Whether it is the hot weather, the age of your landscape or simply the need for change, a late summer makeover can help you increase your landscape’s beauty. Put the “wow” back into your garden with a few new plantings, garden art or other simple improvements.
One of the less desirable places where most of us find ourselves from time to time is the waiting room. It’s a place filled with emotions that can vary from dread to disgust. I have experienced waiting rooms as both patient and journalist awaiting consultations, as well as treatment.
Being the oldest at the office among my colleagues, I find amusement in today’s conversational English as I hear conversations around me. I find interesting the expressions and clichés of today that pretty much use the same words that I grew up with but have gotten different meanings with th…
Back in school, there was a nearly two-month stretch between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and spring break that seemed to last for a semester. There was something about wintertime outside and no chance of a break from class any time soon that made parts of January and March and all of Febr…
To the Editor,
The infections and fatalities linked to COVID-19 continue to rise, yet we Americans appear to remain conflicted about how we cope with this pandemic.
Rage Against the Machine. Public Enemy. Charlie Daniels. Tupac Shakur. Could all those guys ever wail when they had a microphone in their hands. Oh, at the hours I spent when I was in junior high and high school singing along with what they said...even though I didn’t fully comprehend most o…
To the Editor:
Life is full of natural milestones that mark different stages of life. Milestone stems from a word that refers to a stone that functions as a milepost, something that marks progress on a journey.
As is, Monroe County has plenty of water running through it. Take a rainy spell, and it doesn’t take much for these creeks to rise out of their banks.
From staying up late hostessing for people coming to El Rey for tacos to getting up at an early hour for workouts at Tupos. From nurturing a growing family to nurturing a growing relationship with my work family. These are just a few of the many highlights of my last five years.
When Bro. R.D. Cline spoke, everyone in the room heard him. There was no mistake about that. He could also throw you off guard with the stern expression he often exhibited. Some people actually thought he was a mean man before they got to know him.
There are some sweet home-grown compensations for Mississippi’s torrid summers.
I’ve been sitting in on an unusual number of school board meetings this summer, empathizing with educators and board members trying to sort out a bewildering array of options for reinventing education in the face of a global pandemic.
I’ve said it plenty of times before, politics does not have to rule your life unless you want it to do that. Piggy-backing off that thought, you don’t have to wait on elected officials to make your life better.
Some people have told me, “Hope isn’t a strategy.” Simply hoping something will happen doesn’t make it happen. I agree, but I also think hope is an integral part of supporting a successful strategy. With the rising number of new COVID-19 cases in Mississippi, is there an opportunity for hope…
Many drivers and pedestrians pay little or no attention at railroad crossings they drive across day after day. They don’t realize that freight trains do not run on set schedules and can be anywhere at any time going in any direction. And now is a time to be even more cautious since the speed…
Thinking back to elementary school, thoughts of being a police officer or a firefighter were pretty typical subjects to occupy young boys’ imaginations while being taught of our potential when we grew up.
When my children were young I had them smell things to imprint things deeply. In my lectures, I often show a photo of Zoe with her face deep in a big magnolia flower and explain that no matter who or where she ends up, for the rest of her life every time she encounters a magnolia flower, its…
I’m trying to be fair about it... I’ve been studying some positions taken by those outside of my political and social comfort zone to see if I might safely broaden my perspective and understanding.
I can’t say how many years in late July when I’ve written a hype column about the beginning of a new school year. Every new school year is your new beginning.
I was sitting at Amory’s busiest railroad crossing recently on a Saturday morning waiting on a train to pass. While others were turning around to take another route, I wasn’t in a hurry for once and decided to use the time to work on the endless task of weeding out emails on my phone.
To the Editor:
Regrettably, it’s a rare thing these days for the member of one political party to brag on a member of the other political party. But, I have always believed that credit should be given for good public policy regardless of the author’s political party.
During the past several weeks, you’ve probably heard about occupied zones in Seattle and about monuments being defaced in Washington D.C. If you haven’t heard, here in Monroe County, people come together for more positive outcomes.
