Essays

Remembering Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffett

In early fall of last year, I was driving south on Piedmont Drive with the afternoon sun in my eyes, while approaching the permanently closed Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet, up ahead and to my right. To my “late-afternoon sun-blinded amazement,” I was able to make out a number of sunlit windshields in the parking... Read More

Essays

August 13, 2025

A Poor Man’s “Picture Phone”

When my daughter, Rachel needs a rest break from work, she sometimes schedules a few days at the Surfside Hotel, Nags Head, N.C., just a short walk from the truly iconic Jeanette’s Pier!(you don’t have to be an angler to enjoy the view). Rachel called me from there recently, telling me about the amenities, such... Read More

Essays

July 12, 2025

Just a ‘Closer’ Walk

This title is about walking down the road at about 3 mph, instead of driving 35-55-plus mph, the result being that your foot on the road versus your foot on the pedal puts you intimately closer to your ever-passing surroundings. Walking, you are “at one with the ground” (Fred Flintstone’s feet were only on the... Read More

Essays

June 10, 2025

Night of the Whip-poor-will

Since summer arrives this month, I am writing about something which happened one summer when I was around 6 or 7 years old (1957 or 1958). Wikipedia (before that, Compton’s, World Book, Britannica, etc.), says that the whip-poor-will is a nocturnal country bird which lives in a dry-deciduous or evergreen-deciduous forest that is without underbrush... Read More

Essays

May 12, 2025

In the Bosom

The subject of this story is not what you may think from the title. Catchy titles draw the reader in. So, I hope you are suitably drawn. I sometimes source my collection of hats, helmets, coats and jackets of different time periods of the twentieth century to affect a certain “look from history” when venturing... Read More

Essays

April 15, 2025

Everything Made New (or Newer)

Just up the road from me is a mini-Shell station, not really a full-fledged service station, for its main service is at the tap or swipe of your card, the gasoline becomes available (if approved). That little Shell station recently had a total replacement (all I ever had replaced were my hips). I saw the... Read More

Essays

March 7, 2025

“Manna” from Heaven

This snow seemed to arrive quickly in the evening, like a surprise, or it would have been without the Weather Channel’s radar and the endless beforehand “harping” on it by the weather reporters. Maybe the fact the snow’s predicted arrival was off by about an hour or so injected that little bit of “old-time” surprise... Read More

Essays

February 21, 2025

It’s Snowing a Thousand Feet Up

In my life, the calendar has been turned to the month of February 73 times; but one particular “February-turning” stands out in 1970, a few weeks short of my 19th birthday, while a freshman at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Some years ago (not 1970), also in February, I heard a local TV weatherman... Read More

Essays

January 14, 2025

SLOW, STOP, SLOW

The new year gives pause for thought, to make resolutions or take a break just to sit back, observe, and enjoy. Sometimes, we take that break on our own; and sometimes, it is forced upon us. This story is about the latter. One day, this past fall, I headed down to Yanceyville to visit with... Read More

Essays

December 12, 2024

The Bible Raised High

This being the month of December, many will pick up the Bible and turn to the Gospels to read the Christmas Story silently, or aloud to their children. Or they will hear it read to them in church. Sometimes as an accompaniment to a group of fellow parishioners in “Biblical garb” which looks suspiciously like... Read More

Essays

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