Sean Dietrich
Columnist
Sean is a writer for The Observer
Sean Dietrich's Latest
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Robert Frost famously said, “The reason worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”So, if worrying can kill us, it will not be a waste of time to reflect on the nature of worry and decide to...
The side-of-the-highway café was decorated for Christmas. Plastic balsam trees on formica tables. Beside the napkin dispenser, a nutcracker soldier with a Sharpie graphic drawn on his unmentionables, lending new meaning to the unfortunate soldier’s...
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 crappy motivational book that reads like it was written by a greasy televangelist.You’re going to be...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Understanding may be the best thing one person can offer another person. There are moments in life when nothing is more important than having someone understand how you feel and forgive you for something wrong you have...
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 has no idea what she’s doing on the instrument. But she actually sounds pretty good.I do not have...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Like most Americans, our family came together to celebrate Thanksgiving. It seems a good thing that the fourth Thursday of every November is set aside by our nation as a holiday to give thanks for our blessings. It is...
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 started hanging out at our house…We’ve become really close. He doesn’t have a very present mother....
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Gene Moore, my dear friend from Auburn days, lives with his wife Jan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Like me, Gene is a nonagenarian, both of us having lived beyond our octogenarian years. (“Nona” comes from the Latin word...
He was loading my grocery bags. I’ll call him Michael. He was early twenties, wearing an apron. He has Down syndrome.“How are you today?” he said.“Pretty good,” said I.“So am I!” he said. “I’m doing pretty good, too!”I smiled. “How about that.”The...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Almost three years have passed since my wife died. Her death enrolled me in a school I had not wanted to attend – the School of Sorrow. Nonetheless, the lessons I am learning are helping me move forward with the rest of...
BY SEAN DIETRICH The email came from someone named Paxton.“Dear Sean,” the message began, “my dog died today and I feel like I can’t go on. I know you‘ve lost a dog before. How do you go on without them?”As it happens, I have lost 12 dogs in my...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION — The above title in correct English would be: What are you doing? Around the house, some of us take shortcuts with our words. I can remember my wife asking me many times, “Whatcha doing?”I got in the habit of replying...
BY SEAN DIETRICH Rome, Italy. The sun is rising over the City of Seven Hills. I am sitting at a cafe, not far from our hotel, editing a column on a yellow legal pad. I am here for breakfast, waiting for my wife to wake up.The Colosseum is just down...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —Oswald Chambers was blunt about sorrow and difficulty. Nothing is gained by saying there ought to be no sorrow. “Sorrow is,” he said, and we must face it. Sin, sorrow and suffering are facts of life, “and it is not for us...
BY SEAN DIETRICH The man had a dream. In this dream, he died. It happened so quickly he almost didn’t know life was over. One minute he was alive; the next, poof, he was organic fertilizer.He went to Beulah Land. And it was the whole heavenly...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —During my early and middle years, but not much during my older years, there were occasions when I had lustful thoughts while admiring the beauty of another man’s wife. Each time that happened, I heard the inner voice of...
BY SEAN DIETRICH It was dark. The young dishwasher was on break. He was sitting behind the restaurant, out by the dumpster, tapping a carton of Camels on his palm.Like all dishwashers, he worked hard for junk pay. He was the first one there. The...
BY WALT ALBRITTON OPINION —It caught my attention — the story of a young man scoring a touchdown for Murphy High School in Mobile Thursday night, Oct. 5. When we lived in Mobile 50 years ago, my two oldest sons, Matt and Mark, both played on the...
OPINION —During my first visit to the beautiful African country known as Zambia, my host Alfred Kalembo introduced me to his sister Catherine. Since her understanding of languages was limited to her native tongue, Tonga, we communicated mostly with...
This is not my story. But it was told to me by an old man who lived it.The year is 1987. Rural Alabama. Our main character is a young kid. He’s at a remote gas station. He tries to start his car, but it’s a no go. The car is deader than disco.So...