The Georgia fiction writer Flannery O'Connor is more relevant to the turmoil of today's American culture than she was in a life cut short by lupus in 1964. This idea is apparent in a just-released documentary about her short 39-year life, titled Flannery, which now is available online. In her day, the two novels and … Continue reading The throttling grace of Flannery O’Connor
As a child, my family and my church spent an extraordinary amount of time warning my friends and me to avoid "devil music." Near the top of the list were the songs of Little Richard. And like every Southern child at the time, I immediately scoured stores for his recordings so I could taste the … Continue reading The jubilant riffs of Little Richard
Four dead in Ohio. And a searing image: A young man face-down at Kent State while a young woman screams over his body. Fifty years ago today that sequence of events began. Dominoes started falling on the home front, just like the ones in Asia. As they fell, they dragged America from the exuberance of … Continue reading Fifty years after Kent State
When is it safe to end social distancing? Does history tell us anything? Perhaps it does. Just over a century ago, there were events similar to what is happening today. Pandemic influenza swept the globe in 1918 at the end of World War I, much like coronavirus has done today. The so-called Spanish flu spread … Continue reading What does history teach about pandemics?
Most newspaper articles leave the victims of coronavirus faceless and nameless, little more than abstract numbers in a growing tabulation. At least they do until you see the face and the name in the obituary and realize with horror that it was an old friend. Jim and I reached that point today. A family phone call … Continue reading The Time Before & the Time after Coronavirus
On March 2, 1987, I walked into the building of the Florida Supreme Court just four days after finishing the Florida Bar Exam. Thirty-three years later, I still am at work there. My jobs inside the state's highest court have changed quite a lot over time. In 1987, I was a staff attorney helping Justices … Continue reading Thirty-Three Years
People often ask me if I have any idea why autism seems more common today than before. It is a fair question. After all, I am someone living with the form of autism that was known as Asperger's Syndrome until diagnostic criteria were changed in 2013. Just yesterday a friend asked me that exact question. … Continue reading The Harm of a Culture Stuck in Overdrive
A few of my friends know that, late in life, I discovered that I have Asperger's syndrome -- or what today is known as autism spectrum disorder or ASD. Some still refuse to believe I have it. And I can understand the reaction. I do not fit the most common ideas of autism. My symptoms, … Continue reading Facing an Intense World
I often have wondered. What would have happened if the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, had happened a year earlier when Jim Crochet and I were visiting Manhattan? You see, Jim and and I had taken the elevators to the top of the World Trade Center only a year before the attacks happened. We had a … Continue reading Somewhere in that Airy Void
Blame it on an overheated smartphone. Or perhaps it was my grandparents' ghosts reaching out in a high-tech way to pull me closer to them just one more time in my life. It was an astounding experience no matter how it happened. You see, I said my last goodbyes to my grandfather George Lee Waters … Continue reading Revisiting the Duck Waters Barbershop in Burnt Corn, Alabama
Robert Craig Waters 