ROOTS & BRANCHES

Memories are strange things. I’m at the “fifty-something” time of life when, on an increasingly basis, I often cannot quite recall exactly when something in the past happened unless I’m able to bracket it between two other dates … which triples the effort, if you get my drift (Since to figure out those bracketing dates, …

As I’ve spent a lot of time during the last year researching and writing a book about the uses of historical newspapers, I’ve come to a conclusion about what I call the most serious impediment to research about the past – “presentism.” I define “presentism” as believing (often unconsciously) that things in the past always …

Once again, I continue the tradition of using a phrase of a onetime colleague of mine, Birmingham Post-Herald Sports Editor Bill Lumpkin, when I have a bunch of ideas each worthy of a few paragraphs but not of a column. So, as I do a couple times a year in “Roots & Branches,” it’s a …

When it comes to popular music, I don’t think there’s anyone who can get an “earworm” faster than me. And that’s probably the whole secret behind the whole success of pop – the way it sticks with you, even when maybe you’d rather it not. But one of the things I treasure about my girlfriend …