“Slow Road Home”

I must admit I am impressed. I finished reading Fred First’s new book this weekend. I have been dragging out the finish quite frankly because I was enjoying the read so much and didn’t want it to be over.

Since I am cursed with an omnivorous appetite to read (thank God for the internet), I have read many books on a variety of subjects. There has always been a place in my heart for those few books I have stumbled across that weren’t widely read, but really spoke of a certain place in space and time and the authors connection there.

I have been following Fred’s journey for a relatively short time on his blog. It was his photo’s that first brought me in, but, it was the story which kept me coming back. And the audacity of his publishing his own book caused me to take him up on his pre-publication offer to pay the postage and order the book. I am very glad I did. I devoured the first half of the book and had to force myself to slow down and savor the remainder.

To give an idea of how much I was impressed by the word pictures I was seeing, I would divide my reading between the book itself and the archives at “Fragments From Floyd”. It was this reading and others that led me to begin to find my own voice and start this blog. You will find references to different conversations I found there in my archives and on Fred’s site. In many ways I find myself following in Fred’s footsteps, at 52 it’s nice to have someone up ahead breaking path. And his emails and blog posts are like calling back encouragement to those of us who are following.

Fred, keep strolling through the woods, keep taking photos, and keep writing. There are those of us out in the virtual community growing out of Floyd County, Virginia who will keep coming back to your front porch for the stories…and the companionship. Thanks, Fred.

And if you find yourself going over to visit with the Floyd County folks, tell 'em Gary sent ya...

A List Apart: Articles: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web

I was cleaning up my bookmark list this morning and what usually happens when I try happened. I followed an old link that crashed. Then in trying to find a new clean link to the site I found a article that has more relevance to me now than when it was first published...

A List Apart: Articles: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web: "Snapshot :
Your information architecture is as smooth, clear, and inviting as a lake. Your design rocks. Your code works. But what keeps readers coming back is compelling writing that's continually fresh and new. Updating daily content can challenge the most dedicated scribe or site owner. Mark Bernstein's ten tips will help you keep the good words (and readers) coming."

That was the Blurb on the home page of A List Apart that caught my attention. Which led to a really good article on not only why to write, but how.

In first reading I was struck by some of the points Mark Bernstein had to make. Since I am in the beginning stages of trying to define not only why I am writing but what I am being pulled to say. I was particularly impressed by:

"Write for a reason, and know why you write. Whether your daily updates concern your work life, your hobbies, or your innermost feelings, write passionately about things that matter.

To an artist, the smallest grace note and the tiniest flourish may be matters of great importance. Show us the details, teach us why they matter. People are fascinated by detail and enthralled by passion; explain to us why it matters to you, and no detail is too small, no technical question too arcane.

Bad personal sites bore us by telling us about trivial events and casual encounters about which we have no reason to care. Don't tell us what happened: tell us why it matters. Don't tell us your opinion: tell us why the question is important."

I guess that makes my reason for writing more of the search for the reason, than the reason for the search. If you follow along with my search maybe we can both arrive at the reason together. I promise to try not to bore, and if I do please tell me.

"If you are writing for the Living Web, you must write consistently. You need not write constantly, and you need not write long, but you must write often. One afternoon in grad school, I heard B. F. Skinner remark that fifteen minutes a day, every day, adds up to about book every year, which he suggested was as much
writing as anyone should indulge. You don't need to write much, but you must write, and write often."

I like the idea of the"Living Web" which Mark attributes to Dan Chan of Daypop. As I write this I am reminded of something I have seen over and over in the years I have been online and reading others blogs. It is the shared data that is out among the readers. Fred First has seen it when he asks a tech question and gets an answer from his readers. Jerry Pournelle has had it for years, when he would throw out a problem he was having with his technology, he would often get answers almost faster than he could post. It is almost like we are watching the evolution of the first glimmers of a shared human brain.

Then there's that old bugaboo about writing often. I have always heard that it is harder to get started writing and develop the habit than it is feeding the monster in the long run. Hopefully, like all habits, doing something regularly for 30 days and it becomes a habit...

When he speaks of being good friends, I interpret that as the sense of community that grows from the interhnge of ideas that comes from sharing...

Read widely and well, on the web and off, and in your web writing take special care to acknowledge the good work and good ideas of other writers. Show them at their best, pointing with grace and respect to issues where you and they differ. Take special care to be generous to good ideas from those who are less well known, less powerful, and less influential than you.

Weblog writers and other participants in the Living Web gain readers by exchanging links and ideas...Find ways to be a good friend. All writers thrive on ideas; distribute them generously and always share the credit. Be generous with links. Be generous, too, with your time and effort; A-list sites may not need your traffic, but everyone can use a hand.

There is plenty of useful info in this article, so follow the link and read the whole thing.

Day into Night

Do you find it as disconcerting as I do when the morning goes from sunny to dusk in an hour? As you can tell from the screenshot, the weather here is a bit unsettled on this Memorial Day 2006. I am sure a whole lot of barbeque is being doused by the rain.

