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Today's Opinions

  • Barf bag needed if this ever makes the big screen

    Move over Muse Watson — make room for Rocky and Leon Houston!
    The brothers’ recent TV appearance on WBIR-TV News, The News Sentinel and on the recent front page of Roane County News is truly inspired acting.
    So much so that the media seems to have been duped into assisting them in what seems to be their plans to use the media again as they have done many times in the past to garner public support and harass authorities.

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  • 30,688,980 words of wisdom to tide them through

    This letter is probably different from others, but here goes. I just completed reading the King James Version Bible through for the 30th time.
    I had a goal in life to read it 25 times, but after I got there, I just kept reading.
    My wife, Nancy, who passed away Dec. 3, 2010, of esophageal cancer, had read it through twelve times.
    So together we read it through 42 times. We lacked four months being married 42 years.
    The word is a blessing as the McKamey’s sing that song, “The Old Love Letter,” and it really is.

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  • Power outage comes with an opportunity

    First of all, we’d like to express our thanks to the Rockwood Electric Utility crews who spent hours working in the cold Saturday.
    A pole fire sent parts of Kingston and Midtown into a blackout on a very cold day. Even worse, many people were without any heat for more than five hours.
    While we appreciate the work that was put in to get the power restored, we think the widespread outage on Saturday lends an opportunity for improvement.

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  • Out to lunch by Bethel Poston

    Several years ago my wife, Carol, and I qualified for a free trip to England and Ireland by buying a large quantity of appliances to sell at our Poston Furniture & Appliance stores.
    I like to say we won the trip, but my dad said, “You paid for it in the cost of washers, ranges and refrigerators.”
    (We decided to lower our selling prices in order to sell enough to qualify.)
    In our travels, after seeing many recognized attractions, we always left the tourist crowd and mixed with the locals.

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  • LOOSELEAF LAUREATE: A pin-striped fig leaf for Adam and Eve?

    Two miles in and six miles out was the running joke among the hikers I was with in Cumberland County on New Year’s Eve.

    The 50-degree weather was nice for the last day of December as we made our way down Black Mountain to Windlass Cave.

    The wind kicked up at intervals, necessitating some wardrobe adjustments, but we all had adequate layers.

    The couple of miles downhill was an easy romp. Even though we covered the same ground on the way out, it was all uphill — hence the joke about it being three times longer.

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  • A view from Lick Skillet by Gerald Largen

    Gentle reader, we hope that you had happy and healthy holidays and have entered the New Year with a good attitude and prosperous prospects for this to be a good year.
    As stated in our notes for the last two weeks, we anticipated that several things would happen during the interval since our last opinion column, and sure enough thus it was, so here are some of our thoughts on events of the last month:
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  • How nice to see the life returning to a small town

    Last month, I saw life again in Harriman.
    I grew up there, went to school, courted boyfriends and then saw life leave the town I loved.
    Last month, for the first time in a long time, I saw life again.
    I attended the open house of the new TV station, Channel 15.
    I am so grateful to those who have worked so hard and who have the vision of seeing life return to Harriman.
    Mayor Chris Mason, Gary Baker, Muse Watson, Bill Landry — these people are investing untold time and energy into making this seemingly impossible dream come true.
    It can happen.
    It is happening.

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  • Lead-footed kid gets family an untimely eviction

    Happy Holidays?
    The holidays came and went so quickly it was hard to take it all in. Many had a wonderful holiday relaxing and just sharing the love that seems to well up in us all during this time of the year.
    Others that don’t have much love any time of the year. I called many news agencies to help get the word out about a young eight-month-pregnant mother and her three small children.
    My hope was to resolve an issue in her apartment complex.
    If this gets printed, I hope to bring to light an issue she had to deal with this holiday season.

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