Some people don’t take thunderstorms seriously. Those people were probably not living in Central Virginia in the summer of 1993.

APPOMATTOX — If you’ve ever had an article of clothing linger longer than you’d expected at the dry cleaner’s, you can probably sympathize with Joe Williams. He just retrieved a coat after four years of trying — and it still had stains on it.

Like those whining cicadas that emerge every few summers to assault our eardums, the political ads are coming. Prepare yourself — it’s a presidential year.
The vanguard has already crawled into our TV sets, in fact, and the onslaught is right around the corner. This year, as an added bonus, we’ll get baloney in high-def.

Spying can be fun.

If this keeps up, Desmond Doss might pass Carter Glass and the Rev. Jerry Falwell as Lynchburg’s most famous citizen.

April Holt didn’t realize how much she missed the color green.

Sam Morrison just makes some of us feel more secure.

Hardly anyone starts out in life with the goal of becoming a college president. Biddy Martin certainly didn’t.

I’ve said it before in this space, but I think it bears repeating: If you want to know what makes the United States of America unique, just look in your telephone book.

Darrell makes room for Lila Rosenthal to tell a story that celebrates being American.

This wasn’t Kevin McFarland’s father’s City Stadium — not exactly. But it was close enough.

Circumstances took Brett Wilson out of the farm, but … well, you know the old saying.

LAKE GEORGE, NY — Thomas Jefferson, a man who obviously got around, once visited this Adirondack jewel and called it “The Queen of American Lakes.”

High school and college graduation season is over now, and I must admit I’m relieved.

Getting treatment for cancer at Centra’s new center is anything but a warehouse experience.

One of the responses I received to the column that ran Monday was this: “There is more cancer today than 100 years ago because cancer is a disease of old age.

Here’s a combination of statistics to ponder. Americans who have died of cancer since Sept. 11, 2001? More than three million.  Americans who have been killed by foreign terrorists on U.S. soil over the same time period? Zero.

The Legacy Museum has a new exhibit opening.

Belle Wheelan, the former president of Central Virginia Community College and now head of the Commission on Colleges, once told me a story about being nominated for president of the local Rotary Club.

OK, it’s time for a little audience participation. 

For those who had waited so long, it happened so fast. Barack Obama was like a fast car that suddenly appeared over the brow of a hill and was on their rear bumper before they had time to react.

Claudia van Koba was born with both a gift and a curse. She has spent the rest of her life finding ways for the two to coexist.
Slideshow - Claudia van Koba talks about her work

Talk about exit strategies ...

Generally, when I contact someone about an upcoming event, they want the article done in advance. The more people that publicity can lure, the better.
Not Ralph Miller.

A mental health consultant who sees suicidal people every week in the Lynchburg ER has written a book about the questions of the soul suicide raises.

When you think about it, Memorial Day is all about the male of the species (or has been, until the recent insertion of women into combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan).

What I’m about to say will probably get me in trouble, so let me start with some damage control.

OK, so we still don’t have a St. Patrick’s Day parade. On Tuesday night, Lynchburg will have Paddy Keenan, and that’s a running start toward Celtic credibility.

It’s hard to believe that the Rev. Jerry Falwell has been gone from us for a year now.

It’s appropriate that the Jones Memorial Library is on an upper floor of the building it shares with the Lynchburg Public Library. That’s because, as Lewis Averett says with a smile: “We’ve been called ‘Lynchburg’s attic.’”