Dallas Reese

A kidney stone, 100-degree heat, and one devastating comment from my daughter later By Dallas "Dealing with a Kidney Stone" Reese Every single morning I wake up feeling like I’m ready for the world. The problem is, the world is rarely ready for me. I open my eyes and announce, “World, you’re mine today. I’m about to dominate.” Then I stand up. And my body says, “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”(yes I'm old enough to pop culture reference Different Strokes from 1970s TV) Yesterday’s mystery...

Reverend William Tennent, James Steen, and the Fight for the South Carolina Backcountry in 1775 In August 1775, nearly a year before the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution reached the home of my sixth great-grandfather, Captain (later, during the war, Lt. Colonel) James Steen, on Thicketty Creek in the South Carolina backcountry. It's an area that only three years earlier had still been a part of North Carolina. The boundary between the two states was finally settled in...

One of the unexpected pleasures of historical research is discovering that the men who eventually became heroes first lived ordinary lives. Before my sixth great-grandfather, James Steen, was Lieutenant Colonel of the Spartan Regiment of South Carlolina militia in the American Revolution, and before he rode with the militia through the Snow Campaign of December 1775,, the Cherokee Expedition in the summer of 1776, Hanging Rock, Musgrove Mill, in August of 1780 and the campaign that culminated...