On Friday, Alabama will officially kick off its bicentennial celebration, a three-year-long party leading up to Dec. 14, 2019, the 200th anniversary of the day that Alabama officially became a state.

“Turn out the lights, the party’s over

Back in 1871, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circuses joined to create “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

“Well Kernel, hit seems like they’s finally payin’ ‘tention to me and mine, ‘stead of you and yourn.” — Attributed to Wash Jones (by me)

Amid the controversy surrounding President Trump and his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, I could not help but wonder what Carl McIntire would have thought of it all.

In most parts of this country of ours, folks are content with four seasons: summer, fall, winter, spring. Each defined by changes in temperature and such.

Every morning when I turn on my computer and go to my email, there it is.

I went to bed on New Year’s Eve shortly after 9 p.m, just like I always do unless the game I am watching is close. Then I might stay up.

The biggest thing in the news lately has been fake news.

The “War on Christmas” didn’t seem quite so heated this year.

When I was a lad, on Christmas mornings some of the remnants of my mother’s side of the family — Grandma Jessie and Uncle Buck and Little Mary, the spinster cousin who kept 20 or so cats in a "Kitty Motel" — would come over for "Santa Claus" and breakfast. Then, when I would have rather take…

Wasn’t even Thanksgiving and Christmas lights were up.

Thanksgiving was hardly over when it began.

You will note that after Thanksgiving I write a lot about Christmas.

A whole lot has been written about the election just past, and much of it has been couched in revolutionary language. Alec MacGillis’ “Revenge of America’s Forgotten Class” essay in The Star earlier this month is a good example. Well, to quote Richard Nixon, “Let me say this about that.”

Driving through the heart of Alabama last weekend, I saw more than a few big pickups with dog crates in the beds.

When I cleaned out my parents’ home a couple of years ago, I discovered some neat stuff.

Next time you watch a University of Alabama home football game, pay particular attention when the Goodyear blimp, which always seems to be there, flies over Bryant-Denny Stadium. When it does, you will notice that hard against the imposing structure named for two of the university’s legends …

October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

It has begun to sink in.

No, this is not about the presidential campaign, though “sickly” is one way to describe it.

If you have been following the news as you should, then you are aware of the rash of “creepy clown” reports coming in from as far north as Philadelphia to as far south as Pensacola, Fla., with a cluster of clowns here in Alabama.