Never have given half a rip for country music, as country music is today, all truck-lovin’ light-beer bros in over-styled cowboy hats gulping on the last note or two to get it to twang. But Merle Haggard. Now, Merle Haggard. Deeply grateful I once got to interview this raucous gem of a man, by phone, …
The roller-coaster ride of old pets, another dip, another rise. Took my dear old Bug boy in today to our outstanding vet office, East Carolina Veterinary Service, sure in that awful down-in-the-bones way it was over, or the start of over, and even the vet was bracing me for the worst of news. Old boy has …
RIP, great Meadowlark. You inhabit one of my favorite childhood memories. This, from a story I wrote for Mountain Xpress in Asheville, when I was working there back in 2001: An 8-year-old kid gapes from the stands as the great George “Meadowlark” Lemon stomps over courtside to hurl a bucket of water on the ref — …
Never risk listening to those aching songs you love on nights when you’re too tired to breathe without hearing your own breath admitting how little breath you have left ahead of you compared to how much exhaling has already come and gone. Nostalgia, yes. To wit: “How many a year has passed and gone / …
<Thanks, Joe, for the post title.> Late yesterday afternoon, I hoofed it the couple of miles through our eastern North Carolina version of bitter cold, gloved hands and big coat, double socks and damn me for failing to wear a hat, to the local post office, a pre-stamped packet in hand. In my back pocket, a …