Yarbrough: Some advice for the new year

Dear Cameron: Well, here we go again. To Cameron Charles Yarbrough, it’s a new year so here’s some more unsolicited advice from your great-grandpa. We have been at this quite a while, so I hope these observations have been of some value to you.

Crane: Much more still to be done

I remain a strong son of the South, the product of a Mason-Dixon marriage (Mom from Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham, Dad and the Crane family hailing from upstate New York).

Rich: The high cost of Crisco

From the car, I toted in bags of heavy groceries. I have become my mama. Mama mostly bought staples: five-pound sacks of flour and cornmeal as well as gallon jugs of sweet milk and buttermilk.

Rich: The South I’ve met

Most of the best stories I’ve heard come forth from the South. The most memorable people I have met, by far, are Southerners. I’m a Yankee and moved here by way of California.

Crane: In celebration of the non-traditional

I can’t even remember the first time I heard the phrase, but I think it was related to one of Olivia’s school meetings when we were referred to as a “non-traditional” family.

Rich: Facing the new year

A new year has arrived and a half-ragged one lies behind, reduced now to memories. It seemed, at times, I couldn’t enjoy the wonderful things popping around because of such bone-deep sorrow brought on by the home-going of loved ones.

Yarbrough: When going to the dogs is a good thing

You’ve heard the old saying that things are going to the dogs. After talking to Jennifer Arnold, we should be so lucky. Ms.

Crane: The Rematch no one wants

At nearing 300 pounds in this corner, resembling an Oompa Loompa in lifts, with a cotton candy-esque coiffure, and leaning slightly forward, surrounded by lawyers instead of trainers ... The Teflon Don!

Rich: Looking back at Christmases past

When I was a child and even through my teenage years, Christmas night and the following day were the saddest times of the year. The anticipation of presents, church pageants, and holiday cheer was swooped away in such a short time.

Crane: Free speech, hate speech and the first amendment

Among the many lessons I learned from my maternal grandmother, Mary L. Crane, was that it can be tough to hate up close. Mary was an Irish-Catholic carpetbagger who moved her family south from upstate New York in 1949.