Today usually marks the beginning of the barbeque season here, which is a whole nuther thing than what ya'll do in the Blue Ridge region. For one thing we are talkin' smoked meat...and we are talkin' beef briskit, the most unused piece of beef in existance. Of course, it takes a bit of work to make a brisket edible, mainly hours and hours of smoking. I actually started mine yesterday afternoon. Of course, you don't do any of this at a high temperature.

So as I sit here watching the rain my brisket is finishing off in the oven at 250...Ya'll have a great day, hear.

My Back Yard at the end of May

Spring in Texas...
I thought I would give you a bit of a weather report:
7pm May 27, 2006
Temp: 82 Humidity: 76%

The high today was 85 with a 96% humidity.
The low last night was 73.

You gotta love the climate here

Apples by June?

 This just goes to show you how much difference there is between the Blue Ridge and my home here. This was taken today at 7pm. 

My Family History

I was raised in a family that was slightly removed from the immediate locale of the rest of our relatives... therefore, whenever we were able to get together with our grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins it was a special treat. My dad’s family had moved into Wharton County, west of Houston, in the 1910’s and my mother’s family moved into Fort Bend County in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s. Both of these counties are second tier counties on the Texas Gulf Coast, meaning that the topography could be compared to a plate. The only relief from the flatness of this part of the state is negative, the streams and rivers are all cut into the surrounding flatness.

Even with the many visits and summer weeks staying with my kin, it was mainly just the immediate generation members that we knew. Our family Bible only went back one additional generation listing Great-Grandparents. As a child growing up I remember driving around Wharton County with my dad as he pointed out old houses set in cotton fields where he lived at one time or another growing up. Today I couldn’t even get you close to any of those sites, so that much of our family history is lost now. My dad was also great at passing on the stories he heard as a child growing up. Being the last of 13 children, a lot of his family’s history had happened before he showed up on the scene, so I am sure some of the stories had already taken on a certain amount of myth before he arrived.

I remember the thrill in 1972 when my Grandpa Sewell bought a copy of “Linville Family in America” by Alice Eichholz. There in the book was my family right down to me and going back into England in the 1500’s. I was so impressed with this information I painstakingly copied my direct ancestors all the way back from the book. These five pages of data I have managed to hang onto to this day.

When my dad passed away one of my long lost cousins showed up for the funeral. One of the things he brought was a copy of the ancestry chart for the family. When I had the opportunity to really look over his information, I noticed some discrepancies in the info and what was in our family Bible. Eventually, this led me to the local genealogy library and hours of research only to discover that both of our sets of data were partially right and, of course, partially wrong.

This search for my family’s history started in 1996 with the death of my father (it should have started earlier when I could still pick his brain) and has continued to this day. From the very first some of my research was done online, and today, with the digitalization of old records, more and more of my research is done on the internet. In the process of doing this research I have visited a number of states (and a lot of dank, dark courthouse basements) and sat with the graves of grandparents and aunts and uncles who just a short time ago didn’t even exist in my world. I will say that today I never pass a cemetery without wondering who might be there that I am related to.

Over the last decade I have met and enjoyed the friendship of enumerable other researchers looking for the same ancestors. These distant and not so distant cousins have shared in the thrill of the discovery of each little clue in the long search. It has been with the help of these researchers that I have expanded my research, and it has been the expansion of the available data on the internet that has made re-researching so much fun. The thrill of finding reference to a cousin (long gone now) and then tracing that family back through multiple generations in an hour is like finding buried treasure on the beach.

It was also this search for family history that led me to the Blue Ridge back in 2000. I had a couple of days to kill on a trip to Charlotte, I had a car, and I had a map that led me to Linville, NC. At the time I was not aware of the actual connection I had to the area, as a matter of fact I had made four trips into the Blue Ridge of northwestern North Carolina before I stumbled onto the information that the Linville River was named for a multi great uncle. It was just last year that I came across the records that my fourth Great-Grandfather was one of the original settlers of what was then Wilkes County and now is the community of Vilas, North Carolina. It seems he paid taxes on 270 acres in 1787 on what is to this day known as Linville Creek and were members of the Three Forks Baptist Church from 1790 to 1800. Sometime after 1800 the family moved on to the west and ended up in western Missouri by the 1830’s.

So, does this make mine a 200 year “slow road home”?

The photograph at the start of this text was taken about 1939 and is of my Dad and his family. James P and Sarah (Sallie) Boyd and Family...

How Much is Enough?

Fragments from Floyd: "most of what I find to do these days is done with my butt in a chair, letting my fingers do the walking. Ann prys me out of the seat a couple of times a day to accompany her on one of many sanity-walks, but that is hardly a cardiovascular workout..."

You know Fred, I have the same problem. All day on the computer at the day gig, all evening reading and writing on the computer at home. My better half doesn't understand the call to put this out there, but then she has been questioning my sanity for most of the 25+ years we have been married. She was sure I was crazy back in the '80's when I bought that first computer, she has questioned each of the computers we've brought into the house since.

The problem I have is probably the opposite of yours though, here in my part of Texas it's only comfortable for outdoor physical activity for about a quarter of the year. It's not the quarter you are used to in the mountains, we have been pushing temperatures up toward the 90's for better than a month now. By the time summer officially gets here we'll be hitting the low 100's...Makes me long for winter and temperatures in the 40's.

