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One Woman's Opinion
Welcome to “One Woman’s Opinion,” a long term feature of the Southside Sentinel, written by Urbanna resident Mary Wakefield Buxton. Traditionally a humorist, Mary has written a column on all subjects and sometimes in very serious vein. Along with writing a column for the Sentinel since 1984, she is also author of 15 books about life and love in Tidewater, Virginia. Click here for available books.
Urbanna’s ‘big brass’ boundary brouhaha: Part 5
Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4
Part 5
The prayers of writers are sometimes answered even though they don’t necessarily attend church services. And so the very next day a terrible storm hit Nimcock County tearing across the land, uprooting trees and taking off roofs of many houses. And most conveniently helping Merrypen find a way out of the “big brass” boundary...
Urbanna’s ‘big brass’ boundary brouhaha: Part 4
Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3
Part 4
By now everyone in the charming town of Nimcock had taken sides. Who could not take a side? Everyone was talking...
Urbanna’s ‘big brass’ boundary brouhaha: Part 3
Part 1 • Part 2
Part 3
The lawyers had been selected, the distinguished Ronald E. Widget (who some in the county felt was totally unscrupulous) and the candy Enos F....
The ‘big brass’ boundary brouhaha continues
Part 1
Part 2
A week or two passed by with not much more interchange between the Army and the Navy much to Nimcock’s relief. No one liked blow-ups between neighbors...
The ‘big brass’ boundary brouhaha
(Editor’s note: Before passing away this month, “One Woman’s Opinion” columnist Mary Wakefield Buxton completed a special five-part series, “The Nimcock Chronicles.” The following column is the first in...
One Woman's Opinion
“Spending an afternoon on the swing”
URBANNA — Every so often the world we live in becomes so turbulent and discouraging that one just has to take some time off to unwind.
Everything seems challenging now — the economy, rising prices of goods and services, constant political tensions, global warming, world...
“Damn those torpedoes and full speed ahead!”
URBANNA — I was touched last week by the letter of the young girl at St. Clare Walker Middle School who felt rejected because of her “brown skin.” It triggered the grandmother in me along with memories of my childhood growing up in Vermilion,...
“Living in most ‘interesting times’ ” expression fits today
URBANNA — An old Chinese expression known as the “Chinese Curse” is wishing another a seemingly innocent blessing: “May you live in interesting times.” The so-called “blessing” is really a curse as “interesting times” suggests a life of troubles and hardships as opposed to...
“Amazing evolution of definition of equality”
URBANNA — I was 12 years old, in the 1950s, when Father brought up the subject of equality at the dinner table.
“I’ve been thinking over what Jefferson meant when he said “all men are created equal” in 1776 when he wrote the Declaration of...
“Sexist comments are as passe today as T-Rex”
URBANNA — Just as I think that I have written my last opinion, someone like Don Lemon of CNN comes along and tells us a 51-year-old woman candidate just declared for president is … “past her prime.”
Here we have Grandpa in the White House...
Could Urbanna manage a busload of immigrants?
URBANNA — I get the strangest ideas for a column in the middle of the night. Titles for stories prick my brain in the wee hours like Hamlet’s infamous slings and arrows.
Last night I started wondering what Urbanna would do if it suddenly received...
Machiavelli at work in U.S.?
URBANNA — I still remember reading the political theories of a 16th century Italian philosopher while in college in 1960. I was a sophomore at Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg studying political philosophy. As I read his ideas and my brain digested his...
Columnist is wowed by stranger’s spontaneous gift
URBANNA — Now, in my 80s, after a lifetime of receiving many gifts, I am now at the age of giving as much as possible. I pick up the tab, write the checks and give gifts to others.
It is one beautiful cycle, we receive...
“Of sheep and cats”
by Mary Wakefield Buxton -
URBANNA — The Republican debate — or should I say fist-a-cuffs — this week over who will be the next Speaker of the House has been fascinating to watch. A group of about 20 hard-nosed conservatives from the Freedom...
Columnist shares post-Christmas vision — it came in dream
by Mary Wakefield Buxton -
URBANNA — I blinked at my teenager grandchildren as I was busy preparing for the Christmas day supper.
They were seated, or rather draped, on various pieces of furniture in the gallery, oil portraits of ancestors staring down at them,...
Columnist reflects on memories of Christmases past
by Mary Wakefield Buxton -
URBANNA — I grew up in a small town (Vermilion, Ohio) in a one car, one telephone (black), one TV and one bathroom home. My bedroom looked out on Lake Erie. It might just as well have been an...
“Thanksgiving ushers in a season of gratefulness”
by Mary Wakefield Buxton -
URBANNA — Our society values individual happiness so much that it is called a basic human right penned in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson that includes “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Abraham Lincoln wrote that in...
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Golf carts may roll in Deltaville
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Fireball consumes truck on Route 17
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Marine industrial park eyed for Deltaville
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Cadillac strikes man on Route 17
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