This is my first post of the season from the table on my upstairs front porch. I hear the birds singing. I walked around the yard this morning and saw some of my favorite plants starting to bud out. I was afraid some of them might have become victims of the deep freezing cold we had this winter, but they survived. Spring is really arriving. I wore shorts and a T-shirt a couple of days last week. I decided to begin changing out my summer and winter clothes. I store whichever ones are out of season in my upstairs bathroom closet....

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Back when I was a kid, most children spent their time outside playing. That was just how childhood worked in those days. There were no computers, and sitting inside watching television was rarely allowed — especially on days when my mom had just mopped and waxed the floors. One afternoon when I was about 10 or 11 years old, that reality led to an adventure I have never forgotten. A neighbor near our house had about 40 to 50 acres of land. Back in the woods was a trail we proudly called the bicycle trail. It stretched about a quarter...

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For the last 40 years, Alabama’s power structure has grappled with accusations that party crashers are interfering with the state’s primary elections. For most of its history, Alabama has been a one-party state, first under the Democratic Party banner and for the last decade and a half under the GOP banner. The 1980s marked a transition. Republicans were gaining ground. In 1986, then-Attorney General Charles Graddick won a heated Democratic runoff against then-Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley by nearly 10,000 votes. The Alabama Democratic Party invalidated the outcome, claiming Graddick had violated party rules by encouraging Republicans to vote in the...

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The Clarke County Board of Education recognized its Teachers of the Year in a Feb. 19 ceremony. Megan Gates was recognized as Clarke County Elementary Teacher of the Year and Grove Hill Elementary School Teacher of the Year. Shirley Bradley was named Wilson Hall Middle School Teacher of the Year and Joy Thomas was honored as Clarke County High School Teacher of the Year. Wendy Kneel was named the Gillmore Elementary School Teacher of the Year while Jenny Creel was named Jackson Intermediate School Teacher of the Year and Brooklyn Sheffield was honored as Jackson Middle School Teacher of the...

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Clarke County High School alumnus DeVante Snell is serving as the Region 5 hub director for the statewide STEM Invention Convention. The convention helps fifth- through 12th-grade students research problems, design solutions, build prototypes and present their innovations to judges from industry, academia, government, and small business entrepreneurs. The program promotes critical thinking, creativity, public speaking and workforce-ready problem solving skills. “It’s important to me to help students see that innovation and opportunity are possible,” Snell said. “Programs like Invention Convention Alabama give students the confidence to solve real problems and share their ideas with the world.”

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Have you ever stopped to think about just how important your tax dollars are to your local community? Have you considered how far those dollars stretch and what they actually provide? Without your tax dollars, there would be no fire department to respond if your home caught fire. Without your tax dollars, there would be no police department to answer a call for help. Roads would not be paved. Potholes would not be repaired. Public services we often take for granted would simply not exist. It is easy to sit behind a desk and order clothes, groceries and just about...

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I am just starting a new book. It’s called The Gentle Swedish Art of Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson. A friend recommended it to me. Well, actually, she recommended another book by the same author — one on aging gracefully. It was a humorous book, which I enjoyed very much. She was too tactful to mention how much stuff I have and that I probably would disregard the death cleaning book anyway. When I said how much I enjoyed the book on aging, she mentioned that the death cleaning book was much funnier. That made me sign up for it...

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