Fragments From Floyd: Secret Places

I have been reading the archives at Fragments From Floyd and came across Fred's "Secret Places" observations.

Fragments From Floyd: November 19, 2004 Archives: "This remote and unearthly quiet place above and below me was a hidden shrine, the rose that blooms unseen--a neighborhood secret. And I felt blessed."

I too have stumbled into places of this type. I felt this way as I climbed the hollow above the cabin we rented in 2004. I would work my way about half way up and just stand in awe. The extreme diversity of nature in that one spot, the church like silence, it all led to that sense of the sacred. When I read Fred's account of his trip to the fall's, that is the impression I get, more sacred than secret.

Wendell Berry said something along these lines in his poem "How To Be a Poet" from Given New Poems:

Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.

There is a place up the road and around a bend from this place I call home that once was a home of others long gone. It is my secret place in this home space. I do not own it and know not who does. Only the sheltering oaks still proclaim that this old and desecrated grove was once sacred. But there is a feeling amongst those old and weather battered oaks of what once they covered. When I stand quietly and allow the trees to speak I can still feel the sacred words they once proclaimed so openly...I don't go to the grove often anymore 'cause I feel the oaks need their peace and I don't tread as lightly as once I did...

Medina River Swimming Hole - Texas Style

 Just because I hate too many posts without a photo, here is a shot I took last year out west of San Antonio. I was taking the long road home (maybe that should be the title of my book if I ever publish one, do you mind Fred) which has always driven my wife crazy. She says I am the only person she knows that can turn a 3 hour trip into 9 and think I've made good time. Oh well, she's probably right...

It was early spring and the weather was beautiful...low 60's and sunny. When I saw a low water crossing I had to pull over and sit a spell. I enjoyed the rest, hope you enjoy the view... 

How I spend my days…

I spend my days in a darkened room staring at twin windows on the electronic world. My twin windows are the twin 20” monitors on which I design my projects before sending them through the cable that ties my machine to the others in this network of interconnected ideas.

My job titles me a design manager, but how does one really manage designs? My actual job has me spending my days (to borrow the corporate branding speak) “designing environments and graphical interfaces that facilitate face to face marketing”. Which means, I design displays and graphics for exhibits, tradeshows and conventions? The illustration on this post will give you a slight idea of what I do…I tend to reinvent myself regularly, though, keeping the myth growing.

I came to this position primarily because I was always a computer geek even before there were computer geeks…and since I was originally a builder of modular exhibits working without the benefits of a designer or detailer to illustrate what we were putting together, I taught myself to draw them, first by hand and then by computer. I was always drawn to drawing and sketching, so the discipline of drafting was a natural progression. The reason I started to draw the exhibits we were building was to be able to communicate the setup instructions to the installation crews in my absence. Over the course of the years my primary work load has shifted from a mainly production bent to primarily a design focus, so that now almost all of my work is done in a virtual world…And, since the ankles and knees no longer appreciate the pounding of the concrete on the tradeshow floor for days and miles on end, I guess the virtual world will do until I can put myself into the real world of the mountains I dream of.

Blue Ridge Parkway south from Floyd County

 Another shot from the parkway in 2004. The family had not yet learned what Dad with a new camera was like...It didn't take long for them to figure it out. We stopped more places than they cared to stop so I could try for a few new shots. All of these were taken with a film camera not digital, and scanned when developed to make jpgs. 

The Vault Radio

About Vault Radio

Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. His first venue, the legendary Fillmore Auditorium, was home to many of rock's greatest performers - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Prince - and the list goes on and on.

Graham taped thousands of live performances and stored the tapes in the basement of the BGP headquarters. These tapes and the concerts they captured lay dormant until the Bill Graham archive was acquired by Wolfgang's Vault (Bill Graham's given first name was Wolfgang) in 2003.

Vault Radio is now playing selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream. Songs will be added to and removed from the radio show on a regular basis.

For everyone who grew up in the '60's and the 70's this online radio station is a blast from the past. If you haven't checked out the Vault you should. Live music recorded in all of the famous and never heard locations (at least for this Texas teenager of the time). I must admit a lot f the groups have fallen of the memory chips in my head in the last 30+ years, but it doesn’t take much to pull them right back. If you have some time to kill, check out the posters and photo's they have in the archives.

My musical tastes have changed greatly since those days, so I don't take the Vault in any great time segments. Most people who hear what plays in my office all day at work are amazed at the eclectic mix that pours from my computers speakers...jazz, rock, celtic, country, new age, hip-hop, blues, classical, you name it with more and more bluegrass. I generally play everything through Winamp with the shuffle option on, so you really never know what might come out.

The Drive from Floyd, June 2004

 Two years ago we spent a week in Watauga County, south of Valle Crucis on Nettles Knob. On of the day trips we took up to Mabry's Mill. On the drive back we took the Parkway the whole way, stopping along the way as things caught our interest. This was one of those stops. I look forward to the return trip this year. Now that I know more of the area and it citizens, the trip will mean more.

I spent most of the day yesterday hooking up our new DSL to our home network kludge we live with. Replacing the old dial-up has been on the "to-do" list for a while and ATT finally made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I wasn't able to get online till late (after a nice long session with Chris at ATT/Yahoo High Speed Internet...Thanks Chris). Today the whole family has been pushing the limits trying to stream different media at once. So far there have only been a few dropped streams...Life is good.

