Author: Jen Madden

Masters Memories Tom Poland Posted April 11, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netThere comes a memory from long ago when Georgia had yet to win 1980 and 2021 national champions. No worries, Georgia was and is an annual world champion for those who compete for the green jacket.Living some 37 miles...

A Creek Runs Through It Tom Poland Posted April 7, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netWriters title works and often they fail to come up with a good one. Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas comes to mind. Sometimes a gem of a title comes along and its words and title stay...

A New Broom Sweeps Clean Tom Poland Posted March 23, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.net“A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners.” Mom pulled out this old saw when a new preacher attempted wholesale change or a new boss let the old employees go. The rest...

Rediscovering An Old Friend Tom Poland Posted March 21, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netMarch 3rd is a day I’ll long remember. A bit earlier I had given a talk to the Kiwanis Club at the Darlington Country Club. Returning home I chose to get lost. Just drive and see where...

An Old Tree, An Old Academy: A Magnolia and a School of Consequence Tom Poland Posted March 15, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netAs you top the Edgefield County rise, that fine word “copse” comes to mind. Copse, a small group of trees, that’s what you see. Look closer, however, and...

Cotton Pickin’ Memories Tom Poland Posted March 7, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netMy jaunts around the South take me past old haunts, a cotton gin now and then. I’ve seen gins in Salters, Bishopville, and other rural places. They sit idle. A spell back I ventured inside an old gin....

Miss Emily’s Oak Tom Poland Posted Feb. 28, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netShe planted the oak some sixty-eight years ago. Miss Emily was around twenty-six then. The years passed, the tree grew, and today it’s a setting Normal Rockwell would have appreciated. A classic Southern scene, it possesses the requisite...

From Savior to Survivor Tom Poland Posted Feb. 23, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netFour relics remind me of how things used to be: fire towers, windmills, chimneys, and silos. I’ve written about fire towers, windmills, and chimneys but never silos. I described where a rock chimney stands, its quartz glistening...

Wild Horses Tom Poland Posted Feb. 17, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netWhen I hear some determined soul say “wild horses couldn’t pull me away” thoughts race through my mind. First, I think of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. You’d think it’d be Mussel Shoals as mussels and waterways go together, but no,...

The Best Drink Of Water Tom Poland Posted Feb. 10, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netSeems to me, as the old folks would say, an aluminum dipper delivered the best drink of water. You’d sink that dipper into a wooden bucket. And that wooden bucket had just been winched up from...

Read The Fine Print Tom Poland Posted Feb. 4, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netNote: For Non-Offended Eyes OnlySome say we are what we eat and that what we eat these days is killing us. Down in Australia, some Australian Aboriginals moved to the city and adopted a civilized diet and...

Winter In Wambaw Bay Tom Poland Posted Feb. 2, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netThe orchestra is quiet, as winter holds the conductor’s baton. Still, a song comes to mind. “California Dreamin” where much is brown and gray—every shade of brown and gray you can imagine. Yet, if you know where...

The Emperor’s Hem Tom Poland Posted Jan. 31, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netIn the late 1990s, a time that seems ancient, I touched the emperor’s hem. That is I corresponded with a writer whose words revealed a style original and mesmerizing. Somehow, I hoped, might his gift rub onto me?...

Crow Tastes Pretty Good In Snow Tom Poland Posted Jan. 24, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netMy last column criticized I-20 as a barrier to snow in the classic South. “Winter after winter, radar reveals blue, pink, and white blotches rolling north of I-20. Below it? Green blotches of rain. Southerners...

The Great Dividing Line Tom Poland Posted Jan. 18, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netYet another dud weather storm forecast teaches me something. When the next Ice Age arrives, its frozen sheet will grind to a halt where I-20 crosses the Southeast. (Assuming civilization lasts that long.) Winter forecasts prove over...

Noble Ruin of the South Tom Poland Posted Jan. 6, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netWhen man abandoned it, the traffic diverted west, and the forest began to claim it. Today, sycamores, cedars, and oaks console it, and wind and water song replace the hum of tires. If you know when...

Miss Lucy, Childhood Legend Tom Poland Posted Jan. 3, 2022By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netSmall towns have that one eccentric person people long remember. Lincolnton, Georgia, had Miss Lucy Glaze. As I write I see a woman dressed in black, like Granny Clampett, racing down the sidewalk brandishing a rake. My...

Bitters, A History In Life And Literature Tom Poland Posted Dec. 20, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netAmong the dusty bottles and vase stand three alcoholic potions. I bought the matador-like bottle in Madrid when I traveled by train through hard, brown Spain. Next to it stands an elegant bottle from...

The Old Hand-Dug Well Tom Poland Posted Dec. 6, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netDriving a country road, I passed an old well house. It didn’t look like a wishing well. It looked rustic, more like a shed, a practical structure. I stopped and took a photo of the well. Right...