Category: News Exchange Columns

The Allure of Barbed Wire & Cedar Tom Poland Posted Nov. 29, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netOut in the country skinny metal fence posts rule pasturelands nowadays. I seldom see old cedar-barbed wire fences, but when I do they unleash a flood of memories. I remember riding through pastures with...

Grandmom’s Fabulous Fried Pies Tom Poland Posted Nov. 17, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netShe dried sliced apple, peaches, and pears on a slanted wooden table facing the sun. Nails prevented the fruit from sliding to the ground. Once it dried to her taste, Grandmom Walker waited for a cold day....

No Gas, No Batteries, No Electricity Required Tom Poland Posted Nov. 10, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netAll it requires is a steady hand. It doesn’t disturb the peace on Saturday mornings. So quiet is it, I doubt it’d suffer banning in ever-vigilant California. If you hear it working, at most...

A Vanishing Coastal Icon Tom Poland Posted Nov. 1, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netPhotographers love to shoot them at sunrise. Riding a glittering golden sea, shrimp boats strike a classic silhouette with that orb of fire rising behind them. A shrimp trawler working coastal waters ranks right up there with...

That Legendary Everlasting Plant, Rabbit Tobacco Tom Poland Posted Oct. 26, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netShe smoked it as a kid. Said she smoked grapevines too but it was Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, one of the everlastings, she talked about most. She and her brothers and sisters smoked rabbit tobacco. She was...

Above, Not Below, The Jailhouse Tom Poland Posted Oct. 25, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netStanding in a courtroom, a malefactor dreads a dire warning. “If you don’t straighten up, I’ll put you under the jailhouse.” Uttered by many a judge, that admonition, no doubt, failed to hit the mark, and...

Elusive Butterfly Of Fall Tom Poland Posted Oct. 19, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netDecember 1965, that’s when a catchy tune debuted. Bob Lind’s “Elusive Butterfly” used a butterfly as a metaphor for love. Some of you survivors of these modern times might remember Lind’s line, “I chase the bright elusive...

Star Light, Star Bright Tom Poland Posted Oct. 14, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netBack in the late 1980s and early ’90s, I’d leave on a Friday afternoon and head for the mountains, the Blue Ridge species. My monthly drives from Columbia, South Carolina, to Buchanan, Virginia, took me to family....

Magic In Some Alien World Tom Poland Posted Oct. 6, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netOn a hot, windless Sunday, I found a place where wind swept up and over a cliff to pour through pines. The cooling torrent felt like a sea breeze off Pawleys Island, though I was nowhere...

My Last Dog Tom Poland Posted Sept. 28, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netShould you walk our family land in eastern Georgia, you’ll come across several cemeteries. No, they’re not ancestors. You won’t see headstones. You’ll see wooden crosses and one brick-like stone of quartz. Unlike ancestors we never knew, loved...

Catching Gators Tom Poland Posted Sept. 17, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netIf you’re going to get ‘et,’ be brave and get ‘et.’Like a lot of eastern Georgians I grew up with no contact with gators. My writing career, however, would put me around gators far more than I ever imagined.Two...

Tall Tales—Truth Can Be Elusive Tom Poland Posted Sept. 15, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netThe last time I wrote about the nightlife, my late mom gave me a reading. She upbraided me about the evils of alcohol and told me only alcoholics go to bars. Not true, of course. Well,...

You’ve Got To Feel the Food Tom Poland Posted Sept. 7, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netA few years back on a fall day I attended a wild game dinner on the grounds of Hobcaw Barony’s Bellefield Stables. I sat among folks from up north. The chef and caterer was also...

Where They Sleep, While They Sleep Tom Poland Posted Aug. 20, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netI visit old cemeteries quite a bit. Lest you think death thoughts consume me, understand that readers tell me of near-forgotten cemeteries. It’s my duty to visit them. I find them photogenic and a tonic...

A Natural Motown Mystery-Miracle Tom Poland Posted February 10, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netIf you think this story is about Berry Gordy’s 1960’s record label that gave us “Baby Love,” “My Girl,” and “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” you’re wrong. It’s about the wheeled products Motor City has long shipped...

The Stoves Of My Life Tom Poland Posted February 3, 2021By Tom PolandA Southern Writerwww.tompoland.nettompol@earthlink.netEarly on, my grandmothers cooked on wood-burning stoves and, later, electric ranges. Cooking with electricity. That must have seemed a marvel to them. I never, however, saw them use a kerosene oil stove. In fact, I...