As I sit here, wireless and online for the first time since we found ourselves with a home network, writing my blog and listening to WNCW's "Goin' Across The Mountain", I can almost feel the mountain breeze a blowin'. From the streaming radio though it sounds like the breeze is more of a storm in southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee and western South Carolina...

I want to thank those of you who have stopped by and left comments, the kind words of encouragement are appreciated. I am still trying to get a handle on what I feel it is I am being drawn to do on this site, so bear with me if you would.

 

Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging

Thanks to Fred for the link, great articles all. I was especially atracted to what David Weinberger had to say about community among bloggers:

David Weinberger, January 2006 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging: "For me, a community is a group of people who care about one another more than they have to. I do feel part of an ever-changing community of bloggers and readers. That's not to say that everyone who ever glanced at my blog is part of that community. But there are people I've come to know over the years either through their blog or through their comments on my blog. Some of them mean a lot to me. And this is not a binary club that you're either in or out of. It's far smudgier than that, as it should be. There are blogs I read that I feel emotionally attached to written by bloggers I don't know personally but about whom I've come to care. I'm more than a reader of them but less than a community member. It's an extension of the attachment we feel to favorite printosphere writers, but the blogging world is more intimate and less guarded."

All of the interviews on Rebecca’s site were very informative. As a recent discoverer of “place blogging”, I was particularly interested in Fred’s own insights into what and why he began and then continued Fragments.

Fred First, May 2006 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging“In the first year, a good bit of my writing came from a desire to simply tell my story to myself, to re-examine my roots, in a sense. I found that my kids had heard but not remembered my yarns and blarney about my childhood, the snake stories from my college biology years and so on. Just before I began blogging, my grandmother died, and I realized I never knew her stories. I wanted my family to have some of mine, so there was that motivation.”

I find that like Fred’s children, I listened to the stories my own Dad had to tell as I was growing up. It was only after he died that I began to really wish I had spent more time listening so I could pass “his-story” on to my kids…It was that which really started me to researching my/our family history. That researh led eventually to my discovery of the Carolina mountains I dream about, and to Fragments From Floyd and the community of bloggers that have grown up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I think what first attracted me to Fragments, Blue Ridge blog, No Direction Home and the rest was the photos. I have a long history with photography as a hobby and loved the images of the mountains. It was only after a few visits that the words started meaning as much as the images. Now, I find myself wanting to emulate these folks with their mountain lifestyle and a whole world sitting on their front porch for the daily conversation…thanks to all of you for allowing me to hang out and enter the conversation.

Blue Ridge blog

Blue Ridge blog: "I walked along the Watauga River this morning before heading to work. I think I was trespassing, but only the birds noticed. This is the view of the Mast Farm Inn from the river. Actually this is the barn and the grainery. Forget cereal. This is the way to start your day..."

I wish I could show Marie's photo…since I can’t you’ll have to follow the link yourself. I have to agree about a walk along the river being the way to start the day…The play of light on the farm is gorgeous.

Valle Crucis…my dreams continue to return there. I can’t wait to return for a week again this summer. Mornings on the porch with a cup of coffee looking out over Clarks Creek…hikes up the knob…days that don’t try to steam you until you’re cooked.

This year we are planning our trip to coincide with the Highland Games on Grandfather Mountain. Seems my wife really wants to experience the reality of the Scottish Culture, and to think I’m the one with the Scottish ancestry…I am really going to have to try and swing by the old home place out of Vilas, though after a couple of hundred years it might be a little hard to find. At least I should be able to cruise the creek they named after the family before most of them headed over the mountains into Tennessee. Great-great-great grandpa James Linville was born there on the 15th of July in 1794. Shortly after the turn of the century his family had migrated on over the mountains and he lived most of his life in north western Missouri where he died in 1873.

Why the National Guard?

From The Washington Post Editorial, May 17, 2006

"Why the National Guard?: "Disingenuously, Mr. Bush declared in his address that 'we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, to respond to natural disasters and to help secure our border.' That may be true in strictly numerical terms. But the president neglected to mention that the tens of thousands of Guard troops who will be rotated to the border over the next year will do so during their annual two- to three-week training periods. In other words, they will be deprived of time to train for war missions or natural disasters in order to drive trucks and staff desks for the Border Patrol.

Administration officials say the deployment is designed to provide such auxiliary services until civilian contractors can be brought in..."

The emphasis in the above is mine but I think it is telling that our CEO President is again moving government services to the private sector. Maybe it is only poetic that in all likelihood these civilian contractors will not be able to find any “American Workers” willing to apply for the jobs at the pay scale they will be willing to pay in order to guarantee the profits of the CEO’s. Which explains the “Guest Worker” plan, who else will we be putting on the border to protect us? Wouldn’t it just be easier to hire the Mexican Army to work the other side for us? We could call it foreign aide…

I find this reliance on “civilian contractor” very troubling in all of its various guises. Why do we now pay a company to do what we used to pay citizens to do? Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I find it very hard to trust the good intentions of a corporate board. And I have yet to meet a Corporate Citizen with an inherent morality. And the fact that the courts wish to guarantee Corporate Free Speech while the “elected” officials take this very same “speech” to the bank is ruinous to the “common good”.

