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Wake Me, I’m Dreaming

Some nights the line between dream and reality feels thinner than the sheet on my bed. When I was a child, I was taught not to tell anyone what I had dreamed until after breakfast. I never understood the reason for that warning, but I have followed it all my life — at least on […]

Well Side or Sick Side? The Waiting Room Divisions

Some time ago, I found myself sitting in my doctor’s office for a routine annual test. It was the first time I noticed that the waiting room had been divided into two sections: one clearly marked “Well Side” and the other “Sick Side.” I figured I belonged on the Well Side. But before long, I […]

Cast into Memory: Reflections on a Fishing Trip

Ripples float endlessly across the lake as a large frog croaks in the distance. The line running from the end of my pole drifts slightly with the light current, pulling away to my left as the red-and-white float bobs along with the ripples. Much of my first fishing adventure had been spent simply trying to […]

A Narrow Escape from the Battle of Wyoming

Retreating on foot through the smoke and chaos, young Sergeant Giles Parman pulled his musket close and slipped into an overgrown thicket, using a fallen oak log as cover. Three Iroquois warriors passed within yards of him, their war cries echoing as they hunted stragglers. That desperate moment of survival would haunt him for the […]

Randall Franks’s A Zippedy Doodle Day : Down Yonder Too

A Zippedy Doodle Day : American Folk Songs Down Yonder Too A Skillet Licker Centennial The FIRST SINGLE RELEASE  AirPlay Direct for Radio https://app.airplaydirect.com/music/RandallFranksAZippedyDoodleDay/ Please request on your favorite bluegrass, folk, Americana or old country radio program. and Itunes   Or Simply Donate Use this QR Code to Donate! We are working on a CD, […]

No man is an island: The lasting effect of friends

John Donne wrote, centuries ago, “No man is an island.” Sometimes I catch myself living as though I were one anyway. If we are lucky we surround ourselves with family, friends, and acquaintances. Yet how often do we truly belong to one another? Some of us seldom leave the self-imposed exile of our personal islands […]

Frankly Speaking : Thoughts on This and That

ADVANCE ORDER TODAY! SENDING IN MAY (LIKELY MAY 5) Step onto a sunlit Southern porch and settle into a rocking chair overlooking misty Georgia mountains at golden sunrise. In Frankly Speaking: Thoughts on This and That, Randall Franks — one of America’s favorite TV cops (“Officer Randy Goode” from In the Heat of the Night) […]

Beneath Leaves: Finding Renewal When Worry Piles High

There are seasons in life when worries, sorrows, fears, and quiet depressions gather like autumn leaves drifting from the branches. One by one they fall— a health scare, a strained relationship, financial strain, the ache of loneliness, or simply the relentless news of the world—until they form a thick, damp blanket over the ground. The […]