Beth Thames

1 month ago | al.com | Beth Thames

This is an opinion columnMail that letter. Send that email. Make that phone call. At a certain stage in a person’s life, these reminders should be written on a paper and hung on the refrigerator, so that the people in the house see them each day. Or else, it could be too late. It’s a long way from Huntsville, Alabama to Dublin, Ireland, but I connected the two places this week, even though the recipient of the letter I wrote couldn’t read it.

1 month ago | al.com | Beth Thames

This is an opinion columnI’m writing this column on Easter Sunday night, wishing I still had small children so there might be a chocolate bunny around somewhere, under the dining room table or the living room couch. Everybody knows you can eat off the floor as long as it’s Easter candy. Somehow, what the Easter Bunny brings remains clean and hygienic. The store closest to my Huntsville neighborhood was closed for the holiday, so my chocolate cravings would have to wait.

1 month ago | al.com | Beth Thames

This is an opinion columnMore than forty years ago, a tiny man approached a podium as short as he was, looked around the auditorium of the Huntsville Madison County Public Library, and said in his reedy voice, “Hello, Huntsville. Here I am.”And then Truman Capote, one of the best known writers of his time and the subject of more than twenty films and television programs about his life, began to read from one of his “New Yorker” stories while a rapt audience listened.

2 months ago | al.com | Beth Thames

This is an opinion columnIt’s called spring cleaning for a reason. It starts in April, or whenever the weather turns warm and the pollen dusts everything with pale green. The very first thing you should clean is your front porch or the top of your car. Then move inside and gather mops and brooms and dust cloths. Spray wash the mirrors. Polish the furniture. Mop the spilled milk off the floor. Sweep the cat food onto the deck. Let the squirrels have their share. Now you’re on a roll.

2 months ago | al.com | Beth Thames

This is an opinion columnMelissa Ford Thornton has always been a storyteller. When she was a student at Huntsville’s Mountain Gap School, she won first place in a mini mystery story contest. Later on, in her high school years, she won first place in the short story competition sponsored by the Huntsville Literary Association. Decades after that, she headed up that organization’s Young Writers Contest. She’d come full circle. And there was more. Her early decision to keep on writing has paid off.