"Slow Road Home" by Fred First

Fragments From Floyd was one of the first blogs I discovered when I went googleing on the phrase "Blue Ridge Mountains" (actually Marie Freeman’s “Blue Ridge blog” was the first site I hit and it was her links list I was following to Fred’s). Fred’s writing spoke to me and when he starting blogging about the book project I was intrigued. When he made the pre-production order offer I jumped for it.

As you can see from the photo, I have been having a time warping experience of it. Reading both the book and the “Fragments From Floyd” archives. Moving forward on one “slow road” as I move backwards on the other, makes for an interesting if warped sense of time and place.

I highly recommend the book as a great read of the sort I haven’t read in years. And having the ability to follow the evolution of Fred’s style as he explored his muse in public on Fragments only adds to the enjoyment of the book.

Mail Pouch Tobacco - Indiana

"Enjoy some history about Mail Pouch Barns: "Mail Pouch Tobacco" means bright yellow letters on a barn whose red planks have weathered to dark brown against an Appalachian hillside. In the 1870's the Bloch Brothers, whose name appears on the sign's masthead, had a small side business rolling stogies in Wheeling. At some point, they began bagging flavored stogie wrapper clippings as "scrap", or chewing tobacco, and sold them under the names of the stores who handled their product. Soon the brothers launched their own brand, "West Virginia Mail Pouch Tobacco". Although it is not specifically mentioned in the company's 75th anniversary history, for a time the product was also promoted for smoking."

I found this barn in southern Indiana a few years back. Something about the photo keeps calling me back. It lived as my wallpaper for a while after I took the picture and I keep printing it for different reasons. It was early spring and the light was washed out. The trees were just starting to leave out and the daffodils were blooming all over the countryside. The above paragraph is from the Greene County Pennsylvania Tourism website and they have a bit more to say about the history of the barns, so check it out. My photo has had a bit of Photoshop magic applied...

Google Earth

This is the view of North Carolina that I am dreaming over...Looking north over Boone into Virginia with Mt. Rogers on the horizon.

I can waste more time playing with Google Earth...They shouldn't put programs like this in the hands of a mapaholic. The only problem I have is, why, with the latest photo update is this part of NC (and only this part) covered with clouds? Have I been using up too much bandwidth guys? I appreciate the higher resolution in the sat photo's, but higher resolution of clouds is still clouds...

Oh well, If you don't have Google Earth, get it...it will even work (slowly) on dial up.

North Carolina

A few months back I heard a singer-songwriter on a segment of NPR. His name was Jon Randall and he was one of the two writers (Bill Anderson was the other) of "Whiskey Lullaby" sung by Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss. He has a CD out and one of the songs I like a lot is North Carolina Moon. Check out the lyrics...

North Carolina Moon

I woke up this morning to the humming of the engines
Hauling nature's finest from the Gulf of Mexico
Ridin' this ol' river is peaceful but it's lonesome
It makes wonder how the old folks are at home
(chorus)
Now the years have blown by me like
the wind through the pines
But the song of the south is ever sweet
as homemade wine
Oh how I miss those mountains when the
Laurels are in bloom
And the southern stars are dancin'
'round a North Carolina moon

Just rolled through Memphis I could
hear them guitar's a playing
They had the blues so bad it almost broke my heart
Don't sound nothing like a band of tree frogs singing
When every now and then they'd get in tune
with grandpa's harp
(repeat chorus)
When I die boys make me this promise
You'll send my body back up North Carolina way
I don't want no tombstone just lay me next to mama
And let the honeysuckle grow wild upon my grave
(repeat chorus)
(JON RANDALL, RONNIE STEWART)

Go ahead and follow the link above, there are a number of good songs on his CD...

For a great article on Mountain Laurel, see this (The Sweet Mountain Laurel of Spring) in the Blue Ridge Gazette.

Out My Backdoor - Texas

I took this shot last year in early spring. Early spring here is generally no later than mid-March. As we are only about 40 miles from the coast, spring tends to bring quite a few foggy mornings.

I generally like this type of spring morning, particularly when I can sit and enjoy the muffled sounds through the fog. Today, we had a morning a lot like this, with the exception of the fog. he temperature was pleasant, It rained most of the day yesterday so there is a cool dampness to the smell you get with that first deep breath you take. Since it is now much later into spring, you also get a whiff of the sweetness from the Texas Privet and the honeysuckle that are blooming in the woods. We are already past our local berry season...I was eating dewberries (our local blackberry) as I walked in the woods two to three weeks back, now there are just a few left in the shaded areas.

The weather report for today calls for seasonable cool...high today is predicted to be in the low 80's... 

Quotes of the Day - The Quotations Page

Quotes of the Day - The Quotations Page: "We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." - Frank Tibolt

I guess this could explain the problem I have had with both blogging and journaling, I always wait for the inspiration. If there is one thing I've learned over the years it is that inspiration never comes at a convenient time or place. It seems to me that it usually hits on the freeway, in traffic, while you are driving at 70mph...Which is where I need to be heading.

