Sorted by date Results 226 - 250 of 618
It was not a perfect trip…but it was an excellent one. After 92 days, 13 states and 7,200 miles I am home. What awesome sights. What a beautiful country we live in. Thinking of excellence got me to thinking about how that is generally not good enough for some people. Nothing short of perfection will do. Are you like that? Do you tend to be a perfectionist? Perfection is something to shoot for…but somewhere along the line most of us learn that things rarely come off as planned. Untimely things happen and performance suffers as a result. When thi...
The Alabama River is a place of rich history and ancient cultures. Native Americans roamed the rivers in a time before the arrival of Europeans and thereafter Europeans mapped and settled the area. Later, as the area became a new frontier for the US, another round of settlers called the area home. It is also likely that men such as William Travis travelled passed Gainestown Landing by river boat as he conducted his profession as an attorney-perhaps with a court hearing in Mobile or elsewhere-...
At one time in Escambia County, Florida, schools were titled with the names of outstanding members of the community, people considered role models. Today, with a need by local governments to not offend, or possibly due to the historical ignorance by those who are choosing titles, new schools receive insignificant generic titles like North End, or West Side. Most of the old honorably named schools of the county like Clubbs, Earnest Ward, and Woodham have faded away, but a few remain. One is named after a most remarkable man, J. M. Tate. James Ta...
The only name I ever knew him by was, Cannonball. He must have been old, or so it seemed. He didn't hold a job. He rambled about the neighborhood looking for someone to talk to. He lived in a little shack trailer with a built-on lean-to. Nighttime showed a dim light in the greasy, grime coated windows. The trailer sat underneath ancient live oaks that had allowed a buildup of green moss growing in streaks down the sides. Resurrection fern grew on the roof. When the rains came it stood regal, tall, green and beautiful. Dry spells caused it to la...
Make sure your child's lunch passes from your kitchen to the school lunch room in A+ condition! These tips are ideal for everyone that takes their lunch to school, work or on a staycation (day-trip) too. Start Off Each Day Fresh If you prepare your child's lunch in the morning before school, avoid time-crunch shortcuts that can lead to foodborne illness. Make sure counter surfaces are clean and last night's food remnants are gone. This helps to prevent cross-contamination. Clean your child's lunch box or lunch bag with warm soapy water before...
Do you realize that every time we speak, we speak twice? I don’t mean that we speak with a “forked tongue.” What I mean is that the words that come out of our mouths convey our thoughts, while our tone of voice reflects our attitude. What we say is important, but the way it is said is more important, wouldn’t you think? Think from your own experience. You sense when someone is telling you something, and the tone of voice isn’t backing the words up with feelings, don’t you? Sure, you do. How often have you been on the other side of the equatio...
In a parting glance at the Hollinger community it beckons the call to review the windswept tombstones of Enon's cemetery. Through blistering summers, wintery frostings of snow, hurricanes and a hundred or more spring time mornings, their gentle epithets ask the visitor to consider the life of the person buried here and to reflect upon their own mortality. Perhaps never a more suitable summation of the area exists than that published in the Monroe Journal on May 25, 1916. "There is hardly a man...
It sure is hot! It's hot! I'm betting that most of you have heard something similar to this if not these exact words during the past several weeks. I've heard people talk about dog days recently, that's a interesting subject. There are several different ways of thinking on dog days. According to most people they start somewhere between July 3, and July 15 and last anywhere from 30 days to 61 days. But I definitely remember my grandparents talk about dog days running from July 25, until September 2, forty days. I'm not saying either one is...
My personal axis has finally been knocked off. Reading an article posted by a friend telling us about how the millennials are refusing things from us old folks that we think are important. We spent the better years of our lives struggling financially to collect things, only to now find the offspring simply won't take possession of ‘em. "What is wrong with you all?" "Don't have room for it. Besides who wants to spend their life polishing silver when we can use plastic?" Point taken…still hurts. Three years of home economics wasted on cho...
As children go back to school to feed their hungry minds, parents will be turning their attention to feeding those hungry bodies with healthy and nutritious snacks at home. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today issued tips to keep kids safe from food poisoning as they prepare their favorite treats, sometimes unsupervised by mom or dad. Consumers of all ages need to be aware that bacteria in food can make them sick, but there are ways to reduce their risk of food poisoning. Back to school...
Flomaton Elementary School kicked off the 2019-2020 school year on Thurs., Aug. 8. Preschool students and kindergartners were welcomed with a special 'Tears & Cheers' breakfast. For more, see our Photo Gallery....
Flomaton Elementary school welcomed a new batch of students for the 2019-20 school year Thursday, August 8 as they kicked off the school year. Among the first day events, preschool students, kindergartners and their parents were invited to the school lunchroom to enjoy breakfast together as a special 'Tears and Cheers' welcoming for the new children. The students and their parents were able to enjoy biscuits, sausage, yogurt, cereal and fruit together as they discussed the prospect of the first...
Hollinger, as mentioned last week, was an up and coming community in southern Monroe County in the late 1800s. Yet history is more than the names of forgotten towns on the yellowing pages of old newspapers and maps. The real history comes in the every day lives of those who made their way through day to day living, who reared families, worked, lived and died in the areas they held dear. No story is more poignant to the above sentiment than the story of Gilbert and Mary Louisa Cruit, who lived...
