Being born on Aug. 14 meant Valentine’s Day was my half-way mark, and suffering through the winter doldrums, the bright spark of candy and cupcakes were a welcome relief. The year I was 4 ½ Mom threw a cupcake party for me and the neighbor girl to celebrate my half birthday— any excuse to brighten a snowy February day. I …
Recently Tym and I attended Our State Weekend in Pinehurst. It was our first time to the weekend event, so maybe that’s what made me especially observant. Our State magazine hosts this event every year at a major hotel and draws a crowd from around North Carolina—subscribers and others who want to see noted Tar Heels talk history, culture, cooking, …
We fly more miles than the average couple, so our luck was bound to run out. It did, recently, on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Charlotte. I know that manners are rapidly disappearing. I follow Passenger Shaming on Instagram, a site created by a former flight attendant. I’ve seen how gross and rude travelers can be these …
It’s 2019. Our vehicles are another model year older. We’ve inched another digit toward the ‘20s. I’m trying to absorb the fact that today’s 18-year-olds were born in 2001, the year of 9-11. They have little if any memory of events before 2006–no memory of what life was like before the iPhone or Facebook. They’ve always written current dates with …
I still remember the toy telephone that Santa Claus brought the neighbor kids. I know. Christmas isn’t supposed to be about envy. I should be grateful for the gifts I did receive, but longing is a powerfully fickle thing. You think you want a certain gift until you realize what you really want is what some other kid got. So …
Last week we bid farewell to President George H. W. Bush–“41” as he’s fondly called. History may regard him as the best one-term president to ever to serve in the White House. He was certainly one of the best prepared. Bush was a successful businessman, a Congressman, UN ambassador, envoy to China, director of the CIA, chairman of the Republican …
Roy Orbison may have died 30 years ago, but his hologram lives on. I saw it just two weeks ago. In the age of fake news and other slights of hand, the mere idea of this concert was enough to lure my friend Carol and me to Greenville. As the curtain rose, sharp V-shaped beams of light shone from center …
I know this sounds crazy, but I’m convinced that my Smartphone is a two-way listening device. I saw an intriguing interview a few months ago. News anchor and technology reporter Brett Larson discussed how smartphone apps are programmed to listen to their owners whenever the phone is turned on. Tech industry leaders deny that such capability exists. I believed them …
Some odd experiences have made me a wonder about the paranormal. One of my first ventures into creepiness was years ago at the Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia. We stopped for maybe an hour, but an hour was long enough. There’s something about a place where thousands have died in a short period that has residual energy. I didn’t …
Two years ago I became a grandmother, with the birth of Violet Wilson in Murrieta Hot Springs, CA. I had to get my head around this, as did my husband. We’d never ventured into baby territory in this century. Over the past two years, Violet had visited us here and there, but it wasn’t until this past August that we …