A Lonely Warning On Debt

A Lonely Warning On Debt: "'The question I ask is, what sacrifice are we making? Anyone in the know who is watching us has to wonder about our character, our intellectual honesty, our concern about our national security, our nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace now and in the future, and, last but not least, our don't-give-a-darn attitude about the standard of living and quality of life of our children and grandchildren.

'The question is, are we willing to be honest with ourselves and the American people and make these tough decisions?'"

George Voinovich, a Republican Senator from Ohio said the above in a speech on the floor of the Senate on May 3rd.

I find myself thinking that if there were more politicians in America today who would speak and vote these sentiments, I might still consider myself an Independent.

I was proud in the first 20 years of my voting history to vote the man not the party. That changed in 1992. That was the year I had the misfortune to attend every minute of the Republican Convention (it was my job not choice), and it was what I heard and saw there that caused me to change my mind about a lot of things. At the convention I tried to explain my political philosophy and I called myself a "fiscally conservative, social liberal" and the person I was speaking with could not understand what I was talking about.

Many things have changed in the last decade, but, the one thing that hasn’t changed in my opinion is the basic makeup of the American People. I feel that the majority of us still believe that America should live up to the ideals upon which it was founded. Someone recently commented on some trait or the other (I think it might have been something about the way we were treating prisoners), and the sentiment they expressed was that this was how our prisoners were being treated. My comment was that “as Americans, we are better than that, and I expected us to act like it.” I guess what I was really saying was that I chose to be better than that, and I expect the people who chose to represent me in government to live up to and by the Ideals I have chosen.

This has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with morality. And my morality seems to boil down to the old “Golden Rule”, do unto others as you would have them do unto you…

Unseasonable Spring

I was sitting at the kitchen table this morning with the doors and windows open enjoying our unseasonably cool morning, answering email and reading the daily news and views (as in blogs), when my youngest daughter wandered in and wanted to know why the AC wasn't on. Now folks, the outside temperature at the time was just hitting 72 (I told you it was unseasonable for SE Texas), and I had really been enjoying the breeze along with the birdsong and wind chimes.

I think the poor girl would shrivel up and die if she had to go through the summers we went through with only an attic fan. Now for those of you who don't know what an attic fan is, it's a large fan that is built into the ceiling (usually in a central hallway) that pulls the hot air out of the house. Usually, when you ran it all night with the bedroom windows open it would get so cool you had to have a quilt or a blanket before morning. During the day you would turn the speed of the fan down and close up the house to keep the cool in while blowing just enough fresh air through the attic to keep the heat from building up too high before evening when you would start the whole cycle over.

As I remember things, the fan would provide a low white noise (not that we knew what that was back then) and you could still hear the night sounds through the open window. I guess we could be a little more trusting back then, 'cause I'm sure not many folks today would want a window open all night by their bed...

Being as we were deep south here the only real disadvantage to this whole affair was that the humidity would still permeate the whole house and everything in it. Even so, some night I really miss the old days.

Our Government At Work

The Carpetbagger Report "The Washington Post ran an interesting chart this week that every Democrat should memorize. It shows your annual savings under the latest Republican tax cut. Here are the figures:

$10,000-$20,000: $2
$20,000-$30,000: $9
$30,000-$40,000: $16
$40,000-$50,000: $46
$50,000-$75,000: $100
$75,000-$100,000: $403
$100,000-$200,000: $1,388
$200,000-$500,000: $4,499
$500,000-$1 million: $5,562
More than $1 million: $41,977"

Ok, I am trying not to go off into the political blog side of life, but...The chart above from The Washington Post by way of The Carpetbagger Report makes my blood boil. Does Congress really think that the people making over a million dollars a year really need another $41k?

You, know I am from Texas and I have to admit in this state we get exactly the type of government we pay for...and in case you are wondering, we don't pay much. Needless to say, with all of those Texans now in Washington they seem to be trying to duplicate the Texas experiment on a national scale...be afraid America, be very afraid.

Chron.com | These 'rural' legends amount to a whole herd of cows

Chron.com | These 'rural' legends amount to a whole herd of cows: "These 'rural' legends amount to a whole herd of cows"

Sometimes you really have to take your hat of to a real storyteller...check out the latest from one of my favorite authors.

My family has been reading Mr. Hales newspaper columns since the 1950's and he continues to inspire me. Once upon a time I wished I could follow in his footsteps, the only problem I had was lack of confidence and no drive to practice...better late than never (as the old saying goes).

Mabry Mill

This is said to be the most photographed spot in America. I can believe it. This is my version. This photo, also, was taken in June 2004. Unfortunately, the weather decided to let loose about the time we arrived. As a matter of fact if you look at the photo you can see the beginnings of the rainfall hitting the pond surface. So all we saw was the sites from the parking lot and the mill itself. Maybe next trip we can actually see the rest of the displays...

Parkway Cabin

Parkway Cabin

This photo came from my 2004 Vacation Shots. We did the trip in Early June. On this drive we were returning from Mabry Mill. It was a cool, rainy day for a drive on the Blue Ridge.

“You are the storyteller of your own life..."

