LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The time to dismantle systemic racism is now
The killing of George Floyd and the deaths of countless other black people murdered by lawless police and hate organizations across America makes clear the need for drastic, intentional changes to eradicate biases and prejudices toward people of color, especially black people, who built this country from our blood, sweat and tears during the height of slavery and colonialism.
Life on the West End: The preacher wore white ducks
This is a story that never should have happened, but since it did, here it is, just as I remember it.
The power of the outhouse flower
I remember Mom talked of a flower with a strange name, hollyhocks.
NASCAR lowers Confederate flags; ‘GWTW’ ‘censored’?
Last week, HBO Max removed “Gone with the Wind” from its library and said the 1939 film was:
“ … A product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible.”
Living on the West End: ‘Skinny-dipping’ arrives at The Mill Village
The month of June is here! The long and cold winter is over and the time for June-bugs and skinny-dipping has arrived. An old man and his pen are back in a time long ago! He remembers and he writes.
Just one great adventure
By Tom Poland On my way back I crossed Clarks Hill Lake twice. In soft early evening light, the water lay like a mirror. Smooth as glass, as we like to say. Shoreline reflections rendered perfect hourglass illusions. Water mirrors people. It’s moody and can present a calm face or gravity can anger it. Earlier I had watched water rage, funnel, twist and smash against rocks. Other rocks it glided over in glassy bell-shapes, smooth as...