I pushed thru the trumpet vines and underbrush and poison oak to get thru the opening into the Barn. There is something about these relics of yesteryear that tugs at my heart like tiny babies hands and feet do. These old barns were as vital to our ancestors as the…
“Sleep, elusive in the weary, waiting silence of the nightHe speaks to me, silently, softly, gently and I rest.” I’m addicted to our forefathers’ old barns. Seldom can I pass one without a picture or a conversation with it. I stopped at an old barn recently and took a few…
The memories that I write about are not only in my mind but they flow in my bloodstream. Some pictures are vivid as bright colors hanging on the trees of Pisgah. Some memories are muted and faded and I must close my eyes to see them more clearly. They are…
I awoke at 3AM one morning and had taken an allergy pill before bedtime to help sleeplessness and it helped wakefulness. “Tossing and Turning” was a great 50’s song but not so good at bedtime. I had Mom on my mind. I don’t remember when her hair turned gray. I…
Perhaps for many of us old folks, the late 40’s and 50’s were the golden years. One of the best gifts our parents gave us was never telling us we were poor. We were not poor in the sense of not having food or clothes or a home. There just…
Our rented house was at least one-quarter mile from the blacktop in Upper South Hominy right underneath Mount Pisgah. Pisgah was where the first TV tower was installed. WLOS channel 13. Trouble was we didn’t have a TV. But my neighbor across the hill did. And they had a son…
My kinfolks in East Tennessee made molasses almost every year. One of my uncles or cousins would raise the cane. Come fall when the cane was ready they would set a day to make them. My Uncle Bud Chandley, Aunt Mary, Cousins Boyd and his wife Rena and Jerry, Johnny…
Sunday morning meant Church. Period. I was going to church unless some kind of sickness or something came up unexpectedly. Folks in the early days of the Appalachians worked daylight till dark except on Sundays. Now some of them may have stayed up Saturday night working a still, but they…
I knew he wasn’t all that good a fellow when I saw him. Gray, stringy hair all scraggly and sticking up. Blue-gray squinty eyes peeping out at me. All I could see was an old sinner who wasn’t a bigger sinner simply from lack of opportunity. It was a bit…
I have a great sense of thankfulness for being born in the Appalachian Mountains, born in an area known as the Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridges. Actually the Parkway’s name is the Blue Ridge Parkway and it stretches all the way across NC. The folks who make up our History…