I was going through some old files today, cleaning out the clutter that accumulates when you aren’t being particularly observant, and I came across a bunch of slides I printed from a Tom Peters presentation. The one that spoke to me immediately was a quote Tom had attributed to Isabel Allende. “You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.” That one sentence, in its simplicity, pretty much lays out a whole life philosophy. The only addition I would make is it takes an audience for the legend to become mythical. From my observation it is only in the eyes of your friends and loved ones that the story you live can become the legend that become myth through the retelling.

Anyway for the time being her quote will have a place of prominence on this site…and as a unsolicited plug, I finished her new book “Zorro” a couple of months ago and happily endorse it as a very good read.

A walk into spring...

No Direction Home: "Looking south on Sparks Lane from the Abrams Creek ford shown below."

This Photo on fletch's blog really makes me wish I was close enough to take a stroll...When I first saw it this week it reminded me of some of the roads I’ve visited. Springtime and a country road…

No Direction Home is another blog I discovered early last winter. I came through a link on Marie Freeman's Blue Ridge Blog. Fletch's photo's keep me coming back almost daily to see what's new...Thank to both .

Pastorial Spring

"the view from the parking lot of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church on Rush Branch Rd in the Bethel community. Over the yonder distant ridge is Tennessee."

This is what I love about Marie's Blue Ridge blog. It just makes the intention to relocate that much stronger...

The call of high places…

What is it about some people that causes them to always try to get to the highest place around? All of my life I have climbed to the top of the highest vantage point (and growing up on the Gulf coast of Texas, that usually meant a tree).

For years and years my favorite trips were to the Texas Hill Country out west of Austin. Even then I was chasing my roots, though at the time I had no clue. Turns out a couple of Generations of my family lived and loved, raised kids (Lord did they raise kids) and buried the loved ones that passed on. And they did it in a part of Texas that actually has topography unlike the counties I spent my growing up years in.


This photo shows Enchanted Rock on the horizon. It is one of my favorite spots in the center of Texas. This is what we here on the Texas Gulf Coast call a mountain...see the house in front, it's only a mile or so from the base of the Rock.

Other than a car trip in the early ‘60’s to Ohio to visit my dad’s twin sister, I had never really enjoyed mountains. The only tall places I could visit around home were the man-made mountains in downtown Houston. I started visiting the observation deck at the top of the Humble Oil Building in the late ‘60’s and continued to make periodic trips up to see the sites until they closed it when it’s 50+ stories no longer topped the skyline of Houston.

It was on a business trip in early March of 2000 that I had a chance to run up into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The first day was a day that most of the people living in the area would recognize; totally fogged in…couldn’t see 50 yards down the road, much less the view from the overlooks. I cruised from Blowing Rock to Little Switzerland and didn’t see a thing. The next day the weather in Charlotte was clear and beautiful so I decided to try again. When I drove up the switchbacks above Lake James and then south down the Blue Ridge Parkway to where the road was closed, I was in awe. I stopped at overlook after overlook and stood in the sun with the icy wind in my face looking at the vistas until my eyes watered from the cold, but still I stared. The one thing that I will never forget was the thrill I got when I rounded the curve and drove out on the Linn Cove Viaduct for the first time. This has to be the most beautiful piece of engineering I have ever seen, and, to this day every time I cross those graceful curves I still feel a thrill.

That trip was the beginning of my love affair with these mountains of North Carolina. I have visited other mountains since, but I am always drawn back to the Blue Ridges that sheltered my ancestors so many years ago, and hopefully, will shelter me and mine in the years ahead…

WHERE I'M FROM

Fred First asks "Where Are You from?" and adds a template to help answer the question . Check out his page and make your own life poem.

Where I'M From by Gary Boyd

I am from books by the dozen that started me dreaming, from Lava Soap and bare feet in summer always dirty.
I am from the Deep South, coastal plains and high clouds; sky as big as the whole of existence; sun and heat, humidity and rain (sometimes at the same time).
I am from the oak, the broad shade of summer; large comforting limbs for imaginary castles: height in a world that lacked hills.
I am from potato soup and corn bread, from Linville’s and Sewell’s and Pearson’s.
I am from the men of shiny skulls and mother hens who ruled the roost.
From Indian Princesses and Sooners (they thought).
I am from Baptist traditions with new age tendencies. Looking to the Far East for a guiding set of principles I am pulled in different ways.
I'm from four generations of Texans coming from North Carolina via many routes, pinto beans and bacon and biscuits.
From the great-grandmother who died too young, the grandfather who didn’t mind the questions I chattered, and the father who was always gone.
I am from the pictures my mother keeps safe, the history I have tracked down in courthouse basements and now pass on to the cousins who care, the old bibles hiding in sock drawers that listed those who came before me who I never knew.

Why I’m doing this…

For a number of years now I’ve been trying different methods to get in the habit of journaling. I am not sure what it is I am trying to do here; I don’t know what keeps me going back to the books and mags on journaling…Something keeps pushing me to say something and I guess the only way to figure out what is to just go ahead and try saying something…

I have been watching (and reading) blogs since almost the beginning, give or take a year or so, maybe. I remember stumbling onto Ev and Meg way back when they were in startup mode. I always thought they were on to something. Now, I’m getting to a new place in my life and find the urge to do my thinking in the “blogosphere” more compelling. Most of the blogs I have been reading in the past four years have tended to be political, but, now I am finding that I don’t like being mad at the system all the time (even though I believe I should be). So, for the last few months I have been reading a different group of blogs, what some are calling “location blogs”.

