Uncategorized

Fifty-seven years ago, I traveled from Tennessee to Washington, D.C. to join a protest against the war in Vietnam. My housing had been prearranged; the group I was traveling with would be staying [...]

Today, December 28, 2021, Shonnie Lyn Lavender celebrates her 50th birthday--half a century! And to commemorate this milestone event, you are invited to share a memory, what you love about [...]

Shonnie Lavender turns 50 years of age on December 28, and we’ve been together for approximately half of those five decades. In honor of Shonnie’s milestone birthday, I’m reposting my personal [...]

What I learned from football . . . the good, the bad, and the ugly

Chocolate came bounding into the world in Arlington, Texas in 1988, and from early on, it was obvious that this kitty had a mind of her own, a common trait of all felines, but especially [...]

We have been given an awesome opportunity, a test that requires great courage and a willingness to face reality. In the aftermath of the terrible deaths of almost three thousand people and the [...]

A largely overlooked book by Wilma Dykeman and her husband James Stokely made a powerful plea for racial justice in 1957.

On the last Wednesday of November in 1953, my fifth-grade classmates and I were all dressed as Pilgrims or Native Americans, costumes for the Thanksgiving skit we’d enthusiastically performed [...]

I am deeply disturbed by the recent violence perpetrated by officers of the Asheville Police Department, especially their harsh treatment of medics and the destruction of their medical supplies [...]