One Friday afternoon I noticed the school’s flag struggling against a hard west wind. I eased out the gym’s back door to my 1966…

Recently a friend reminded me Gram Parsons was buried in New Orleans and asked had I visited his grave. This friend knew I had a history with Gram so her question was a natural extension of conversations we have had. So today I drove to a Metairie cemetery, the Garden of…

In early November 1959, an overwhelming and permanent sadness surged unchecked into the small brick rental house. This palpable darkness entered through the front door settling everywhere, in each room, behind every curtain and door. This gloom struck the lights dim, even…

My mother with the baby on her lap and her sister-in-law driving would have traveled west out of Jacksonville on Highway 90 some miles before turning south on Highway 301. Passing through hardwood and pine stands, overgrown ditches, small farms, shotgun shacks with truck…

One year after receiving a diagnosis of lung cancer, Betty W. Burke died on July 19, 2005. She was seventy-seven years old.

Several days later, I began the process of cleaning her home. I started in her bathroom tossing decades of accumulated…