It’s time for 2025

Know this up front: This story won’t make me look like a saint but God knows I’m not anyway so I might as well laid the truth on the table.Years before Tink and I married, I bought a threeacre parcel of land that adjoins the Rondarosa and because it faces a major highway – with two entrances—I was...

Memories of mistletoe and more

It’s the Christmases of my childhood that I remember always and cherish most. They were simple and humble with no fancy frills or garland.In the windows of the stores downtown, I often stood, longingly, dreaming of a Christmas tree with expensive decorations and huge bows made of red velvet ribbon.

I wish I had been in Bethlehem

These words are dedicated to the memory of my friend, the late Otis Brumby Jr., publisher of The Marietta Daily Journal. He encouraged me to run this column each Christmas season.

Word of the year leads to ‘brain rot’

May I have a word with you, please? Actually, two words. Brain rot. You just never know what kind of surprise awaits you when you check out this space, do you? I have a feeling brain rot wasn’t on your radar.

The flag

When my husband makes up his mind that he wants something, he is like young Ralphie in A Christmas Story. He does not give up. Remember when Ralphie wanted the Red Rider BB gun?He had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve to get what he wanted. And, just like Ralphie, Tink’s relentless.

A gross deviation from common sense

It seems as though my mother was a criminal and I am just now finding out.All this time, I thought she was a conscientious parent who was active in the PTA, fixed my school lunch, washed and ironed my clothes, and made sure I went to church.

The good publisher

In today’s newspaper world, one person is doing the work of two or three.They sleep less, drink a lot of coffee and rarely have time to fellowship with co-workers.I used to say that I believed one of the hardest jobs is that of a manicurist – slumping over a small, white table, and working...

A Thanksgiving review

It was something someone said about all the Thanksgivings that her eyes have seen that made me start thinking about a couple of holidays.In the mountains, it was always the tradition to kill a fattened hog after the first hard freeze so people could store them in their smoke houses, keeping the...

Thankful for these weekly conversations

What is Thanksgiving without a Thanksgiving column? For those of us tasked with offering our opinions on these pages, it is an obvious topic.

Putting presidential pressure on the PRESS Act

By now, President-elect Donald Trump’s cries of “fake news” have become far too commonplace in a nation that once prided itself as a bastion of free speech and transparency in government.