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I need you to understand something.

I love my job.

Since I’m sure you understand now, I’ll get on with this list of things I’d do if I didn’t have to work. (more…)

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I pushed my lawn chair into the sand and sat.

I was part of a small crowd, which had gathered on the beach to witness the aftermath of a seldom-seen spectacle of nature.

The crowd included several small girls, who giggled as they flipped through pamphlets and stared with wide-eyed wonder at a little indention on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.

The spot was the only visible sign of sea turtle nest No. 20, which had hatched a few days earlier.

While the crowd watched, trained volunteers dug into the sand below the spot until they reached the chamber of the nest.

They lifted unhatched eggs, broken eggshells and one dead hatchling from the chamber to be recorded before they buried them again.

All of this amazed the group of small girls, and I heard one of them say they’d seen history.

I smiled and thought about how amazed they’d be if they were ever around when one of those nests hatched.

I saw a sea turtle nest hatch once.

It was something I never knew I needed to see, and something I’ll never forget. (more…)

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Mama and I were enjoying a breezy evening on the front porch of a cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota yesterday when our neighbors opened the door to their cabin.
We had different neighbors when the day started, but the new ones — a man and his wife — quickly spotted us. (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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The first day of a new year has almost come and gone.

A steady rain is falling, as it has nearly all day.

I can hear it thumping against the roof of my house in a rhythm which is bound to put me to sleep.

While I’m still awake, since I’ve properly greeted the new year, I’ve decided to spend the next 54 minutes or so on what happened in the old one.

What a year it was. (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…)