Articles by Birney Imes
Letter: A rare opportunity
Friday evening just after 7, I counted four people using Propst Park. Three of them were teenaged boys sharing two motor scooters. The fourth was
Letter: A way out of the ‘slough of poverty’
Over the years this newspaper and the communities it serves have benefited from reader letters expressing opinions on local issues. Several of these regular contributors
Partial to Home: Remembering A.D.
When I was just out of college, I bought a Volkswagen. I got prices here in town at Hickel Motors and in Tuscaloosa at Bear Bryant Volkswagen. The Tuscaloosa dealership offered $500 more trade-in, so I bought the car there.
Partial to Home: Photograph offers keyhole into a distant time
The other day I surveyed the photographs, postcards and paintings that clutter my office. Each has its own story.
Partial to Home: Dining al fresco on the Sipsey
Initially the plan was to paddle the Noxubee River with its massive cypress, wild hogs and the occasional alligator. We would put in on Lynn Creek Road southwest of Brooksville and go to the landing just below Macon.
Partial to Home: Blue Truck Coffee
This is a story about how an antique Chevy pickup truck and a bakery in Virginia sparked the creation of a coffee house.
Partial to Home: Locking through on the Tenn-Tom
On Christmas Day just after noon we eased our kayaks through an inlet covered with large chunks of ice and paddled out into open water.
Partial to Home: Lionel Messi’s magic
Had you been in Buenos Aires on Tuesday afternoon, you would have found the entire city delirious with joy.
Partial to Home: A love for cooking
Four years ago Ronnie Colvin and Charles Clemmons opened a business in a portable building that had been inserted into the bay of a defunct carwash near the intersection of 14th Avenue and 20th Street North.
Partial to Home: Alchemist with a paint brush
When he was a boy living on the Gulf Coast, Bill Moss would entertain himself by walking nearby railroad tracks. Those railroad tracks, you might say, provided young Bill with an early art lesson.
Partial to Home: A new direction
It is a common business strategy. When things aren’t going well, you make a course correction. You try something different.
Partial to Home: Cleanest street in town
Melvin Cunningham got his first leaf blower in 1990. It was a Homelite from Lowe’s, red and bulky, $79.95 — he still has the price tag.
Partial to Home: Beautiful Columbus: Trees an essential part of the package
It’s no secret that Columbus enjoys a rich architectural heritage, one that dates back to the first half of the 19th century. Loop through downtown or cruise the Southside neighborhoods near the river. The evidence is abundant.
Partial to Home: Where the Licking flows into the Ohio
A cross the river at the ballpark, they are singing the National Anthem. Here on the Kentucky side of the river, a vaguely familiar rock song is wafting from the riverboat moored nearby. Adding to the cacophony a dozen geese meandering on the water nearby are honking quietly among themselves.
Partial to Home: Bartahatchie memories
On the drive home Wednesday afternoon after a morning of hiking with friends in William Bankhead National Forest, I happened upon a derelict barbecue joint, which, like so many beauty shops with diverting names (Hair 911, Me and Mrs. Jones, the Hairport), merited a second look.
Partial to Home: From lawnmowers to printing presses
On a recent weekday morning, 23-year-old Kadee Holmes stood atop The Dispatch’s 70-plus-years-old Goss Urbanite printing press directing a stream of black ink into one of 10 wells that deliver ink to the press’ rollers.
Partial to Home: Something different every day
Dewey Petigo says he’s been “scared to death” twice in the 44 years he’s run C&P Printing. First was in 1978 when he and Paul Carpenter left secure jobs in the print shop at Besco to open their business — Petigo would buy out Carpenter five or six years later.
Partial to Home: Too many mosquitoes? Call the snake doctor
The crew had put their kayaks in the river and were waiting. On this morning we were paddling the Sipsey River near Aliceville, Alabama, from Cotton Bridge Road to Lewiston, about 11 miles.
Partial to Home: The healing power of the forest
It is midday on a recent Sunday and Beth and I are sitting in a booth at a Vietnamese restaurant south of Louisville, Kentucky. The restaurant is in a well-worn strip mall near the airport and shares space with a nail salon — a wall separates the two. There is a Marathon quick mart and gas station at one end of the building and at the other, a burger joint with a sign that proclaims, “Here everyday is a weekend.”
