Rich: SEC football fans

Whenever I meet someone, inevitably, their first comment is, “You must be a Georgia football fan.” Truthfully, I reply, “I’m an SEC fan. I love to see all the teams do well and celebrate when one wins the National Championship.” In this column, I strive to sidestep controversy.

Rich: There’s gonna be some good gospel singing there

Tink and I were watching the award show for the Gospel Music Association Doves, which celebrates Jesus from traditional to Southern to contemporary music. The cameras moved to a black-clothed figure on a darkened stage. Her blonde hair glistened.

Rich: The worth of a good man

It started with a photo that my sister sent. In 1950s Black and White, there is a bespectacled man, standing in a mountain river with water up to his waist. He is wearing a white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up and dark pants. Some called him “Preacher.

Rich: The star witness no more

A few years ago, I was a prosecution witness for a rather serious criminal trial. Humility aside, I was the star witness.

Rich: Praying in the right place

It happened recently. Tink and I had just finished a video conference call. Chatting face to face by video screen was something that I thought George Jetson would take to his cartoon grave and yet it happens regularly across the globe.

Rich: One is given, one is taken

A few years ago, a long and treasured friendship was lost. Not to death. Not then, at least. It was snatched away in a stealthy way that began with a car accident and a broken leg. The enemy, who stole from me a dear friend, looked remarkably innocent. A small, round, white.

Rich: Missing a couple of good mothers

It is not without a stab of pain that I, sometimes, drive past a spot where once stood a hometown restaurant. Nothing remains of it, other than paved parking.

Rich: Mountain quare, Southern eccentric

It has been duly noted here how odd are my ways or how my thinking doesn’t always line up with genuine logic. Any Southerner, born and bred, has charming degrees of eccentricity. In the Southern reach of the Appalachians, however, many of us have a heaping helping of oddness.

Rich: Everyone comes with a story

If your path has ever crossed with mine, if we have ever spent more than 10 minutes in conversation, or if your mama ever stopped me in the grocery store, there is an excellent chance that you’re in a story. A stranger pulled up beside me on a sidewalk the other day.

Rich: Charlie Horse

The Summer after we married, I gave Tink his most treasured gift. A handsome, brown, and white painted horse who came with registered papers and a sophisticated name Tink changed to Charlie in honor of his great-great-grandfather, Charlie Tinker, who worked for President Lincoln in the White House.