Ted Talley: A mother’s voice
In my September column, I offered memories of my southeast Louisiana roots, delving into the rural side of my upbringing north of that “Creole-Caribbean-Mediterranean mélange that is New Orleans.” But...
October 8, 2020
TED TALLEY: What's up this month? Nothing comes to mind
Given the nation's state of affairs from plague to politics, I found it hard to approach the keyboard this month to offer you, dear reader, anything of substance. Nothing came to mind. Literally.
I r...
August 13, 2020
Ted Talley: A muted Fourth of July
Fourth of July celebrations were muted this year — a lose-lose proposition. Those who did venture out for personal fireworks and beach parties risked acquiring the plague (even with masking and antise...
July 9, 2020
TED TALLEY: A quiet birthday
Last week I became a septuagenarian. That appears as if I've joined a religious cult or a dramatic arts society, but it was just another birthday that quietly crossed into my seventh decade.
I spent t...
May 14, 2020
TED TALLEY: Dread latter days?
A weather system speeding diagonally across Texas last Friday caught me off guard as I headed home to Arkansas. Leaving my daughter's Austin apartment, it was 70 degrees with moderate rain, and I was ...
April 9, 2020
TED TALLEY: Trouble in Texas
Last weekend my trusty 2003 Honda Pilot -- bought used years ago upon retirement and loss of the company pickup -- decided it had made its last trip from the Arkansas Ozarks to Texas' Blackland Prairi...
March 12, 2020
TED TALLEY: Making musical memories wherever the journey goes
In mid-December 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany. It's 2020 now and celebration time. Orchestras around the world are commemorating 250th anniversary of the composer's birth.
I had...
February 13, 2020
TED TALLEY: Here comes Mr. Bingle
Many baby boomers who grew up within an hour's drive of any large U.S. city have Christmas memories of shopping treks with Mom and Dad to bustling downtowns bedecked with silver bells and department s...
December 12, 2019
TED TALLEY: Hello, "American Pie"
On a crisp Friday evening last month inside the vintage Eureka Springs City Auditorium, singer-songwriter Don McLean strode onto stage wearing black jeans and butterscotch cowboy boots. He began singi...
November 14, 2019
TED TALLEY: Feeling exposed
In the aftermath of my daughter's death in May, my son-in-law and I made a practical plan: He and my three granddaughters would live with me in Bentonville. So I flew to El Paso last week and drove th...
August 8, 2019
TED TALLEY: A moon landing in a muddy bayou
Those "what were they thinking" headscratcher moments become more frequent the older I get.
Take the recent celebration of our nation's birthday on the National Mall that included a mundane showing of...
July 11, 2019
TED TALLEY: A husband, father share heartbreak at early loss
Last Thursday, under dark clouds threatening torrents as we've seen lately in Northwest Arkansas, two men gathered with friends and family under a somewhat out-of-place, lone pine tree in the old Bent...
June 14, 2019
TED TALLEY: Neither Clinton nor Trump suffered stolen presidencies
Hillary Clinton is on tour. Like a rock star. During her Los Angeles stop last Saturday, the former two-time Democratic presidential hopeful sat on stage in an upholstered piece (a chair, not her pant...
May 9, 2019
TED TALLEY: Book demonstrates limits of compartmental thinking
I had lunch last week with a former college professor and his wife -- dear friends who take an interest in my life and retirement-era writing well beyond coursework from last century. His "attaboys" o...
April 11, 2019
TED TALLEY: Been there, done that
As a parent it is sometimes hard to navigate that line between encouraging a child to think independently, perhaps even differently from Dad, while remaining silent when a child is embracing nonsense ...
March 21, 2019