This is just a description of how my father said something funny that I and others have repeated for 50 years. He told us all that he had been at the new Kmart. It is worth saying that, at this time in the 1970s, Kmart was still new and exotic for us. There was a … Continue reading Toys, Toys, Line One →

Until my mother put her foot down, I got whitewalls at the barbershop as a kid, along with my two brothers. The barber shaved smooth the sides of my head around the ears with a straight razor. If I Google “whitewalls haircut” now, I find a literal explanation. On a light-skinned head, the shaving forms … Continue reading Whitewalls at Logan’s Barbershop, Maywood Mart →

Charles M. Nowell, 94, passed away in the early morning hours of May 27, 2025 at the Orchard, after a long and fruitful life raising a family, sculpting, whittling, carving, replacing shotgun stocks and otherwise indulging his ceaseless urge to create. He was born on November 2, 1930 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. His father said, “We … Continue reading Dad’s Obituary →

We all swam at the YMCA pool on Manhattan Road in my little neighborhood in Mississippi when we were kids. Just saying that conjures an entirely different world for me. I remember riding my red bike to the pool. That means that I could have been as young as 6 or 7. Over 50 years … Continue reading segregated pools in Jackson →

At the end of my last visit home, I got up ungodly early to drive down to the New Orleans airport. Still dark. The sky didn’t start getting light until I reached Lake Pontchartrain three hours later. So it was like I was creeping out in the cover of the night. Street lights were trembling … Continue reading The Long Goodbye →

On 9/11, I was working across the street from the South Tower. After living through that day, I found that I had a funny phrase struck in my head: “A mouse ran by on toy wheels.” This is a line in an old novel. The characters are sitting in a drab old kitchen. Nothing is … Continue reading a mouse ran by on toy wheels →

The first time I understood that people on TV and the radio were real and lived in the same world as me was in the 8th grade when Karen Martello tried to sell me Harvey Jett’s guitar. Harvey Jett was a lead guitarist in Black Oak Arkansas, one of the first Southern rock bands. Many … Continue reading Harvey Jett’s Guitar →

I moved to New York in 1987 and immediately noticed how everyone talked about leaving. You'd walk up to people chatting at a party and hear someone going on about how the art scene in Cleveland was so much more happening. Or how much space you can get for your rent in Baltimore. Almost everyone … Continue reading Slave of New York →

I wrote most the following right after those first videos of Joni Mitchell at the Newport Folk Festival were posted. Of course, she just performed at the Grammys. Looked a little slicker than Newport, but you get the idea. Like a lot of other people, I got very weepy watching the videos of Joni Mitchell … Continue reading What a drag it is getting old →

I’m listening to REM while I write this. “Gardening at Night” at this particular moment. My friend Craig referenced that song title in a story he told me about a guy he knew who tended a large marijuana grove on a secret island in a Mississippi lake. That strikes me as a quintessentially Southern image. … Continue reading REM in the Deep South →