High as a Georgia pine
By Tom Poland The South and its vernacular, love it and never lose it. Seems to me, we have the finest, most colorful expressions. Yes, Southerners have a flair for talking with flair. I was in Dad’s saw shop on a blazing hot Saturday when a man stumbled in drunk. He wore striped overalls like some train engineer. When he stumbled out Dad said, “That man was as high as a Georgia pine.” Similes and colorful archaic words don’t get much...
When days are dark
By Bill Shepard (“When Days are Dark” is a timely message to my readers. I have sent this message into many homes over a long period of time. (It recently entered my thinking to share it with readers of my column in this paper. No one would disagree that we are experiencing dark days, and some no doubt more and differently than others. (We are a people groping in darkness, searching for answers to questions never asked before. Those...
LIVING ON PURPOSE: Dropping the stones, searching within
By Bill Holland Those who have never experienced an addiction can seem unsympathetic and uncaring. Why? There are several reasons, like thinking that self-inflicting destruction does not deserve compassion, or maybe it’s the arrogance of thinking they themselves would never be so blind to let something like that happen to them. I feel the greater consideration would be, “Is becoming captured in the dependency of a chemical more of a...
House-arrest haircuts
By Tom Poland Nancy’s eyes betrayed frustration and fear. “I can’t cut your hair right now. I’ve got to close.” Early April 2020, the year of perfect vision, what do we see? Closings. Not so perfect, but to venture out is to risk death. So they say. So they say. Perched on the edge of chaos, it’s a good time to be handy, a jack-of-all-trades, a do-it-yourselfer. You’re on your own. Making do will have to do. Not happy with your shaggy...
Living on the West End: Worship time!
Editor’s note: This is a reprint of a Bill Shepard column that was published last year. By Bill Shepard When my dad moved with his family to the mill village in Darlington in 1922, there were no churches on the mill village where he lived. It would be 10 years before a small group of worshipers would come together and organize a church and erect a small church building on Phillips Street in Darlington. That church, known as The Church...
Living on the West End: The YMCA
Editor’s note: This is a reprint of a Bill Shepard column published last year. By Bill Shepard The YMCA was a big part of my world when I was a boy and living on the west end of Darlington. If anyone had asked me what the letters Y M C A stood for, I would not have known what to answer. If would be years before I could answer Young Men’s Christian Association! For many years, when anyone asked, “Bill, what’s your address?” my answer...