It’s hard to describe the mood in the air in Mississippi right now. Scott Colum’s victory – the first Democratic senator elected since 1980, the first Black senator to serve the state since Reconstruction, the first ever Black senator to be elected directly by the people of Mississippi – is a sea change that seemed … Continue reading "Mississippi, 24 hours later"
Small Offerings
• Hugh
Mississippi, 24 hours later
It’s hard to describe the mood in the air in Mississippi right now. Scott Colum’s victory – the first Democratic senator elected since 1980, the first Black senator to serve the state since Reconstruction, the first ever Black senator to be elected directly by the people of Mississippi – is a sea change that seemed … Continue reading "Mississippi, 24 hours later"
Just being back from the beach and Facebook Memories reminded me that 10 years ago today, my parents visited us in NC, and I took them to the beach. – HH I never saw the ocean until I was 18 and in Boot Camp, which did not lend itself to introspective gazing. We didn’t have … 
While visiting New Smyrna Beach this past weekend for our 17th wedding anniversary, we spent a morning at Smyrna Dunes Park. It’s 184 acres of dunes and beach, filled with native plants and wildlife (look for the gopher tortoises that are everywhere!). There is a 2 mile (handicapped accessible) boardwalk that circles the park, observation … 
Give or take a leap year, we have been married 6,205 days, or 17 years, as of today. My life is pretty much divided into the sad days, and the days I have been married to her. It hasn’t always been easy, but most things worth doing are not always easy. But it’s always been … 
Six years ago today (October 22), my dad died after a brief illness from COVID. He tested positive on Saturday, and died the following Thursday. Dad worked in Emergency Services, and so his death was ruled a Line Of Duty Death. I have written so much about him over the years, but it is the … 
The writer (and personal hero of mine) Will Campbell told a story in his memoir, Brother to a Dragonfly, about a time as a child in Jim Crow Mississippi when he and a bunch of (white) friends are playing and a black child walks down the road. Campbell and his friends begin chanting slurs at … 
The way I was told the story, there was a pastor who had finally gotten to go on a long, well-deserved vacation, and while he was gone, a young preacher just graduated from the seminary filled in. When the regular preacher got back, he asked his head deacon how it went. “Oh, he was decent,” … 
We live in town, but in a neighborhood that was a suburb of the city before it was annexed a hundred years ago. Our street was generally built out in the early 1950’s, and leans heavily toward midcentury ranch houses – but plan book houses for ordinary people, not anything like you would see in … 
Our half-acre lot is a rectangle, with our house running perpendicular to the wide side, with a quarter of the lot being front yard, and the rest being back yard. And in the backyard, where it can harm no one, is a large hackberry tree. Or perhaps more accurately, was a hackberry tree. It’s now … 
It’s hard to talk about mental illness with any certainty – all one can really do is talk bout your own mental illness. Because all of us who are mentally ill are mentally ill in our own way. For me, living with depression, with a history of suicidal ideation, has meant being afraid of the … 
Last year I took a couple of non-fiction writing classes from Janisse Ray, which I highly recommend doing. One of the assignments was to write a five-part essay. I wrote about rescuing kittens, which is, if you don’t know, a thing we do. This is the first section. I also want to say that I …