Letter to the Editor:
Many weekends growing up as a kid, I was somewhere out in the country. While I wasn’t free to roam as far staying with my grandmother, the weekends staying with my aunt meant I had wide-open space and permission to explore.
Letter to the Editor:
Among the much-used phrases describing the circumstances of this chaotic year of 2020 are that we are finding ourselves in unprecedented times and going in uncharted directions.
I have a dilemma that is both cute and fascinating, but has the potential to wreak havoc in my Certified Wildlife Habitat garden.
About this time six months from now, you probably will not care about most of whatever’s taking up your day today. If you do have to work that day, your heart won’t be 100 percent into it.
If, as a healthy adult, I’m in a relationship that isn’t serving me, I know I need to make some changes. For example, if I’m always giving and the other person is always taking, or if I’m constantly having to defend the relationship to others, then I should know something is wrong. Perhaps s…
To the Editor:
The stories of how the global coronavirus pandemic have brought out the best in people were just gathering some momentum when the tragic murder of George Floyd in Minnesota by a white police officer turned things upside down. Battling the virus briefly seemed to unite everyone against a comm…
Every four years, Olympics enthusiasts in these parts cheer for Team USA during the summer games. With every summer Olympics season, there are the Carl Lewises, Mary Lou Rettons, Michael Phelpses and Simone Bileses who shine on the world’s stage, make a name for themselves and spark a differ…
For less than a year now, the coronavirus COVID-19 has been infecting people around the world, changing the way we live and work dramatically. There is a lot that is unknown about this novel disease, but there are a few things that are certain.
The safety, health and well-being of Monroe County’s residents are always the top priority of our health care providers. The COVID-19 pandemic has made all of us reevaluate how we do any number of activities and for many patients, that has included delaying or avoiding seeing a physician.
A skewed way of thinking can take a peaceful protest and ignite it into nights upon nights’ worth of senseless destruction and violence. By the time buildings are destroyed and neighborhoods are in ruins, was that skewed way of thinking even in line with what the peaceful protest was truly about?
I simply cannot think of a better time to come together as a community and celebrate one another. That’s right, folks. It’s time for the 2020 Best of Monroe Reader’s Choice.
A lesson I’m learning through the turmoil caused by the global pandemic is not new to me but is taking on new meaning these days.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi hospitals have stepped up to build and staff temporary treatment facilities; overcome personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilator shortages; and care for the sick and dying – often at great personal sacrifice. Mississippi’s nearly 60,000 hospi…
I watched the national news the other night. I knew there was a reason why I stopped watching it a while ago and opted for The Weather Channel, leisurely internet time or mindless shows from my DVR or DVD collection instead.
Living in northeast Mississippi, there are plenty of things you’re used to seeing on a regular basis. A field full of some sort of crop during the growing season, church parking lots full of cars and stadium lights illuminating small towns on Fridays in late summer and the fall are just thre…
While those of us who call northeast Mississippi home have never felt the concept of the 100-year flood as intimately as our fellow citizens of Mississippi Delta, we are in close enough proximity to be familiar with the concept. I recall in college when there was such an event that struck th…
When this pandemic began, life was crazy for us all. So many overwhelming feelings, the scary thoughts forming from the unknown, stress from financial changes and burdens, routines being messed up, loneliness due to social distancing…the list can go on and on.
Gardening activity is being supercharged right now by three fevers working together to keep more of us close to home.
Once I had permission as a pre-teen to roam as far as I’d like on Saturdays, I went. Even though Walmart and downtown Aberdeen seemed far enough away to pack snacks, they were completely worth it once my friends and I peddled there on our mountain bikes.
It’s February, 1962. As a 14-year-old girl, I sat on the floor in front of the cast iron wood stove inside our unpainted, mostly unheated cabin in the woods near Noel, Missouri. As I put the kindling in the stove, I stirred the coals and watched the flame ignite. Looking deep within the fire…
To the Editor:
It’s always good to have a plan. I remember a black church elder I visited with years ago who told me, “You need to plan your work and then work your plan.”
