Summer reading

So tell me, what are you reading this summer? If you were going to recommend a book to a stranger or friend, what would it be? This was a question I put to half a dozen or so local readers.

Birney Imes: A visit to Rowan Oak

When I saw the lizard sunning himself at the top of the door jam, it occurred to me I was standing where Martin Dain had stood just over 50 years earlier with his Leica as William Faulkner closed the door below where the lizard now sat unblinking.

Birney Imes: The white noise of the Internet

We’ve all witnessed it. You’re in a restaurant and at a nearby table a couple sitting across from each other are both engrossed in their cell phones. A friend calls it “prayer meeting.”

Birney Imes: At war with the beavers

Tuesday afternoon James Towery stood in a cluster of willow trees near the edge of Proctor Lake.

Birney Imes: A turnaround at The W

“I’d call it a miracle,” a W alumna was saying Saturday afternoon. She was talking about the love fest going on at her alma mater this weekend. Anyone who endured the dark days of a few years back, when alumni had taken to the barricades and there was talk of merger with State, would have to agree.

Partial to home: Bet Nancy Drew could find that armadillo

A couple of years ago we tried to catch the armadillo. At night he would emerge from his lair to root around in our yard for grubs. Each morning the grass looked as though a foursome of golfers had spent the night practicing their chip shots.

Mennonite community rallies to repair tornado-damaged home

Thursday afternoon, before answering his wife’s call to lunch, Randy Classen walked out on his back porch. The area was under a storm warning and he wondered if he could see evidence of a tornado that had torn through neighboring Kemper County less than an hour earlier.

Birney Imes: Garden walk

Walk out into the backyard at 4 a.m. and the first thing you notice is the birds. A million of them there must be, all singing their particular songs. The result is a symphonic composition more complex and beautiful than anything a human could conceive.

Birney Imes: When ink gets in your blood

A word of advice: When the revolution comes, make sure Tina Perry is on your side. In the meantime, I’m glad she’s on ours. This past week Tina hardly had time to note the passing of her 30th anniversary at The Dispatch. There was, after all, a paper to get out.

Birney Imes: Pretty in Pink

Friday afternoon Earnestine Mobley took me for a ride in her Cadillac. The car is beautiful, black leather interior with wood trim, OnStar navigation, heated seats and steering wheel, the works. Near the automatic stick shift on the console is a small black plaque that reads, “This Cadillac exclusively built for Earnestine Nash Mobley.” As it happens, the car is pink.

Birney Imes; Wedding story on Page One causes furor

Earlier this month two women were married in Laurel. Since same-sex marriage is not legal in Mississippi, so they are not married, at least not in a legal sense. Still, there was a ceremony, cake and wedding gown. One of the women, Crystal Craven, has been battling brain cancer and has undergone three surgeries, the most recent just weeks before the wedding.

Birney Imes: Magnolia Bowl in her glory days

When reporter Carmen Sisson, whose story about Magnolia Bowl appears in today’s Dispatch, asked me about the old stadium, she unleashed a flood of memories.

Birney Imes: An email from the superintendent

Early last week I sent Jeff Smith and Martha Liddell an email. Neither had taken nor returned calls from our reporters who were working on stories in which each of them was a principal player.

Birney Imes: Tony proves his mettle

The story of a skirmish between a hawk and a duck shouldn’t be all that difficult to tell. Now consider the duck belongs to a Thai man who speaks broken English and lives in east Columbus, that almost everyone in the story has two names, and the tale begins with a bet on a golf game where the loser will cook duck for the victor.

Birney Imes: Four little girls

Thursday night it was my good fortune to see Spike Lee’s heart-rending documentary, “4 Little Girls.”

The screening was the second item in a remarkably dense schedule of events Dream 365 organizers have programed over six days, beginning with a spelling bee on Wednesday and culminating tomorrow with a prayer breakfast.

Birney Imes: May the good days outnumber the bad ones

Saturday morning I took the dogs down to Friendship. They know the drill. I open the gate and say, “Get in the truck.” The truck being a battered Ford Ranger with a tailgate that wants to fall off. Hank leaps in barking with excitement while Maggie cowers, waiting to be lifted.

Partial to home: Cheering for Coach Frazier’s Vikings

You’ll find little here today about resolutions or sage observations about the year just past or the one before us. Nothing so ambitious.

I have only a modest wish on this, the cusp of a new year: that the Minnesota Vikings make the playoffs. And, to do that they have to win this afternoon.

Birney Imes: Pigs and bowling balls

On the way to work Monday morning I stopped to commiserate with my gardening buddy Linda Spearing. A freeze over the weekend zapped what was

Partial to home: Spicy, sweet, salty and sour — all in the same bite

The first thing you want to ask Sao Timratthana is how he went from being a cook at a Buddhist monastery in Tibet to owning a Thai restaurant on Wilkins-Wise Road in Columbus, Mississippi.

Partial to home: Storytellers, present and past

If you took in any of the first annual Possum Town Tales Storytelling Festival, you don’t need anyone to tell you how good it was.