Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, January 4, 2019, 10:52 a.m. I don’t make resolutions. Progress is a day-to-day matter. I just do what I need to do every day. Everyone has to roll with punches to some degree. The year just completed was one of turnaround. I have high hopes that the one ahead will bring …
Tag: kids
This Was the Week that Wasn’t
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, December 29, 2018, 9:52 a.m. Sometimes things just don’t go your way. That’s the slogan of my week. It could be the motto, but it would have to be in Latin. Interdum res non solum viam vestram. The week has been an adventure that wouldn’t sell because because the protagonist never …
The Will to Win
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, December 8, 2018, 7:47 p.m. I love the Army-Navy Game. It doesn’t matter if both teams have losing records (which Army doesn’t this year). It’s always hardfought. It always comes down to the end. Navy won 14 in a row, and now Army has won three straight. My late Uncle Cas …
‘Happy Thanksgiving from the Fam-uhhhh-leeeeee’
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, November 23, 2018, 8:46 a.m. When Ray Phillips was a child, he realized that Betty Dutton’s oyster dressing was a national treasure, not to mention a rare and precious thing. Ray is my nephew. Betty is my mother and his grandmother. Ginger Sacarrere is his mother and my sister. For two …
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How the Checkered Flag Fell at the Beauty Pageant
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, November 18, 11:57 a.m. New assignments abound. For twenty years, most of my time was spent writing about race cars. I started writing books. I taught myself to play guitar and found I had “a handy knack for rhyming,” which led to songs. I started writing novels. I never wrote about …
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Things that Are Close and Things that Are Far Away
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, November 2, 2018, 9:56 a.m. Election Day is Tuesday, and I can’t remember the last time I ate a McRibs. I don’t think there is any relation between elections and McRibs except that both are being enthusiastically advertised. The best meal I’ve had in the week to date was a hamburger …
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If I Knew Then What I Know Now
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, August 17, 2018, 10:54 a.m. This morning I learned about the wet-bulb thermometer. So enriched was I that I moved on to wet-bulb temperature. Am I a man of boundless curiosity? I’d like to think so, but the short-term answer was that I was trying to figure out why Clinton High …
Up on the Hill
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, August 8, 2018, 11:38 a.m. It seems there’s always a hill. It might be a plateau above a practice field, with a town’s young men busily preparing to represent their school and town in battles for football supremacy, scattered a week apart throughout the fall. It might be a manmade hill, …
When the Roll Is Called in Homeroom, I’ll Be There
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, June 30, 2018, 4:02 p.m. I’ve been working my ass off. No, that’s not right. I’ve been wearing my ass out. Mainly I’ve been sitting down. I’m in the process of learning how to manage the county website. It’s not the official county website. It’s a news site, or two that …
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A Man Must Carry On
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, 9:49 a.m. How the mighty have fallen. Okay. I was never that mighty. And I haven’t fallen. The last time I fell was on the sideline of the Clinton High School spring football game in 2017. On Tuesday, I merely wilted. On the practice fields, a half mile …
Nightrider's Lament 