Author Archives: rogerbarbee

In the winter 1998 issue of The American Scholar Joseph Epstein, its editor for over twenty years, gives his view of why he is leaving the esteemed journal. The Phi Beta Kappa senate had voted to remove Epstein as editor and the decision was controversial. Whatever the reason, the issue revolved around the use ofContinue reading “Vulgarity in the Observer“

Growing up in North Carolina, we seemed to always have a dog for a family pet, but I was not a hunter of any kind, so I never trained or owned hunting dogs. Some uncles had beagles and coon hounds, and as a young boy I shivered around many campfires as they talked about whichContinue reading ”        Manny’s Last Swim”

Just after moving to Lake Norman four years ago, Ethel and I met when I was riding my stationary bike near our road. As I would witness over the following years, she would appear on her morning walk, and she would stop long enough to chat. On that first morning, she asked me a  fewContinue reading ““Good People””

Because we paraplegics use our arms and shoulders to propel our manual wheelchairs, the condition of our shoulders is especially important. It matters not how large our biceps may grow, if our shoulders suffer injury, we will be forced to use a battery powered chair or have someone push us anywhere we wish to go.Continue reading “What Air’s In Your Tires”

The day of my birth has passed, and I recovered from it better than I think my mother did 75 years ago. After all, my birth took place when the medical belief was that a heavy dose of anesthesia was the only sane way for a woman to give birth. While we were both certainlyContinue reading “75”

An Iredell County, NC  local paper carried the front-page headline “Extremely Alarming” above the fold today, September 01. A large bar-graph showed the rise in COVID from March 17 to August 31. The article quotes Megan Redford of the county health department, “Our current test positivity rate is 13.5%, up form a low of 1.6%Continue reading “Slouching Among US”

The cultural war is full of blather concerning how our schools teach history. In Texas, a heated discussion is on-going about a book’s treatment of one of that state’s icons, The Alamo. I remember watching the Walt Disney movie version of that battle and its heroes and villains but know now how wrong Disney’s tellingContinue reading “Learning History”

Had I not changed my mind, I would have missed it. However, because I decided to take my coffee onto the screened porch instead of going into the library and turning on my computer, I witnessed the regular recurrence that is all the same, yet different. Light had yet to penetrate the porch or anyContinue reading “Fortunate Decision”

Twenty years ago this morning I awoke in an ICU ward in Fairfax Hospital. The night before I had had two nineteen-inch titanium rods screwed to my back because that afternoon a building I was taking down collapsed– pinning me beneath it. My broken back had to be stabilized, thus the rods. I remember aContinue reading “Twenty Year Journey”

Take some time and compare pics of the Taliban fighters in the presidential palace of Kabul on 8-16 and the pics of the insurrectionist in our Capitol on 1-6