Today I am thinking about the only grandfather I ever knew, my mother's step-father, Herbert Blackwell, known to us as Paw. The fathers of my parents, William Allen Chancery and Christopher Columbus Johnson, had died before I was born, but I had Paw. When I knew him Paw lived on a farm outside Evergreen, Alabama with my grandmother, Mary America Ridgeway Johnson Blackwell (better known as Maw) and my cousins, Willie (Buddy) and Janie Johnson. We looked forward to visits to the farm to see them....
Long weekends and Good Friday always bring up a memory. When a Good Friday memory floats to the top, it ain't flotsam and jetsam, it's a good 'un. So, I'm sharing, just how it should be. Right? Good Friday 1962 was the beginning of Easter weekend and a long weekend for B shift of Chemstrand. I had been invited to take a weekend ride up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with three girlfriends. All of us were B shift, area 3, tire yarn, doff crew. We were single, employed, and free to do as we pleased. We did, but hit bumps along while finding our...
Caution: School Beginning! ABC, as easy as 1-2-3! School will start soon for you and me kid! This little “ditty” is dancing through my mind now as children prepare to start the new school year this week. Can you believe it? Where did the summer go? Children, parents and teachers are all excited about it! YEAH! Some children are so excited that they are not conscious of their surroundings – including ongoing traffic. Let’s remember to slow it down when we see children walking or running around their schools and along the streets - especia...
The 2019-2020 Jay High School marching band kicked off practice last week. With practices in the morning and afternoon five days a week, Troy State University graduate and Band Director Connie Wilkes said the band members are returning seventh through 12th graders. “Of all the band members, 14 out of 48 are rookies, so I've got a lot who've been marching,” said Wilkes. “Their strength is a great attitude and great work ethic.” The theme for this year is water, and the color is aqua. Wilkes...
History along Butler Street has ebbed and flowed with the coming and going of numerous forgotten communities. Hadley, Vocation, Coley, Steadham are names lost to all but a few who dig into the past. Yet between Old Stage Road and Butler Street the forgotten lore of the Hollinger community beckons us to remember its forgotten past. Today, as tractors and other farm equipment sail across a sea of cotton and peanuts in the quite fields of south Monroe County, a history is slowly being forgotten. Th...
The history of the American Era of Escambia County in Florida is now almost two hundred years old. In the early years it is remembered that a few areas in the northern part of the county grew slowly as remote, self-sustaining woodland communities. Then, after the War Between the States, the population grew dramatically around sawmill communities along the route of two railways which lay on either side of the county, transforming railway stops into thriving boom towns. This period of almost seventy years may be called our great logging and...
I don't remember when I became aware of that far-off-from-Barnett Crossroads, Alabama place, but I knew I needed to see it. The need to "SEE ROCK CITY" way up in Tennessee somewhere stayed on my list of things to do and see. "Bucket list" hadn't entered the lexicon of this little country girl at that time. On top of a mountain near Chattanooga, I planned to tour the “ROCK CITY GARDEN,” “RIDE THE INCLINE,” “SEE SEVEN STATES” and go deep underground at “RUBY FALLS.” I knew that Blue Star Highway # 31 running from Mobile to Chicago went th...
It’s count down time to the beginning of school and the end of summer and you haven’t had a vacation yet! What to do? Perhaps, you are saving up for that dream trip next summer but you’d still like to take a break and have some fun this year. How can your family and you enjoy yourselves without breaking the bank? The answer might be right in your own backyard! Plan a staycation. Rather than traveling out of the area, use your home as base and plan some fun activities – family game time, camping out in the backyard and making s’mores, or running...
In a previous book entitled: Traveling Tips Along Success Road (Upword Press, 2008), I wrote this about the anatomy of success: SUCCESS IS not everything but striving to succeed is. It is having a badge of honor of giving the most we have and being productive to the peak of our capacities. SUCCESS IS mentally painting big pictures and then working to turn those pictures into reality. It is setting ‘stretch’ goals and working relentlessly toward their accomplishment. SUCCESS IS built on following a process to success. This process entails thi...
Federal forces assumed control of the port of Mobile following the evacuation of Confederate forces at the close of the Blakley campaign. A war weary populace watched as the blue coats marched up the Mobile streets which had, just weeks before, been the last Confederate port to hold out against the Union navy. After several weeks of occupation, the Union forces had stockpiled supplies and weaponry in the numerous water front warehouses. The Union forces soon created a magazine, or ordnance depot...
Like millions of other people, fifty years ago this past weekend, July 20, 1969, I was watching world history being made on the television. The United States became the first country to put men on the moon. Like most teenagers of the time this got my interest in space to going at full speed. As time went by I more or less decided that watching the moon landing was about as close as I would get to any kind of activity to do with outer space. But twenty six years later I would get a little more closer and personal with outer space, in fact our...
Barnett Crossroads, Alabama. Sometime late in the 1940's. In the days of my early childhood some special experiences stand out more vividly than others. I'll share one. The scene is at the southeast corner of the crossing. The old store still sat then at the northeast corner. If I have my facts correct, the owners back to the beginning of this important place was builder A. D. Kelly, then Ollie Ingram, and followed by Clyde Hawkins. Last owners were Riley & Annie Barnett who moved the store across the road to the southeast corner where this...
