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By Tom Poland: A Southern WriterTomPoland.net My June 15 post, The Kerosene Lamp, received reader comments that deserve sharing. Who in this era of ultra-dark-defying lighting would take the time to comment on the old kerosene lamp? Well, several did. Their responses made me glad I chose such an obscureContinue Reading

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By Tom PolandTomPoland.net I inherited an old Bible, so old I can’t determine its age. I see my ancestors reading that Bible by the light of a my kerosene lamp. The kerosene lamp, legendary for the destruction it caused. No cowboy scuffle was complete without a knocked over kerosene lamp.Continue Reading

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Rows of nails, a security measure of old. Photo by B. Newman Bancroft By Tom PolandTomPoland.net Old doors rife with nails. Rows and rows of nails. Studs. Like handsome lads, all in a row. All in precise order. I’ve come across two such doors. Brenda N. Bancroft, historian and co-founderContinue Reading

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By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net This fiddle’s origin may never be known. Long did Grandad’s fiddle hang on my mother’s living room wall. I could never walk by it without wondering . . . “What’s its story?” Best I recall, my mother didn’t know its provenance, that fancy wordContinue Reading

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By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer In my youth we had a daily newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle. What we didn’t get every day was local news. That’s what made The Lincoln Journal special. Farmers, grandmothers, country storeowners, housewives, and others pulled news about people they knew from their mailbox. “TheContinue Reading

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Grandma’s petunias By Tom Poland – A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Vintage petunias, those flowers my grandma loved, I saw them in youth. As I sort through my memory album they reappear. Soft and delicate . . . pastel petals of white and pink, lavender, like watercolors. In the flowers’ throats, subtleContinue Reading

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I loved her, lost her, and found her again. By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net I fished many a farm pond as a boy. When I left my red-varnished cane pole for Miss Zebco, I fell in love. I filled my Johnson & Johnson first aid kit turned tackle boxContinue Reading

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The gardenia’s perfume remains as magical as ever. By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Squall lines, thunder and lighting, and tornadoes signify the changing of the guard. Winter’s heavy air gives way to lighter air, and soon air conditioning will cool the masses. The night air will be locked away.Continue Reading

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By Tom Poland, A Southern WriterTomPoland.net I visit cemeteries never knowing what I’ll find. February 10, a cemetery gave me a story that has the elements of a great movie—risk, bravery, tragedy, the largest fire in the country, and a drunken sailor with wobbly feet. The story actually began whenContinue Reading