Commentary on Current Events of Interest to Columbus, and the Surrounding Counties of NC
Editor’s note: Bladen County Board of Education member Steve Kwiatkowski published this opinion piece on his personal social media this week. It is shared here with his permission. On this...
I happened to catch maybe two minutes of the Country Music Awards the other night. For reasons I cannot fathom, a bunch of the new stars were singing Phil Collins...
I crumpled gratefully into my grandfather’s chair, and moaned a little as I took off my shoes. I had to wonder how many other men in my family had done...
When did parenting become mainstream? I certainly couldn’t pinpoint the pivot in society where we decided that marketing the idea of being a good parent became a good idea. I’d...
I was on an already unpleasant errand when a friend called with the words that would shake the coldest stone statue. “There’s a little kid been shot,” he said. It...
I got my digital hands slapped the other day because of my choice of words when I identified an animal track. Some friends were sharing pictures of their camping trip,...
In the woods beside our house is a half-forgotten colony box for martins. It was knocked into the trees and vines during one storm or another, and restoring it to...
When I was a kid, there were words that would get your tail torn up, and words that might, in some families, mean you were never seen again. Maybe it...
On the road the other day, I glanced at an old farm I’ve watched for years, but this time there was nothing left to see. The first house on the...
I saw my mother the other day, despite the fact that she went to Heaven 20 years ago. There was a pretty, intense and somewhat frazzled young mother holding hands...
I hate February. It wasn’t even February yet when I had my latest reminder, although the scurvy, splintered, spindly, slimy Month of Gloom loomed ominously omnipresent across the calendar and...
“Do you have heart?” I stood at parade rest doing my best to make heads or tails of the question when my platoon sergeant asked again. “Do you have heart?”...
The rainbands were still blowing across the long lane to our house, more reminiscent of a late summer storm than winter. I was thinking to myself how we had dodged...
In the Winter of 2007 I was hunting a two-year-old Walker hound named Kate. She was extremely hard-headed to say the least. She was a bit trashy and would miss...
A deadbeat young mother goat and a few other needs sent us on a semi-emergency trip to town the other night. It was a Saturday, which means dress codes are...
Today is January 6, the anniversary of the protests, riot, insurrection of whatever you want to call it that rocked Washington DC and led to a shameful witch hunt by...