Forty-four years ago unsolicited letters started arriving at our house written by my sister’s friend who at the time attended Indiana State University. Her letters gushed about a guy she witnessed play basketball like nothing she had ever seen. The letters kept coming. I remember being skeptical and disinterested at first. How good could a […]
Are you feeling jaded and disjointed by the letter J jaywalking across the submarine sandwich industry? Do you ever get confused about whether you want to go to Jimmy Johns, Jersey Mike’s, or Jerry’s? Do you know there are regional sub-shops named Jack Jeffreys, Joseph Jordans, Jude Jerichos, Justin Jades, Joseph Jacques, and Jupiter Mikes […]
I remember two years ago being a strange time, a bad stretch of life for the entire world. I remember the ventilators and hospitals being overcrowded. I remember the daily death reports. I remember being inside my house for longer daily and weekly stretches than I ever had been. I remember wondering how and why […]
I struggle to justify posting a blog here about writing. Most of you, I imagine, don’t write for a living per se. Composing sentences may not be your favorite thing or obsession but it is most definitely mine. But there’s another part of me that thinks, hey, why not put down some thoughts about what […]
In my town, there’s a company called Fifth Third Bank. Next door to that joint is Tenth Seventh Restaurant. Down the street from that: Twentieth Fifteenth Barber Shop. A gaggle of numerically combined company names in my hood. The eighth fourth-most ever. Every time I look at the Fifth Third Bank I first start thinking […]
Captcha is a word I run into often as a gateway step when logging into my computer. Usually, it’s some question like “Click on the photos showing a stoplight.” I click the wrong boxes three or four times then they give me the option to identify photos with sidewalks. I get several of them wrong, […]
Ja Morant sits back in a chair being serviced by a woman in a Denver nightclub. In the VIP suite dollar bills are scattered all over the sprawling floor looking like a thousand pieces of confetti. Two nights later Morant puts on his video camera. Shirt off, dancing, swerving, appearing to be hammered. Dangling a […]
Hey J.J. Redick, your budding ESPN broadcasting career may end fast if you’re not careful. You’ve been speaking out forcefully about racial issues in the NBA in recent days, and you’re coming across as angry and pretentious. You talk and cop an attitude like “I went to Duke and am smarter than the rest of […]
The day – that awful day – crashed into us on September 11, 2001. The President of Wake Forest University, Thomas, K. Hearn, gave a speech during a memorial service in Wait Chapel, the campus spire-adorned beacon of hope and everything the institution stands for. To help the community recover from the unspeakable tragedies of […]
Had a dream last night. Wanna know what it was about? Didn’t think so. So in this dream, I’m lying there thinking about something, not sure what. And as it was happening, it seemed like something important was going on – love or a momentous achievement — while at the same time, I couldn’t figure […]
