Annabel was tough, and she did not take prisoners. No excuses for failure to complete assignments were accepted. If a person was still drawing breath into their body, had blood coursing through their veins, and was still warm, they had darn well better have done their homework, or a browbeating ensued. She required book reports every two weeks. I remember vividly . . . Continue Reading
Earlier this month, Appalachia Bare took ourselves a little trip to Chattanooga and visited the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM). While there, we took a 65-minute train ride on the Local1)Why the term “local”? These short trains were a “lifeline to small towns along the railroad.” They often delivered mail,Continue Reading
Growing up in the shadow of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a city socially stratified according to altitude, I fell under the spell of native author Christine Noble Govan, whose specialty was children’s mystery novels set in or near the city’s scenic attractions. A prolific writer of more than 50Continue Reading
My friend Virgil Davis passed away on April 21, 2020, at his home in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the time, I posted a brief tribute to him on Facebook describing Virgil as a gentleman, scholar, teacher, community organizer, and social justice advocate. His son Jon echoed my sentiment in his dad’sContinue Reading
It is wonderful to live and sing. It is a great thing to feel that one is able to help other people with one’s voice. I want to play in a new opera where the heroine does not die in the last scene or go mad. That is why IContinue Reading
When I was ten, my mother enrolled me in Margaret Howell’s School of Dancing and Etiquette. It was a phase of my male finishing school education designed to rid the savage within and transform me into a Southern gentleman, i.e., Chaucer’s “veray parfit gentil knight.” (For the record, all gentlemenContinue Reading