Welcome to Naked Byways. I’m Alex Jones. Actually, I am Alex S. Jones – to make a clear distinction from the Alex Jones who is the nation’s craziest conspiracy theorist. I’m not that guy.

Alex S. Jones was my byline at The New York Times where I worked as a reporter from 1983 until 1992. My beat was the media and I won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for a long account of the rise and fall of the Bingham family newspaper dynasty in Louisville, Ky. I’m in the fourth generation of a family owning the daily newspaper in Greeneville, Tennessee, the small town at the foot of the Smoky Mountains where I was born and grew up. I think maybe that gave me a special sort of insight into what happened to the Binghams. When my father read the article, he said it was his worst nightmare. 

Naked Byways is a combination of text and podcasts that I have written and recorded. It’s my voice you will hear. It is a sort of episodic memoir starting with growing up in a little southern world-of-its-own in the 1950s and going on from there. 

I have tried to make it honest, but of course it’s my version of things. It isn’t fiction, though. It is true, as best I can remember and tell it. For instance, one of my favorite subjects is a town character known as “Hoghead” Williams. He was real, and I knew him pretty well. He was also a kind of legend in my town. That kind of thing interests me, and the singular – and now mostly disappeared – nature of towns like Greeneville is the starting place for Naked Byways. 

Why the name? Well, “Naked” because it gave a frisson of louche sexiness and irreverence. I thought that might spark interest. And “Byways” because I shall strike out in any number of directions and less-traveled roads on this site. I liked the combo.

I have included on the site a short bio that has the facts of jobs and such. I am now in what is sometimes called “Third Life,” which isn’t retirement. In Third Life, you have happily given up your regular job and regained control of your time. Third Life is of indeterminate length, and I see it as lasting as long as I can get out of bed. I am in my early 70s and both my parents lived to be 101, so who knows? 

It is a lovely thing to have control of your time, but it also creates the burden of figuring out what you want to do with that time. Naked Byways is a significant part of my answer to that dilemma.

So, that’s it. Now we begin!

Warm regards, Alex