Early this morning, I saw this hanging in the back yard. Impressive, isn’t it? Beautiful, actually, especially as it catches the sun. There’s symmetry and purpose in this spider’s construction. As I got close to snap the photo, it looked like she was doing a little repair work in […]
Last week, NPR’s History Department had a great story about flirtation cards. Ever hear of them? The fellow who had to use flirtation cards to meet eligible young ladies strikes me as having been a little desperate, you know? The young man may not have been invited to dances or […]
I heard back from the archivist at the University of West Florida, Dr. DeBolt, about the half-editorial written by CHB Floyd in the Pensacola Evening News for 1912. Dr. DeBolt checked the hard-copy holdings and the reserve film. Unfortunately, the bound copy and the reserve film showed that the editorial is […]
For three weeks, I’ve been working through a set of microfilm generously on loan to me from the University of West Florida, specifically, the Pensacola Evening News for 1912. I just finished the last reel this afternoon, and my library will send the film back to UWF tomorrow. This set […]
Last Thursday, as I was driving around in D.C., I was listening to The Diane Rehm Show on WAMU. It was a rebroadcast of an interview she conducted with E.L. Doctorow (one of my favorite writers) who had recently died. The subject was Doctorow’s book, “Homer and Langley.” Doctorow’s book […]
This was an interesting question posted to the writer John Updike by John Freeman, an interviewer on PBS’s Blank by Blank. This interview with Updike, who found a way to write with four small children running in and out all day long, intrigued me. I, too, have four small children […]
NPR’s Linton Weeks has a great story on lost American slang from the 1800s, something right up my alley as I write Emmett’s story. Weeks cites James Maitland’s 1891 Dictionary of American Slang, which you can download for your very own, here, via Google Books. It is an awesome read […]
If you are a fan of The Andy Griffith Show, you know who Otis Campbell is: The lovable town drunk who has access to Mayberry’s jail cell after his usual Saturday night spree. He lets himself into the jail on Saturday nights if Andy or Barney isn’t around to ‘check’ […]
Last month, I had an article about Great Oaks, a historic house in Greenwood, Florida. There’s an Emmett Wilson connection to it: His sister Dora married a man, W.E. Bryan Smith, whose relatives lived in the home. It is very likely Emmett saw this house, or, visited it in his […]
According to my research, Emmett lived at the San Carlos Hotel, on and off between 1913 and 1918, although he gave his permanent address as the J. Walter Kehoe home. Because he spent so much time there, I’ve always been curious about what his room might have looked like. (The […]
Tell my story. 