Opinions

Hollywood is great at faking it. In fact, so are thespians who have such skilled talent that live-theatre is popular from local stages to Broadway in Manhattan. It takes years of study and training to play a character role, so much, that actors become famous around the globe for the parts they play.

Desiring to possess things, whether or not they belong to us, is quite common. And it begins when young children want something that others have, or when their own toy is in the hands of another, they cry one word, “Mine!”

I had a discouraging day yesterday.

Growing up in a home where the board of education was applied to the seat of understanding, being regularly acquainted with discipline brings a flinch at the mere thought of it. My mom and step-father may have spared the rod, they did not spare other forms of correction, all with the idea of motivating better behavior. To be clear, this column is in no way a promotion of abuse.

“I like your hair!” a woman at the party said.

Each year my college friends and I move mountains to get to one another; this past weekend, we settled on the side of one to analyze the year gone by. We were at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., where the azaleas bloom magnificently amongst golfers and artists, birdwatchers and music lovers.

I bought a green recipe file when I entered the ninth grade. It was a generic, metal file, necessary for home economics class. It probably cost less than a dollar at V. J. Elmore’s Five & Dime. The usual suspects went into the file: Blonde Brownies, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Hot Chocolate, Sloppy Joes with Pickles. Those were the recipes we students prepared in and out of class, eating—or refusing to eat—our experiments in the kitchen.