtively at the televisions circling the room. Although we co… Read full post »

I don’t think anyone else at our table noticed when the woman walked by the first time. She must have been heading to the restroom since there wasn’t anything else in that direction. Then suddenly she materialized like a hazy apparition, her layers of clothes hanging in great folds. A fad… Read full post »

            My father was a predictable man. He made pancakes every Saturday morning, walked through the back door every night at 6:30, and never passed up dessert. He was predictable in his habits but he was also predictably loud. My father&rsqu… Read full post »