Deerfield

 On Thursday evening Trish and I were at the beautiful Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community in Asheville.

I got to tell stories in the evening to a full house of wonderful and supportive listeners.

One of the nice things about being there was meeting so many people who are happy about where they live.

They had had Bil Lepp earlier in the year and also many of the people we met go to Jonesborough each year to the National Festival.  This is an audience that loves and appreciates storytelling.

We even got to spend the night there and eat with the residents.  Trish and I both hope to come to Deerfield again.

Best of Our State

 Our first event of the New Year was  The Best of Our  State event put on by our wonderful North Carolina definitive magazine, OUR STATE.

This event is held once each year at the historic Carolina Hotel Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  It features speakers, authors, musicians, all from the state of North Carolina.  It has been my privilege to tell stories at four of these events and to be invited back for 2024.

It is a special treat to be at the Carolina Hotel and Resort because my daddy used to come to this same place each year during my childhood to the State Bankers’ Convention. He would tell us all about it and  I’m sure he loved coming here.

Elizabeth Hudson, the brilliant Editor in Chief of OUR STATE, opened the event following a two year hiatus due to COVID.  She explained the editorial decision to keep the positive tenor of the magazine going through the pandemic by never using the word “COVID” in an article and by never showing a photograph of a person wearing a mask.  She is so upbeat in every way.

I then opened the full event with a fun hour of stories for me with a wonderful audience.

Other presenters for the weekend included Eliot Engel with Edgar Allen Poe and bluegrass music with Balsam Range.

The event next year will be back in Pinehurst the first full weekend of the New Year.  Among others, I will be joined there by dear friends, The Chatham Rabbits, with their original music.

If you are not an OUR STATE subscriber, you must not be a real North Carolinian.  They have been publishing North Carolina since 1933.

My Aunt Nancy

 My mother was the oldest of nine children, seven girls and two boys.  Only two of those aunts and uncles of mine are still living: my Uncle Steve (Mama’a baby brother), and my Aunt Nancy.

Today my Aunt Nancy is ninety-five years old!

Her adult life was spent in Morristown, Tennessee, near where her husband, my Uncle Jim, was a chemist for the American Enka Company.

In the past couple of years two things changed for her: Uncle Jim died, and her daughter, my cousin Nancy Carol, retired from teaching in Texas. Nancy Carol and her husband, Gordon, moved back near home to Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.  With Uncle Jim gone and Nancy Carol nearby, a lot of rethinking was done.  The result was that in recent months Aunt Nancy gave up her house and moved to the Brooks-Howell United Methodist Retirement home in Asheville.

This puts her on the route we frequently travel and so Trish and I get to stop off there and see her.  A big treat for us was for me to get to tell Christmas stories to the residents there back in December.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to Aunt Nancy!

It is so much fun for us to spend time with her!