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
In our teen years, all of us have summers that linger with us a lifetime. My biggest was in 1972. It was between my sophomore and junior years in high school. That was when my parents let me spend a month before school at my Aunt Gwen Waters' house. It stood not far from the abandoned … Continue reading A Summer that Lingers a Lifetime
A new baby is born. The family is there to help with the first struggles of life. When great age comes, the family is also there to help with the last struggles of life. Alpha and omega. Beginning and end.Family continues. The family circle remains. The circle itself reaches eternity.Lou Ella Crochet turned 95 yesterday. … Continue reading Miss Lou
Painting by Pensacola artist Pat Page made from the photos shown here. Around 1970, my sister Debbie Waters Box was a young singer just starting a career as a music teacher when the local PBS station in Pensacola asked her to make some recordings for use in folk music studies. She took me along to … Continue reading Ode to Billy Joe
My Great Aunt Mae was a mild-mannered firebrand, a woman who kowtowed to men while also dominating them, a self-made woman in sole charge of her own life at a time when doing so was viewed with deep suspicion. And she was one of my heroes. -- One of the people who forged my own … Continue reading Aunt Mae
I have the memory of an Asperger's child. Very detailed. Full of color, and taste, and smell. As if it happened just a moment ago. Fresh in my mind. Things that happened when I was four or five are vivid, clear to this day. Etched like art in permanent glass. And I remember her. -- … Continue reading The Perfume of Her Old Lagustrums
Pensacola artist Pat Page created the most amazing painting for me. Several months ago I sent her an old black-and-white photograph of my parents, Mary Jane and Robert L. Waters, enjoying the white sand on Pensacola Beach. The original photo is probably from the late 1940s or early 1950s, before I was born. Pat Page … Continue reading The Paintings of Pat Page
Robert Craig Waters 