Wailing River

When I was first curious about the Alabama music industry, I had just met Rick Hall down in Montgomery. He wasn’t very nice, but was no doubt interesting. I found a string, and pulled it. I followed it. I went down the rabbit hole. It took me a few years, but I was waiting on […]

The River and Waters

In my book “Telling Hands” I talk about how I grew up playing in the River. We swam and fished and camped on the river. We had family gatherings on the Tennessee. It’s where I learned to swim and was baptized. You see, Town Creek, Lake Guntersville, and the Tennessee River all come together right […]

Freedom and Slavery

Yesterday, my sons and I had a long discussion about our family tree. I think its very cool and works as a great teaching tool when it comes to learning about history. The early colonial Americans caught Native Americans, caged them like Animals and shipped them overseas as slaves. This is a point of slavery […]

Fade Away

A man from here served something like twenty years. He had gone after a rapist and beat him to death. He never tried to hide it and I was never afraid of him. He appreciated that I was keeping the home town alive. So, he’d stop in and buy stuff when he was riding around. […]

Stories

I love stories. We, as people, are addicted to stories. My grandparents used to call the soap opera shows they watched “stories” when I was a child. We listen to songs, we watch TV, we read books. It’s all just stories. Varied stories, varied versions, varied story-telling methods. We tell ourselves stories in our sleep […]

Nine Months Falling in Love with Gatsby

(Archived Buzzfeed Article from 2014- by Jamie Godwin) Last year, with the release of the newest version of the film based on the book, “The Great Gatsby,” parties were popping up, with those in attendance cheerfully donning twenties era garb and learning to dance the Charleston. I realized that I had never seen […]

Friendship

It has been years since I have been in a position to advocate for what was then, Alabama’s 20 Holocaust survivors. I am sure the number is fewer now. Ms Sonja Bromberg was one survivor that I knew well and was quite fond of. Sonja shuddered when she recalled seeing Hitler as a child in […]

Shank

There was a pastor of a church. He and his family lived down the street. Mr. Shank had three sons. You know what they say about preacher’s children and how wild they are. Well, this family was no exception. Some are, I suppose. The boys grew up to be men. They were used to a […]

Power

Layla was sitting in a circle around a fire with a couple of her friends, Donna and Raymond. Raymond wasn’t a very good conversationalist and had bought a “Book of Questions” to help him along his way in life coming up with things to say. One of the questions in his book was “If you […]

Needle Work

Margaret was about to turn ninety. Oh, what a life she has lived. It was winter and she was cold. Margaret took her sewing kit out and started a quilt. She couldn’t drive anymore and lived alone. Her kids were all grown, her husband dead and long gone. The house she had lived […]