It's the season of gifts — giving and receiving.  It’s the time of year when children stare in wide-eyed anticipation at the bright array of offerings in the toy aisles, teens search the …

A good rule of thumb for being a successful newspaper columnist is to always try and copy much better writers; just don’t do it the following week.  Alas, here I am breaking that rule all to …

My daddy, Capt’m Dad, knew, just KNEW, in his bones, that I was on that precarious 18-year-old teenager tightrope, weaving and bobbing to not lose balance and vanish into a bottomless pit of  …

Throughout my life, I’ve learned to heed the many warnings I’ve encountered.  I slow down when an oncoming driver flashes his headlights. There’s either an accident or a state trooper just …

Let the record show I love Christmas music, but first, a couple of caveats. The second of December is way too early to be listening to Christmas music. A 10- to 12-day period, ending promptly at …

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Everywhere you go Take a look at the five and ten, it's glistening once again With candy canes and silver lanes that glow “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot …

It doesn’t take much of a Wise Man to see who network evening news advertising executives target: Those of us with gray hairs and ailments out the ears. Because, if you believe those ads, we are …

Sometimes when you’re out in nature, nature calls. Spend enough time outdoors, and it will happen to you.  Depending on your circumstances at that sudden, inescapable, instant — the point of …

Early childhood memories are the stuff of smoke and dreams — evanescent wisps floating through the deep reaches of our minds. But for me, a baby-boomer born in 1955, the first true memory — …

My November memories are rich and varied. They are happy family memories. They are filled with remembrances of construction paper turkeys and “What I am thankful for...” — Sandra Wilkerson Queen

According to the results of the test I took by spitting into a tube, I’m 6% Norwegian, which was somewhat surprising; I would have thought that number would have been much higher. I’ve long held …

The news last week that the Foothills Conservancy has protected from future development more than 300 acres along Wilson Creek brought to mind my own memories of that beautiful stream and of the …

Cockroaches were here before the dinosaurs. They were around before the continents merged.  And the Chicxulub asteroid that struck 67 million years ago and triggered mass extinction, wiped out …

After a six-year absence, the Burke County Fair returns next week, running Wednesday through Saturday at the county fairgrounds off Bost Road. My first memory of the Burke County Fair goes back more …

I’ve always been a happy soul. I am a “Type A” personality, a people person, and a pleaser. If you’re a grouch, I’ll probably get on your nerves.  I’m that person who, left alone in …

One thing I don’t need to hear at the drugstore is a running commentary during checkout on the stuff I am buying. The checkout person’s job is to silently and swiftly manage the transaction, bag …

October has been a most pleasant month here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, with sunny days, sparkling nights, and nary a trace of the heat and humidity that oppressed us from June through …

What’s with the obsession of making teeth the whitest possible white mankind can muster? Not just the whitest mustered by mankind. But the brightest whitest-white scientifically feasible. You know …

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. I’ve never made any bones about the fact Halloween is my favorite holiday. That’s true for a number of reasons, not the …

The big-ass brown hairy bat with Dracula fangs invaded our bedroom through the fireplace one otherwise peaceful summer night years ago. The Beloved was snuggled down in bed with a book. I was in the …

The following happened to a friend of mine. Her name is Linda Yoder. A few years ago, she, her husband, Dan, and her mother, Betty (sadly, both now deceased), had gone to a scary movie at the …

Morganton’s Confederate monument, standing tall on the square of the Historic Burke County Courthouse, is a source of pride for some White folks. Others, like former schoolteacher Candace Yount, …

As a child growing up in Drexel, there were few things that I had to do without. My parents were kind and caring folk, and they raised their three sons with a Baptist strictness that was tempered …

Several decades ago, back in the 1990s, a few years before his death, journalist and author Charles Kuralt wrote a wonderful book, detailing how he passed a most pleasurable year, spending one month …

My grandparents were the wisest people I’ve ever known.  William Kelly Plemmons was born in the hills of Madison County in 1900, and Emma Nix Plemmons made her earthly appearance in Buncombe …