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 …
Tag: Monte Dutton
An Historical Novel of Wartime Intrigue, Rendered Skillfully
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, December 25, 2018 I’m quite ashamed of myself. Ordinarily, I would have devoured The Torch Betrayal, by Glenn Dyer, in a couple weeks. It was a casualty of the increasingly frenetic pace of my life over the past months. I’ve been out and about, writing stories about local affairs, editing news …
Continue reading An Historical Novel of Wartime Intrigue, Rendered Skillfully
One More Year in Review
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, December 24, 2018, 1:31 p.m. I’ve been working on stories about the year in review, so I guess I might as well take up the subject of my own. Milestones come at intervals by definition, I suppose, but they’re not necessarily significant just because they end with a “0” or a …
At Least There Was No Big One
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, December 22, 2018, 2:10 p.m. If law enforcement used yellow flags, they would have been waving on Spartanburg Highway, Musgrove Street Extension, or South Carolina 56 North, depending on which way one wants to identify the thoroughfare. Two crashes, neither involving serious injuries, occurred within two hours of each other, about …
Less Room to Wiggle
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, December 15, 2018, 9:31 p.m. Earlier today, I came across a quote from the great Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who once walked out to the mound to counsel an ineffective Ross Grimsley. "If you know how to cheat, now's the time," Weaver is alleged to have said. I remember Weaver, …
Anger Cuts Either Way
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, December 13, 2018, 10:44 a.m. I was on the way to the Laurens Commission of Public Works meeting and thought it was going to make me late. I am obsessively punctual and often fret about being late for meetings, so much so that invariably I wind up being there 20 minutes …
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 …
Continue reading ‘Happy Thanksgiving from the Fam-uhhhh-leeeeee’
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 …
Continue reading How the Checkered Flag Fell at the Beauty Pageant
Stop the World and Let Me Off
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, November 8, 2018, 1:14 p.m. So much is going on that I can’t decide what to write. I’m suffering from information overload. I’m drowning. Either that or I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. It’s impossible to keep up. With politics. With technology. With violence. With anger. Do this. Don’t do …
Nightrider's Lament 