Oak Ridge. These words always had an enigmatic, almost magical sound to my ears. I couldn’t imagine what my father found so fascinating about this place. More fascinating than nature walks in the woods. More fascinating than teaching biology at the university. So fascinating that he would give up theContinue Reading
My secret nickname, Meat Grinder, for the Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, man displaced by the Highway 27 project was partly a tribute to his roughhewn visage but more about his making hamburger out of my life. He had put me through hell, but, with the assistance of a creative mortgage banker, IContinue Reading
I went to my mother’s grave last night, which was fitting, seeing as it was Mother’s Day, but that’s not why I went. I went because she was to be dug up in the morning. All of the graves at the Waldrop Memorial Cemetery, the ones not claimed and reburiedContinue Reading