Sean Dietrich Articles

Sean of the South | Last night at the Opry

BY SEAN DIETRICH OPINION — I arrive at the Opry House a few minutes before rehearsal. My guitar and fiddle cases trip the metal detector, so the security guard makes me open them.“You ain’t smuggling moonshine, are you?” says the guard with a watchful eye.“No,...

Sean of the South | Weird Al

BY SEAN DIETRICH OPINION — The boy didn’t have a lot going for him. At least, that’s what his parents first thought.His parents were concerned. The other children would not stop laughing at their son. The other kids had turned him into a joke.His name was Al. And...

Sean of the South | Swimmers of Lake Martin

OPINION — Lake Martin shimmers beneath a heavy midday sun. I am sitting on a dock.There are distant sounds of splashing. Kids laughing. All the children are swimming. All their respective adults are sitting ashore, dry. As adults often are.There is nothing like July...

Sean of the South | Fourth of July

BY SEAN DIETRICH OPINION — On my kitchen counter is a pound cake, sitting on a pedestal, beneath a glass dome.Pound cake is the food of summer. It can make or break the entire season. A summer without pound cake is like church without singing, Monet without color or...
More letters to Dear Sean

More letters to Dear Sean

BY SEAN DIETRICH OPINION — DEAR SEAN: All I want this year is for this girl in my third period class to go on a date with me, but she’s way out of...

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More letters to Dear Sean

All the purty horses

BY SEAN DIETRICH The day before New Year’s Eve. I was stuck in Birmingham rush hour. A ten-mile line of standstill traffic stretched before me. It...

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More letters to Dear Sean

The Giving Tree

BY SEAN DIETRICH Merry Christmas, Layla Grace. I got your name from the church Christmas tree. It’s kind of like Angel Tree, where you buy gifts for...

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Christmas Prayers

The side-of-the-highway café was decorated for Christmas. Plastic balsam trees on formica tables. Beside the napkin dispenser, a nutcracker soldier...

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More letters to Dear Sean

Sean of the South

Relax, you're going to be okay You’re going to be okay. That’s not an opinion. It’s not a guess. This isn’t some trite little catchphrase from some...

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More letters to Dear Sean

The 11-year-old in the house

BY SEAN DIETRICH There is a little girl in my house. She is 11. She is currently playing piano in my office. She is blind, so she plays by feel. She...

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More letters to Dear Sean

From the files of ‘Dear Sean’

BY SEAN DIETRICH DEAR SEAN:I’m not sure what to do. My teenage son died in an accident three years ago. … A few months ago one of his good friends...

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