Back in the 1980s I wanted to be a school teacher. That meant I needed a certain number of college credits. This was a problem as I saw it. I could have taken the college entrance exam without first completing my high school studies. But to get the best grades possible, I would need the background of those studies. I was rusty on how to write a term paper, for instance. I decided to complete high school first. That meant going to night school to earn the necessary credits.

I hope each of you have had the opportunity to be in a really dark place on a clear night and caught a glimpse of a shimmering, sort of thin fog like band of light across the sky. This time of year it runs high overhead. It helps to let your eyes adjust to the dark before trying to see it, and any street lights or the moon ruin your chances.

A spring trip through the Narrows along U.S. Hwy 25W, between Morley and Highcliff, aboard an ETHRA rural transportation van, was an unexpected treat for a local history writer. Since my release from a convalescent home in late September, I had not attempted to operate a motor vehicle.

My mother made the best chili sauce. I use her recipe, but you know how it is, two cooks can use the same recipe and it won't taste quite the same. Maybe it's nostalgia working on me, but her chili sauce tasted so good.

I know chili sauce is a condiment, but I like it on mashed potatoes. I have eaten it that way since I was a kid. Place a good pile (I mean heapin’) of mashed potatoes on your plate. Slather it with gobs of butter. The bed is ready. Add a generous topping of homemade chili sauce and dig in! Mashed potatoes and chili sauce is good eatin'.

It's another first for Union County, and a win for Union County's canine companions. The county is one of 37 statewide winners of the Boyd Foundation's 2018 Dog Park Dash grant, aimed at creating pet friendly spaces throughout Tennessee. Fifty communities applied for the grant.

Communities are keen to implement next generation fiber optic infrastructures, as they recognize such assets are crucial to economic development and growth strategies and are not merely an entertainment medium. Only about 25 percent of Tennesseans have access to fiber with rural areas lagging far behind, and that’s bad news for rural economies. Big Telecom has little interest in expanding to small towns and farmlands, as shareholders are out for a return on their investment; running fiber optic cable into rocky Appalachian soil isn't cheap.

As I read the morning paper, I was again reminded just how important our public records are. It is also important that our citizens have access to those records when they need them. The Tennessee Public Records Act allows access–but even so–sometimes that access is not easy. There are many exceptions to access–so many and so frustrating that the Tennessee Legislature has created the Open Records Ad Hoc Committee to review the why and the need for so many exclusions.

Gee, wished I was as smart as you all!

Then, I wouldn’t believe in God either. What a life we could then have. Let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.1 If it feels good, do it! After all, when we die we cease to exist.

It was in 1970 and I needed a job. My husband was sick and unable to work. A friend of mine drove a school bus for the school our children attended. She told me there was an opening for a bus driver. How hard could that be? I was to apply at the superintendent of schools' office.

Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Two

I once had a student who said aloud quite often, “I’m skeered!” If you could have known that child as I did, I’m sure you would have agreed that in reality he was scared of nothing.

I was having a conversation with my nephew the other day and the question of when we were the most scared in our lives arose.