The historical image of the South has so concentrated on Charleston, New Orleans, Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, and other low-lying areas that many Americans forget we also have mountains. Tampans are less likely to take that view because so many of our affluent families have sought refuge from summer heat over the years in North Carolina. Relatively few of us, however, go to Tennessee or north Georgia. These areas are indeed part of the Great Smokey Mountains, and Hubby and I renewed our acquaintance with them last week, when we vacationed with family at a lake house south of Knoxville and drove back through the mountains north of Atlanta.  Read More 

Hubby observed D-Day by watching – again – The Longest Day, as well as other World War II stuff on the History Channel. I remember my excitement when the History Channel began, naively thinking this would be an opportunity to acquaint Americans with some of the many outstanding women who are neglected by historians, but no such luck. The channel is pretty much a subsidiary of the Pentagon, just replaying old war clips. And there are a lot of those, as the Defense Department always has been willing to throw a disproportionate amount of money at photography. This began with the Civil War and has continued. During World War II alone, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were assigned to the MOS (military occupational specialty) of photography.  Read More 

A recent column on the upcoming Constitutional Revision Commission (CRC) focused on the status of women on the 36-member body. To review: one woman in 1968; five in 1978; ten in 1998, and for 2018, twelve. Big whoop. Today I want to drop that aspect of “progress” and explore ideas I might have proposed had we been in the visionary place in 2018 that, back in 1998, I thought we could be.  Read More