The queen is dead. Long live the king. From my earliest childhood memories during World War II, Elizabeth has been a constant in my life — a changeless symbol of stability during unstable times. By an accident of timing, I…
How we’re learning to see and hear the Black experience at Colonial Williamsburg
Last week, when I left Williamsburg to drive to Peace Hill, my cousin’s farm in the next county, I could hear my uncle’s instructions over the phone during our first trip to Williamsburg in 1997. “Take the road to Jamestown…
I can’t make sense of how we treat the working poor
She sat across from me at the table, a pretty young woman with a baby in her arms and a toddler at her feet, nervously clutching the paperwork that would prove her eligibility for assistance at the church food pantry…
On my 80th birthday, remembering what COVID has taken and acting like I might live to 100
Yesterday was my 80th birthday. Despite the unopened and flagged emails that have piled up since the Texas deep freeze in mid-February and the papers overflowing on my office desk, I gave myself the day off to reflect, remember, to…
Carpe Diem: Seize the day before it’s too late
As is my custom, I poured my first cup of coffee and sat down in my favorite chair to check my emails and my friends’ activities on Facebook and Instagram before settling in with the morning news. To my shock,…
Everything I know about separation of church and state I learned from my mother
I must have been in the third or fourth grade when Mama said to me, “When people want prayer in the schools, they are assuming the person who is praying has the same beliefs they do.” And then she added,…
Getting into the holiday spirit is hard this year
Along with the election next week, I cannot ignore the fact that the darkest, loneliest period of the year begins Sunday with the end of Daylight Savings Time. Before my husband’s death in April 2009, I never paid much attention…
On teaching history, the president has a point, but he goes too far
A few weeks ago, the President made headlines at the National Archives Museum when he denounced the teaching of American history classes as a “left-wing cultural revolution … designed to overthrow the American Revolution” and responsible for everything from tearing…
Where do you go for news you can trust?
Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has been thinking about this question in much the same way as I have. “We are so helplessly, irrevocably divided, it’s time to quit talking about coming together as one and…