This was supposed to arrive in your inbox on Saturday, but I was traveling, and the robots working behind the scene let me down. So, here you go, a few days late. But I waited more than 10 years to write this story, so it probably didn't mind waiting to be read a few more days. - HH

Hey y'all, 

I was doing some digital cleanup and came across a bunch of…

It’s early Sunday morning and the sky is grey and dim, looking like the sky in a post-apocalyptic film whose name I cannot recall, a metaphor that strikes too close to home these days.  The road stretches in front of me for miles, empty, and the dash thermometer tells me it is 22 degrees outside, just 5 degrees warmer than it was when I left my hotel this morning. I’ve been driving…

The room is silent, but not really - silence being such a rare thing. In reality, the silence here is made up of the humming of the dorm-sized refrigerator, the heated air passing through the air vents, and some slight electronic hum that I can’t quite identify. It’s dark, too, except for the bedside lamp and the glow from my laptop screen. Normally, I would include the tapping of keys in the…

It's been a rough week for me, schedule wise, as everyone came out of hibernation and wanted me to do something this week. So, a short one today, but with a question at the end I would love your input on. Thanks - HH

When we bought our first house, the backyard was a mess. It sloped away from the house, and was filled with Privet and Japanese Honeysuckle, winding together in…

I'm working on a much longer essay around history, family, and roots, so don't be surprised if themes in today's piece show up often in the weeks ahead. Thanks for reading! - HH

The trouble is always how to start, but my part of the story really began in 1814, when Edwin Hollowell, a Quaker, died at the age of 40 in rural North Carolina outside Goldsboro, leaving his 40-year-old wife Brambly…

Because of the holidays and travel, I'm taking the next two weeks off from these bonus essays. If you need more to read, check out the archives and other downloadable Members Only content here. I hope you have a happy holidays, and I will be back in your inbox on the 4th of January. - HH

One of the dangers of writing about the past is the tendency to slip into…

It’s cold outside this morning, as I sit here at my desk. And by cold, I mean, it’s cold for here – right at 32 degrees - but it would not impress someone from Montana or North Dakota. We don’t get a lot of cold weather here – maybe 10 times in a calendar year will it get below 25 degrees, and then usually for only a few hours. Every 4-5 years…

NB: If you celebrated Thanksgiving this week, I hope it was everything you wanted it to be. Because of the holidays, today's piece is short and was a bit delayed. - HH

It was a simple board and batten building, uninsulated, with a tin roof and a dirt floor, resting on a six-inch-high concrete mudsill. When I knew it, in the late 1970’s, its owner had been dead for nearly a decade…

One of the things I love about my life is the unlikely relationships I have. I am friends with millionaires and people who live under bridges, with snake handling preachers and high church bishops, with atheists and holly rollers, with PhD's and elementary school dropouts, with folks who are NYT bestselling authors and folk who are illiterate.

And thanks to a very surreal decade of my life, I know lots of public…

It’s 6:45 AM, and I’m on the front porch, drinking my coffee as the sky in the east turns pink, and slowly the golden sun peeks over the horizon. Cars whir by on the highway at the end of the block, their headlights a blur, and the sunrise is mostly hidden by the garish Chili’s restaurant sign. I take a deep breath and the exhaust fumes burn my lungs. I hear no…

It’s not a large house – barely 1000 square feet. It was built in the early 1950’s, in a new subdivision being marketed to Black professionals. The neighbors were professors, merchants, and at least one poet – Margaret Walker lived in the only two-story house on the block, but on the other end of the street. 

Like many houses from that era, it is in all ways smaller than houses being built…

The school was in an old building that had begun life at the turn of the last century as a private home, but whose most notable use was as Dr. Wright's Sanitarium for the drug and alcohol addicted and those suffering “minor nervous disorders.”  In 1962, 15 years before I would set foot upon the campus, William Faulkner would die in what would become my first-grade classroom. That I learned to write…

In the small rural North Mississippi community of my childhood, there was one unpardonable sin, one transgression that was unforgivable, and that was to act above your station. We did not have much, but we were a proud people, and how dare you act like you were better than we were just because you had more money, or were born elsewhere, or had been taught to pronounce the consonants at the end…

The deadline of publishing each week means I write more, which was one of the goals. But since Saturday comes whether I'm done or not, sometimes it feels rushed, like this one does for me. I will explore this topic in more depth later, with more length and a much better ending. Thanks for going along the creative process with me. - HH

It was the first house I would own, a…