Points of Beginning

05/13/2026

When my great-grandaunt followed her husband into a dark old house in Mobile in 1955, she didn’t expect to end up babysitting his mother. When he fell dead two years later, all of her certainty was buried with him. She was left with his watch shop, a couple dozen rental properties, the old Ladd house and the old lady, riding a creaky elevator and muttering to the television.

05/11/2026

When Angeline Sibley followed her husband into a dark old house in Mobile in 1955, she didn't expect to end up babysitting his mother. When he fell dead two years later, all of her certainty was buried with him.

Angeline Sibley walked from a limousine into a dark, empty house on Government Street in the summer of 1957, wheeling ahead a senile old woman in black with whom she shared no blood. At that moment she was sure of precious little — perhaps as little as when she’d first

03/08/2026

Some relatives follow their own paths, unapologetically but mysteriously. At the edge of family life, they are often whispered about and wondered about. A great-grandaunt departed this world a rich woman, leaving behind a wealth of secrets hidden in plain sight.

Black sheep is a loaded term. Bestowed upon oneself, the term portrays a false air of contrition, as if acknowledging that familial contrast comes with subliminal, if measured, apology. Some extend the apology into a ritual of indulgence, granting themselves permission to continue their dissociative...

02/20/2026

Reaching into my memory to reconstruct formative places long gone is like trying to catch a glimpse inside the dark cistern on at the McVay place: there's always something almost visible, yet you always get in your own way of it. Come peer into the well with me.

There are some places so embedded in your core memories, you can describe every nook and no-man's-land with your eyes closed. Some are so ingrained — very nearly genetically — that your confidence in that memory tempts no reach for supporting evidence. My grandfather lived on the McVay property ...

02/08/2026

I’ve always been interested in how place shapes people — how deeply some of those places take hold and how it feels when they're gone.

Points of Beginning is where I’m exploring that now. The door's open.

More than a quarter-century ago, I loaded my pickup with cheap, self-assembled furniture and plastic tubs full of baggy clothes and gifted towel sets, and made one of dozens of three-hour trips to Auburn. The same summer, my high-school employer Mac's Drugs vacated its then-longest home on Kimball A...

02/08/2026

I’ve always been interested in how place shapes people — how deeply some of those places take hold and how it feels when they’re gone.

Points of Beginning is where I’m exploring that now.
The door’s open.

02/25/2024

What a beautiful treat to see perform his clever, honest, empathetic songwriting in one of our city’s crowning architectural treasures. So happy to share the night and art with .

07/22/2023

I spent all of our dry, cold spring developing my bartending skills, pondering whether I’d make a good Batman villain named The Muddler. As peach season peaks and I continue to wait for my tomatoes to ripen, I’ve taken to infusing our booze with that perfect fruit, which gives a light edge as a bourbon to a manhattan or simply shaken as a vodka with a few dashes of Peychaud’s. Cheers to tomato sandwiches and zucchini everything.

06/03/2023

After yesterday’s rain, I walked the tree line and had an urge to arrange some greenery and wildflowers, including a healthy sprite of viburnum, fake baby’s breath and a playful sprig of wisteria. My grandmother’s grease can felt like the perfect vessel. Cheers to spring and not picking anything poisonous.

04/23/2023

As a native Southerner, i’m a little impatient for a New Jersey spring. Balancing an unsteady, frost-focused calendar with the folksy advice from the nurser, who aligns the planting date with the nearest Hallmark holiday.

So instead of perky tomato and pepper plants, I returned with strawberries and literal s**t … and I was excited about it, as I couldn’t find manure last year. My beds are refreshed and turned, and I took a stab at growing strawberries in anunconventional rain gutter.

Our friends Dan and Kelly sent us an awesome, bar-packing basket of nuts on a recent visit, and in the middle were dehydrated strawberries, a delightful snack and potentially preservable cocktail garnish. Whether a further step involves alcohol infusions we shall see.

I told myself physics didn’t ordain the bracket’s hole for a nail, yet I tried anyway if only because it looked right. After finding the perfectly proportioned decking screw, I used a proximately sized star bit and went to screwing, as a storm were approaching.

Since I’ll be waiting a bit, I’ll seed some heirlooms in the morning and start dreaming of caprese and a new twist on a Manhattan.