Confession, I think, is good for the soul — I read Gone with the Wind the summer after fifth grade. I wanted to be like Scarlett O’Hara, but not because she was beautiful, flirtatious and rich. For me, a skinny 11-year-old, Scarlett was a symbol of endurance and a worthy role model. She was a courageous, pragmatic fighter who…

I have come to realize that this absent man, this phantom who might never have taken form except for my tenacious curiosity, contributed a great deal to the person that I am. — When I had children, I decided at a young age, I would do everything right and they would be accountants or attorneys. They would be solid, respectable folk who did not waste their time chasing rainbows or building castles in the air. My well-nurtured children would grow up to be…

All of us bibliophiles owe a debt of gratitude to the robber baron who built libraries across the country. — God bless Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish industrialist and philanthropist whose generosity built more than 2,500 libraries in the U.S., Great Britain and Ireland. Thanks to Mr. Carnegie, I was able to spend long, hot summer afternoons in the cool, domed Dodge City Public Library, located on the western Kansas prairie…

You might sneer at me for giving money to strangers, but guess what? I actually, really don’t care. — I am on the way to Walmart with my husband when I see her. She is tall and slim, with brown skin and long dark hair, wearing a gray mask across her delicate features. I can’t place her ethnicity, although when she speaks to me she has a slight accent…

Blame my grandmother’s basement for making us travelers — When I stayed with my Grandmother White, I shared a double bed in the upstairs bedroom with my sister Kelly. We were both afraid to stay up there unless the two of us were there, snuggled together. The lonely bedroom was reached by a steep flight of wooden stairs lined…

My most enduring memory of the pandemic is and always will be that skinny, reticent, unemotional man who saved me. — My daughter needed me, so I decided to make the long trip from Alabama to Miami. Stupid, probably, in the first stage of the coronavirus pandemic. Hard to believe it was just a year ago. I brought along yellow latex gloves, two dingy face masks retrieved from our garage, and…

Sometimes, journalists are like priests. We hear confessions. — I met the woman years ago. She was old beyond her years, one of the rural poor who collect in small towns all over the country. She lived in the little Alabama village of Loachapoka. The woman was destitute, seeking aid because her old trailer, the only thing she owned…

Unaccompanied minors will continue to come from the Northern Triangle, like drowning people fighting to board a lifeboat. — It’s happening again. Thousands of unaccompanied minors are crossing our porous southern border, raising legitimate concerns about where to put them all. U.S. policy allows children under the age of 18 to enter the U.S. while their claims are processed, so they can’t be abandoned.

My twin brothers were famous for their fearless shenanigans, from climbing the TV antenna to playing in ant piles. — It’s been a scorching Kansas summer day, 103 degrees in the shade in the days before air conditioning. You can’t get in the car wearing shorts because the vinyl seat is too hot, and you can’t walk barefoot on asphalt or cement or you’ll be sorry. If you are out…