The Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope has served as the cornerstone of the art community for as many years as I can remember. Since 2017, Bryant Whelan has been its Executive Director. Bryant has announced her retirement at the end of May, and a search for her replacement has recently been completed. Hers are indeed big shoes to fill!

Not Senior in high school or college. Senior means, we get discounts at stores, Medicare, and our own parking spaces. Makes us sound so feeble and needy, but we absolutely are not. I mean senior as in after 65, wiser, and better.

Winter is a season of extremes. Technically, one more month to go. My mind looks at seasons as activities. There is an order to it. The build-up to Winter comes after Thanksgiving. Mid-December gives us an extreme number of social activities culminating with Christmas Day, then a mindless lull as we close a year and begin anew with New Year's Eve celebrations. Lots of football. Get it while you can. And hunting, a Southern tradition is in full swing.

Summer in south Alabama often seems like it is never going to end and then one day, fall shows up for one morning and you experience the turning of the season. I love that first feeling of fall, and while the boys are out preparing their deer fields, I have found myself thinking about…now don’t judge me….but I am thinking of Mardi Gras!! It is the best cure for me to survive those last lingering days of hot and humid weather!

Someone once said, “Once you have had a wonderful dog, life without them is a life diminished.”

My Daddy would occasionally treat us boys to Sleepy’s Barbeque in our little town of Evergreen, Alabama. Mr. Lum Parker was seated, drinking coffee, every time we went in. Mr. Lum didn’t own Sleepy’s, but he was always there. He held forth with other customers on a breadth of subjects as he was an expert on local intrigue. Mr. Lum easily transitioned to talk of hunting, fishing, religion, timber, Gunsmoke, and tire re-capping. He reserved special venom for communists. People knew not to get him started on communism.

When I was a teenager, America’s Junior Miss pageant was a big deal for our city. High school contestants from every state descended upon Mobile after being selected in local competitions.

U.S. Highway 98 was initially built in 1933 as a route from Pensacola to Apalachicola. It has since been extended, and now runs 964 miles southeast from Natchez, Mississippi to Palm Beach, Florida. Beginning at the Causeway in Mobile, heading east, Scenic 98 hugs some of the most beautiful coastlines along the Gulf of Mexico to St. Marks, Florida. This is a drive worth taking.