Sunday, March 4, 2012








Some history of a pair of gloves I own

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Marvin and me-Talking about Dad and Granddad- and a 4 lane highway that may never come through here. It was part of the Kennedy administration's agenda.  They were trying to help these people out here in the mountains by running a big interstate through the heart of what remains part of the beautiful great unknown of America.  They don't want the road-they want to remain part of the great unknown.  Amen.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Well it's time to come back to Junior's Farm.  What a great song to begin this Spring.  I've been getting my seed bulb catalogues here in the city.  Pretty soon it's going to be time to plow.    It's time to look forward to Easter in the Appalachian Mountains on Longbranch.  It's a time of rebirth. No matter how bad the economy has been and still is we can't stop the croquses, star magnolias, dogwoods, forsythia, and daffodils from blooming every year.  We've all still got what's left of each other. My family-we've let it all go. Each year we grow closer-more forgiving.
That old line about "the more things change the more things remain the same"-well we moved past that...because as time has shown, it's simply not true anymore.  It was true for a long time to all of us.
The phrase reads like something inked in an old card-meant to lend some branch of wisdom or hope to the person that received it-something appropriate at one time but no longer so.
Look at Egypt, look at the helmlocks of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest...things do change and most of the time it's out of our control.  What is done is done and we must move on.
Let's pray for good crops and a good Spring-and some damn good vision.
Looking forward to talking to Marvin on Longbranch and seeing what we can get in the ground in the next few weeks.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

My paternal Grandfather had a Burley tobacco allotment on Longbranch.  I'm not sure why he did it-never asked him.  He had so many interests that were born out of curiosity, novelty and beauty. I really admired that about him.  He was a UNC man, a banker, a mayor, a furniture maker, a cattleman, an avid numismatist, collector of art-the list goes on. The one of the wisest men I've ever met.  

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Come home, come home it's supper time - Longbranch Dinner Bell
The stacks of logs that went on before the big split oaks for many fires on Longbranch in years past.