I’ve heard people compare growing up around Hiawassee to life in the fictional Mayberry, North Carolina. The time I spent here in my youth would support that appraisal. But the recent passing of Tony Dow reminds me that two generations of Americans might find the Mayfield of Wally and the Beaver to be a closer … More Between Mayberry and Mayfield
August is here and the mountain is still dressed for June. Green seems inadequate to describe it so we’ll say it’s lush, verdant, and vigorous like the rain showers that pounded on the tin roof last night. The creek is rushing, and the morning sky is freshly washed blue. If I had time for the … More Time for Gratitude
We return to the apiary to celebrate a generous honey harvest this summer, and unlike many summers, the bounty came without a penalty of swelling and itching justice administered by angry guardians. Keeping bees is not easy, and that includes keeping them alive, keeping them safe from bears, mites, weevils and diseases, and in some … More God’s Bees
Life is a series of strange non-chaotic attractors shaped by irrationality. If we only had the math. If you’re hooked into popular culture and mass media, life tends to lean more toward Shakespeare’s description of a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. I prefer my mother’s observation that life is what … More Making The Best Of It
It’s hard to love a snake. I know, all creatures great and small and all that, but even though I am a snake supporter, I have to admit that there is something very snaky about a snake. I had a pet King Snake in college. (It was just a phase.) I’ve captured beneficial snakes and … More Watch Where You Put Your Feet
Travel with me back in time to a little house built by hand at the edge of a cornfield on a hill overlooking a valley. The house still stands, empty but for the memories of four generations which somehow keep it from falling down. It’s all but invisible to the infrequent motorist who passes by … More Playing Chicken
We’re going to bid farewell to politics for a while. It’s like that awful television series with bad actors, annoying characters and puerile plots, but we keep watching it because nothing else is on, and to find out what happens next. However, when I read recently that, in addition to all our other troubles there … More I Meant To Do That
Proverbs warns us that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue..” Seneca said, “As was his language, so was his life.” The 19th century author, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, told us that “The pen is mightier than the sword.” The physicist, Amit Goswami, reminds us that “Consciousness is the ground of all being.” The truth has … More Cover The Mirrors
We’re writing today during the Memorial Day weekend that will be a quickly fading memory by the time you read this. Official holidays don’t mean much in our household anymore. It’s not that the events they honor have lost their meaning; far from it. Rather, the events of the last few years have led us … More We’re On Our Own
It’s that time of year again. The summer people are here, and summer is a month away. Tourists are touring on, and if you live here, there are places you just don’t go on the weekend. It was late Sunday afternoon and we were waiting to turn right onto a divided highway. The migration back … More The Oxen Are Slow But The Earth is Patient
Outside The Box 