Because one day they aren’t there

The hardest thing to get used to is the stillness. The quiet. The absolute absence of any movement at all. Day after day, everything is just as it was the day before.

His old Ford pickup is backed up to the garage, with the headlights pointing straight at our deck like a pair of eyes keeping watch. His late wife’s Subaru — which he could never bring himself to sell after she had a heart attack and passed away on the first day of their tropical vacation 10 years ago — is on the other side, nosed up to the garage door, as if hoping to gain entry. Between them is the golf cart he rode every day down the steep driveway, and then up the road to fetch his mail, with our chihuahua mix keeping pace and barking furiously as he chased along inside our fenced-in yard.

National parks should not depend on fees

By Mark Jamison • Guest Columnist | In Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, the political philosopher Michael Sandel discusses the tension between concepts of citizenship as a participatory responsibility and concepts of government as merely a transactional entity, another business from which we obtain services. In later work, Sandel bemoans our slide from a market economy to a market society, an all-encompassing concept that everything is for sale. Sandel’s discussions came to mind as I read Scott McLeod’s recent opinion piece Time to face reality regarding the Smokies.

Time to face reality regarding the Smokies

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park — for all its grandeur — is facing serious challenges, and it’s going to take those who cherish it the most to protect this acclaimed natural and cultural resource for future generations. If that means instituting entrance fees, then we’ll support taking the necessary steps to make that happen.

Downsizing Christmas, meaningful memories

It seems a lot of folks are downsizing Christmas this year, me included. My reasoning is specific to my life and emotions, but nonetheless, there appears to be a general theme: Experience over consumerism. 

‘OK Boomers,’ let’s just settle down

By Bob Clark • Guest Columnist

A 25-year-old New Zealand legislator, Chloe Swarbrick, was speaking about the environment when an older member of Parliament heckled her. Swarbrick, without missing a beat, replied:  “OK, Boomer.” (Read: Sit down and chill, Pops.). Or as a sixth-grader might say: “Nanny, nanny, boo, boo to you.” So, regardless of your age, let’s take a dive into whether “OK, Boomer” is snarky and mean-spirited or understated and on target. (Disclosure: the author was born in 1953).

The long wait is finally over

I didn’t know how much I would miss Shoney’s biscuits and gravy, potato soup, and hot fudge cake until they were torn cruelly away from me a few years ago. Locals will remember the day when that bright, shining “Shoney’s on the hill” — as we came to call it — was sacrificed on the altar of road improvements. Indeed, the road has improved, especially now that people have more or less learned how to use the roundabout in a way that they have not over in Jackson County, where many drivers continue to struggle with the concept of “yield.”

Trump overplays his hand with military

Under this commander-in-chief, war criminals are framed as heroes for political gains with his base while veterans who served with honor for decades are vilified. Of all of President Trump’s outrageous, disruptive behavior, it’s his un-military like actions toward our soldiers in uniform that roil me the most.

Food and exercise make good medicine

I was recently introduced to a book called What Made Maddy Run written by reporter Kate Fagan. It’s the story of a beautiful, smart, talented college freshman who jumped to her death from the top of a parking garage in downtown Philadelphia. Madison Holleran was the perfect all-American girl on a track scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania when the pressures of perfection and the demons within created a toxic cocktail.

Celebrating family, longevity and all that’s possible

Lillie is my dad’s big sister. He’s been gone for nineteen years — from a heart attack, in bed, while smoking his last cigarette — but Lillie keeps on going. Today is her 86th birthday, and we are having Thanksgiving a few days early to celebrate both. There will be 52 people there, which would be a decent chunk of Sparta’s population, except that a lot of the family has moved off, most to find work, some to find love, a few to find that great adventure of the unknown.

Politics too often beats our morality

The past few weeks have demonstrated the dark direction the United States is taking in foreign policy. Our country declared Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank legal, and the Senate blocked a resolution by the House to recognize the Armenian mass killings that took place during WWI as genocide. Politics, domestic and foreign, are guiding our foreign policy far more than the information, history, and morality that should. 

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