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It was just another Tuesday, and I was just another 15-year-old sophomore in high school.

My mind had little regard for anything except girls, sports, what I’d eat for lunch and how I’d get through math class.

I didn’t have a cell phone or a driver’s license.

I was nowhere near New York City or the World Trade Center.

Terrorism was just a word.

I’m 32 now. Things are different.

I know you might skim this story on your cell phone. I know you might be too young to remember what happened.

Maybe you weren’t even born.

Maybe all you know about Sept. 11, 2001, came from what you’ve seen on social media or heard in history class.

My friend wrote a column about Sept. 11 last week, in which she made a wonderful point about what I remember most from the the day’s aftermath. I’ve thought about you since I read it. I thought about you again this morning, when I saw an Instagram post from a history teacher who had students interview someone who has a clear memory of what happened 17 years ago today to help them see a different picture of one of America’s most disasterous days.

I’ll never forget what unfolded in those hours.

If you can’t remember, and you have a minute to spare, I’d like to try to take you to a time when the history you’ve heard was just heartbreak. (more…)

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I have listened a lot in the last few days.

I have listened to a lot of opinions on a lot of different things since the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have opinions on a lot of things, most of which I will keep to myself because they aren’t important.

I will address some things, however, and I will start with a story. (more…)

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I planned to discuss Mount Rushmore in this column.

Instead, I wrote about stairs, persistence and two people I met in an old graveyard.

I realize those sentences don’t make sense so here’s a little backstory. (more…)

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My phone was going crazy, and it wouldn’t stop. The screen showed a flash flood alert, but I dismissed it and glanced up at a small sliver of road through a rain-soaked windshield.

I was on my way to Georgiana, on a trip to see the museum inside Hank Williams’ boyhood home. (more…)

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Last Saturday, Mama and I took another trip to the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery.
We’d been once before, when we randomly decided we’d make the hour-plus drive to see what the archives had to offer, and we weren’t disappointed.
The archives were different last weekend, but in a good way. (more…)

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I once read an ebook that included the question asking whether I would live nomadically if I could.
It asked where I would go, how I would decide where to go and what life would be like if I didn’t have just one place to call home.
The answers, of course, were in songs. (more…)