I have been working on this book, Return to Buck Mountain, as a sequel to my first book, Tales From Buck Mountain, for several years, and hope to put it to the publisher this year. For my last column in this series I thought I would leave a bit of it with you first. …
My turkey book is going to press this fall, titled Broken Promises. Here is part of the introduction. BROKEN PROMISES © 2019 Walt Hampton It is the conundrum of my life, the life-conflict in my heart and my guts that I have to pursue and kill that which I love…
MEAT © 2019 Walt Hampton *This is a long one, but important to me. Several years ago a family member ask me to provide some advice for his daughter, who was graduating high school and headed off to college. This young lady is intelligent and beautiful–but being a ‘middle child’…
FOR THE TABLE © 2019 Walt Hampton Among my favorite pastimes is eating. I make no apologies for it, I am a food junkie. Here I am talking about home cooking, not restaurant food; and although I have an affinity for the finer things, to be sure, it is the…
PHOTOGRAPHY © 2019 Walt Hampton *Certainly one of the best ways to remember our Appalachian home is through photography. During the first 20 years of my writing for the outdoor market I used 35mm film cameras, then suddenly the magazines needed digital images. Digital is wonderful; honestly I don’t know…
MOTHER’S HANDS © 2019 Walt Hampton It would take a few volumes to talk about my mother, her childhood, education and life, and to try to encapsulate her in a column such as this is useless; let me just say that when it comes to mothers, I had a great…
FAVORITE PLACES ©2019 Walt Hampton If you have spent much time on this planet eventually you will accumulate a few locations that stick in the memory, places that for some reason or other strike a chord. From my own experience I could regale you with stories of Alaska or Wyoming,…
PUBLIC LAND © 2019 Walt Hampton Within Appalachia there are several types of public land, whose access and management is controlled by different agencies, both state and federal. Even within those parcels of land that fall under one agency there may be land that is controlled by a separate agency;…
LET’S GO TO THE RIVER! © 2019 Walt Hampton A winding, narrow dirt road beside the river leads to the homeplace. The old house sits on the end of a finger ridge, high and dry above the riverbottom, far enough away to be safe from the seasonal flooding but still…
LAND USE MANAGEMENT: WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE FUTURE © 2019 Walt Hampton The Appalachian region is a complex amalgamation of high, steep mountain ridges punctuated with small, deep valleys and an amazing abundance of water. Stretching from Maine to Georgia, as a land form it is unique on the…
