Columns

I don't remember Allen. At all.

My memories of this stellar young man are those my parents shared with me. Their rollercoaster relationship, abruptly halted with my mother's death in April 2005, was fraught with disagreements. There were two things, however, on which they steadfastly agreed:

They loved my sister and me, and they loved Allen.

While the efflorescence of spring in East Tennessee is beyond compare, the glories of autumn are not far behind in colourful beauty.

To our eye, the leaves this year have been outstanding. This natural beauty is just one factor, however, that makes us among earth’s luckiest creatures.

Other factors include the culture of our people — our customs, our traditions, our character. One of these traditions is our food and drink.

By BILL BISHOP & ROBERTO GALLARDO
Special to Roane County News
If Roane County residents didn’t receive their monthly payments from the Social Security Administration, 10.2 percent of total personal income in the county would be lost, a total of $183,271,150 in 2009.

Roane County is more dependent on Social Security payments than is the rest of the country. Nationally, 5.5 percent of total personal income in 2009 came from Social Security payments. In Tennessee, 7.1 percent of all income comes from these payments.

I’ve told my boyfriend he has one free get-out-of-jail card, so to speak, in our relationship.
That’s because he gave me coffee.
Not that coffee hasn’t been around all my life. Even as a very young child, I remember waking up on weekdays to the signature scents of my father getting ready for work: fresh-brewed coffee and freshly applied shoe polish.
While I found the aroma of coffee intoxicating, I could never stomach the stuff.
It inevitably left me with a tummy ache.