Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
BBQ and Lickin' Good Donuts
I walked out of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute still immersed in the Birmingham of 1963. It was a nice late February Alabama day. I got in my 2006 Buick, turned left aimlessly at the corner, and drove into the Birmingham of 2019. Downtown is still developing, but it has a ways to go. Lots of empty buildings. I went down the hill, still thinking about Fred Shuttlesworth, and found...
A Hero of Birmingham
Birmingham Alabama is entirely a post civil war city of the South. It was strategically established in 1871 at the intersection of two railroad lines. In 1880, fifteen years after the end of the civil war, Birmingham’s population was only 3,086. Twenty years later, in 1900, it had grown to 12 times that size (38,000). In 1930 the population swelled to 260,000 and it peaked in 1960 at 341,000. ...
Entering Alabama
Soon after crossing into Alabama from Tennessee on I-65, near Ardmore, you hit the welcome center. These welcome center deals vary from state to state. Some are just the first rest area on the interstate when you cross the state line with an extra rack of pamphlets in the lobby. Others are built out, tricked up, staffed, and designed to be special. Alabama went all out in its center welcoming...
Road Trip Day One
The trouble with old people, just one of the many troubles old people suffer, is they take what they encountered personally or learned from others in the past as truth and ignore new information. The world changes without them. History is not so much rewritten as it is scrutinized and made fresh with new facts. Old people think they know things, when in fact it’s often only half the story....
Leaving Guatemala
I was in Guatemala on the top deck of a boat traveling across Lake Atitlan from San Antonio Polapo to San Lucas Toliman after the first day of I Care International’s free eye clinic when my friend Tim asked me this question; “So what would it take for you to pack it all in and move to a warmer place?” I was in a tee shirt and shorts. The sun...
Chickens on Trial
On July 25, 20126 Dave Giuliani covered the opening day of Village of Ransom vs. Randy Stillwell in LaSalle County civil court, otherwise known as “The Chicken Trial,” It opened with a surprising argument. Attorney Cara Luckey, representing the village, offered this, as written by Giuliani. In her opening statement, the village’s attorney, Cara Luckey, said Stillwell had no evidence showing the village board intended to exempt Stillwell’s chickens. Even...
All Politics are Local
I’ve never had an editor, a censor, oversight for my writing in any way. Memo, letters, press releases, grant applications, stories, and poems have always been what I wanted and how I wanted them for good or ill. I think of editors mostly in regard to newspapers. Plenty of good writers were born from the discipline of writing the tight, to the point, factual copy for which newspapers are known. ...
Remembering a Poet
Before the storm hits, both here in the Midwest and in Washington (though it seems like foul weather is now the norm in Washington) take a deep breath and consider poetry. One of America’s wonderful poets died yesterday, Mary Oliver. She was 83. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for a collection of poems called American Primitive. New and Selected Poems earned her a National Book Award in 1992. ...
Just Where am I Going?
I’m planning the route for my February road trip in the Buick. It continues to run like a top. I drive to Pensacola in the panhandle of Florida to play golf with some guys from Illinois who fly there. After that I join up with my wife who flies one way. We visit relatives in southern Florida. Then we drive back. This year we’re stopping for a while in Memphis...
Namaste
Finally the sun broke through. After what seemed like weeks of dense clouds and fog the morning was clear and I could see the sun across the ravine from the shack, shining red through the trees. It was 7:21:22 a.m.. Within an hour the sun yellowed and was above the trees, throwing light into my shack through the east glass wall. Light passed over my wood stove and threw wavy...