Have you ever thought about the importance, attraction, and power of water? That thought came to mind the other day as we watched our great-nephew, David Thomas, being baptized in a …

Jerry Grillo is a self-confessed baseball nerd. Born in New York, he moved South as a young child and was about 12 years old when he started memorizing players’ hitting averages, the teams they …

It’s late morning on Memorial Day, May 26, 2025. The air is cool for late May, low hanging rain clouds forbidding the sun’s appearance.  Most of the Hudgins boys and a couple of …

It’s funny how the mention of one word about something from the past—I mean, way past—conjures up all kinds of memories.  I asked a number of friends if they remembered …

Does anybody remember The Yo-Yo Man?  That’s what I asked several of my friends from elementary and high school—mostly retired now except for doctor appointments.  I …

There's something exhilarating about riding on a train. Amtrak’s intercity trains are often slower, bumpier, more expensive and late, but I still like them. Maybe it's because my dad was a …

They came from all over the nation, these veterans of the Vietnam War who had gathered at a funeral home in Allentown, Pa., home of Doug and Jenny Foster.  For most of them, Doug Foster was …

Tom Junod is living proof of the old saw that “good things come to those who wait.” He wrote a piece for Esquire magazine in 1998 and, 21 years later, that story became a movie. …

As I sit in my tiny, overstuffed study at home, I am almost embarrassed, So much material, so many books, so many clippings, so many letters, files, cabinets. Memorabilia galore. Somebody, or …

The man sitting across from me at a restaurant was picking at his chicken pot pie, talking more than eating. He had a story to tell. He was born on Aug. 20, 1944 in a hospital in Fayetteville, …

You can learn something from just about everybody, I believe. Jessica Phillips Henricks, a former Foxfire student, and I confirmed that belief when we interviewed scores of folks for a book …

  Several days ago, someone told our grandson Alex that Lynchburg, Virginia, would get a foot of snow overnight. Lynchburg is his temporary residence as he studies to beçome a …

My daddy wouldn’t like today’s country music. Well, he’d like some of it, mainly the songs that sound country and with words a man could understand. I recorded the Country …

If you, like me, sometimes think that members of the human race have been vaccinated against kindness, we’re both wrong. It’s still here. We just need to turn away from all the hate and …

Every profession has its standouts, those who set the standard in their field. Robert Williams is one of those people in journalism.  Robert owned several weekly newspapers, mostly in South …

Someone asked me the other day if I always wanted to be a journalist.  I told him no, I thought I wanted to be an artist. You see, I took this art-by-mail course when I was a kid. But after …

Eva Thelka Eisenhut was born in 1928 in Apolda, a small town that later became part of Communist East Germany. She was the oldest of four girls living with their parents in a four-room upstairs …

About a year ago, I wrote about my problem with sleep apnea. That’s what doctors call it when your breath takes a pause, or several pauses, during sleep. And you may snore.  Now, I …

Newspaper reporters and editors are just ordinary people who want to get it right. In a recent column about Mordecai Wilson, a 99-year-old resident of tiny Lula, Ga., I reported that he and his …

Mordecai Wilson was relaxing in his recliner when we arrived at his home in Lula, a town of about 3,000 in northeast Georgia.  I had never met the man, although I’d read several of …

Remember The Waltons on TV? It was a long-running yarn following the lives of a struggling, Depression-era, God-loving family in the mountains of Virginia. It might have been a bit too syrupy for …

It seems appropriate that the popular American Ninja Warrior is showing on television when Myles Humphus telephones me. Humphus is not a Ninja, but he’s certainly a warrior. He could pass for …

When I was a little guy, I would lie on my back in the yard and look up at the clouds or the trees, searching for an answer to the question of the day. God, do you want me to start raising worms now …

Have you ever felt like you received more credit for something than you deserved? Well, I have.  About 15 years ago, I came across a recipe for pancakes in a little book of breakfast …

When I was in elementary school—it was either the sixth or seventh grade—my classmates elected me to fight a boy named Johnny because he supposedly was picking on smaller kids. It was …