William McFalls and his dear wife Ruth lived just a hop, skip and a jump from my old homeplace on Piedmont Road. Two of the nicest people in the world, they were the perfect Jack Sprat couple; Mr. McFalls was tall and lean, and Ruth was short and stout. The…
Our story begins in the southwestern part of NC…and ends only 8 miles south of his birthplace. Zeb Vance packed a lot of living into those 64 years.… including law school, fighting in the Civil War, three terms as governor, a federal prison sentence and representing a defendant, free of…
The most common types of watermelons in Burke County when I was growing up were Charleston Greys, Crimson Sweets, Jubilees, Black Diamonds, Cannonballs, Georgia Rattlesnakes, and Sugar Babies. Of these, Charleston Greys and Black Diamonds grow the largest with Charleston Greys maxing out at 30-35 lbs. Black Diamonds will grow…
Frequent visitors to the area attempting to escape the summer heat led Union Civil War General John T. Wilder to construct a 20-room spruce log lodge atop Roan Mountain in 1877. As its popularity grew, he constructed a luxury resort atop Roan Mountain in 1885 which straddled the TN/NC line,…
Although we often hear about the Ohio Buckeyes, there are fewer recollections regarding the buckeyes of North Carolina. A buckeye is a nut that grows across the state, but painted buckeyes from the mountains are the most iconic, in my memories at least. I don’t know why we referred to…
While Doc always insisted he was just a regular person, a man of the people, but people growing up with Doc knew he was different….unique. The sense was that, if he wasn’t going to be famous for his music, that he would be famous or noteworthy doing something else. According…
When I was growing up, people often made their own entertainment, playing music, telling stories, and sometimes doing impersonations. My dad would sometime dress up in his overalls and weird aviator cap and pretend to be Snuffy Smith. He would adopt an exaggerated draw and fill his lower lip with…
Arthel Watson embodied that classic Southern phrase: “Don’t get above your raising.” Folks from the North misinterpret its meaning. It doesn’t mean don’t achieve or better yourself, it doesn’t mean don’t do your best or be your best, it means stay humble, remember your roots, and remember your family despite…
Easter is a sacred holiday for Christians around the world, but for me as a child, Easter signified the beginning of swimming season. My parents made a rule that we were not allowed to go swimming in the creek until after Easter. Apparently, they were unaware of how balmy those…
The Great Blizzard of ’93 was a massive storm that formed over the Gulf of Mexico on March 12th of that year. At its peak, the storm stretched from Canada to Central America. You know the old saying, “everybody talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about…