These blogs remind me of one of my favorite local newspaper columnists, Leon Hale. Leon has been writing a column here in Houston for my entire life (just to set the record straight, I was born in 1954). He started with the Houston Post and then moved to the Houston Chronicle before the Post folded up it’s tent and left the city with just one paper. If you would like to check out what I think a pre-computer blog would look like, take a look at his writing. I always thought Mr. Hale must have one the best jobs there was, even though I never could figure out how he managed to keep coming up with new stories. Can you imagine, three to four stories a week for over 50 years…go on take a few minute and check out his patter. It’s definitely a Texas voice from the last generation, but it has stories to tell.

Because I have felt a call to the mountains of North Carolina, and the area of Valle Crucis, North Carolina in particular, I have found myself becoming involved with a group of bloggers from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. The first blog I discovered was Blue Ridge Blog by Marie Freeman. Marie’s photo’s of the Valle Crucis and Boone area keep bringing me back to the Mountains. Marie’s site led next to Fred First and his Fragments From Floyd. I am in the process of reading Fred’s new book “Slow Road Home” and working my way back through his archives, both of which are giving me inspiration that maybe I too can have a life after the corporate world.

All of this is causing me to reach way back into the ‘70’s and some of the things I remember from the Nearing’s books. Maybe it’s time to start my own five year plan for getting into those mountains I have come to love…So Marie and Fred, I’ll be seeing you down my own “slow road home” some time in the future…

Maybe the real question is do I have something to say that anyone else wants to here…The only way to know is to say what I have to say and see if anyone reacts…so the journey begins.

Valle Crucis

Watauga County North Carolina

(I originally published this on my genealogy site a while back)


I don't remember what it was that first pulled me to Valle Crucis when I was planning our 2003 Vacation. I had fallen in love with the Blue Ridge Mountains on my Charlotte trip in 2000. During that trip I had cruised from Blowing Rock south through Little Switzerland to Linville Falls and I was really impressed with the area. Due to my genealogical research I had a general interest in North Carolina but hadn't pinned down any areas of specific interest. Both my Boyd ancestors and my Sewell ancestors (via the Linville family) had moved through the area in the later part of the 18th and the early part of the 19th centuries.

I had decided I wanted to take the family to the North Carolina Mountains and was exploring the Internet for a place to go and stay. Something kept pulling me to the Valle Crucis area. I was intrigued with the history of the Mast General Store. Grandfather Mountain called me; I can still remember the awe I felt on my first trip over the viaduct. I wanted to experience the places and the people. That spring I spent many hours on the internet and at home with the family going over different options until we settled for a rental log cabin on Ayers Mountain above Valle Crucis.

We left Texas on a normal hot August day and after two long days of driving we arrived on the mountain and immediately felt at home. After lazing around for a day, we started doing some sight seeing. I learned to love driving the narrow mountain roads. We spent five days and wished it could have been longer, and then it was the long drive home.

The planning for 2004 wasn't as long or as intensive as the year before, but we ended up in the same general area only further up the mountain. We managed a longer stay this year but it still wasn't long enough. It was the first week in June and one of the crowning glories of this year's trip was the nightly light show. We were in the last occupied cabin about a half mile from the end of the road, and nightly at dusk the fireflies would come out. There were millions of them, and they would line the side of the mountain above the road cut in front of the house. It was the first time in my life I have ever seen so many at one time. The most amazing thing though, was the way they would synchronize their blinking. It was like watching a wave of light roll down the mountain. By the time it would pass where you were standing, it would start again up at the far end of the road…Amazing. I stood out for what seemed like hours each night.

It was just recently though as I was doing some reading of research that I found a reference to my Linville ancestors having lived in Wilkes County, North Carolina. When I went looking for the info on the internet (gotta love it), I discovered that the part of Wilkes County where they lived was now in Watauga County. So dig out the trusty atlas of North Carolina and lo and behold just out of Vilas is Linville Creek…So Great-Great(five in all) Grandpa Thomas Linville was living just north of Valle Crucis in the 1780's and 90's before moving on to Tennessee.

So anyway that is how Valle Crucis came to be added to my favorite places and it looks as if it will be on the list for another generation of my family at least.

If you would like to check out what it is that I keep going back for, follow these links:

· Mast General Store

· Grandfather Mountain - This is a privately owned bio-reserve. If you ever get the chance, check it out.

"Valle Crucis.-- ...There is a dreamy spell which hangs over this little valley, lending its charm to the story of the spiritual doubts that once perplexed the soul of a good man in his struggles to see the true light of Christianity. "
"Watauga County, NC" by J P Arthur, 1915

Day One of the next stage of my life...

Inventing the Myth as I Go


Where am I heading and how will I get there?

You are welcome to come along for the ride. Try not to fall off as we round the curves...

I have tried to do this blog thing before and haven't managed to develop the discipline to make it work...Blame it on the Floyd County Group of Bloggers for this new try. Fred First and his Fragments From Floyd Blog is inspiring me to begin again in the creation of the myth that is my life. Give me a little time and I'll try to tie up the loose ends...