Pike Piddlers Festival

 Each year for the past sixteen years I have performed at the Pike Piddlers Storytelling Festival on the last weekend in January.

This fine festival begins in a unique way with a dinner theatre event in Friday evening.  The Pike Piddlers Dinner Theatre is held in the little town of Brundidge, Alabama, which is in eponymous Pike County.  This year I was privileged to sell stories with Dolores Hydock, Michael Reno Harrell, and Rev. Robert Jones. 

The Pike Piddlers Theatre is in a building that formerly housed the Brundidge City Offices, including the jail.  The interior of the building was destroyed in a fire some twenty years ago and, instead of tearing the brick walls down, it was converted into this wonderful sawdust floored theatre fully decorated with walls covered with primitive Alabama art.

Local musicians play during dinner time and then it is time for storytelling.  Rev. Robert here takes the stage on his first visit to this festival.

One of the amusing and fascinating things about this recycled building is that the restrooms are built into the former jail cells in the back of the theatre.  You have to go to jail to relieve yourself.  You can see that no one could escape if locked up in one of these only two cells!

This really is a lovely little Festival.  Trish and I will be back next year!

Our “New” Jeep!

 The first vehicle that I ever drove was an early 50’s Jeep CJ 3.  The Jeep belonged to my best friend, David Morgan’s great uncle, Mr. Homer West, whom everyone called  “Old Slick.”

Old Slick owned all of Big Stomp Mountain above WAYNESVILLE and he had an old log fox hunting cabin high up on the mountain.  Starting when we were in the seventh grade Old Slick let us go camping at the cabin AND…he let us (we were all of thirteen years old) drive his Jeep so we didn’t have to walk and carry all our gear up the mountain. We did that from age thirteen all through our college years.

The Jeep was green and just about like the one in this picture.

(I have a new book coming out March 1 entitled “How They Linger.”  It contains, with sixteen other stories, the whole story of Old Slick and camping on the mountain.)

Since then I always wanted an old Jeep like that.  

Living on Ocracoke it is possible, with a four-wheel permit, to drive on most of the beach and several other off-road routes.  After looking round, we were able to locate a wonderfully restored 1965 CJ 5 Jeep in Ohio.  We bought the Jeep and Trish’s son, Greg, hauled it down to the island for us.

First thing we did was get the permit and then take it out to the beach for a winter ride,  it was a good day and Trish spotted several perfect Scotch Bonnet shells and a starfish for us to collect.

Now it is safely installed in the garage, but, when summer comes the top will come off and we will be able to take you for a ride!

The Yard in Winter

 At the beginning of this week we had our big freeze of the year.  This often happens only once each winter, but, when it does, we feel it.

The banana trees are now instantly dead as are the impatiens, the geraniums, and all the other blooming things we had been enjoying in this extended season.

So, now it is time to clean out all the flower beds and start new ones for the coming spring.  

The first little noses of 200 daffodil bulbs are starting to poke out of the big bed on the left.  The other beds have been getting compost worked into them for the plants that will come along later.

In the garage garden room there are already plants coming up getting ready for those spaces.

Our safe time for setting out things here comes around  the first week of March.  By then we should have several hundred plants ready to go.  Doing this helps us get through the winter!

Happy New Year!

 It is 2024 and the sun is still rising over Ocracoke Island!  

As we look around our little home on the Island, we are thinking about all the things that make our world beautiful in the midst of hardships.

We still have lots of flowers blooming even at this time of year.

At the same time, we are now in the process of starting seeds for the coming springtime.  It is a total cycle to be starting new plants while our old plants have now yet given up…just like humans! 

The pansies are nestled among the bearded irises and the irises will gradually replace the pansies as weather warms up.  Every thing around us in nature duplicates some dimension of our own progressing lives.  

Come to see us in the summer and see what our world looks like by then.

Christmas at the Biltmore House

 Many years Trish and I try to visit the Biltmore House in Asheville during the Christmas season.  This year we got to go there again.

At this time of year, in addition to dozens of Christmas Trees and overall fantastic decorations, there are musicians placed at various locations throughout the house.  These singers are in the Palm Court near the front door of the house.

With its triple fireplaces and seventy foot ceiling, the Grand Dining Hall takes some time for your eyes to explore and take in.  The giant tree here is almost at tall as the ceiling.

All throughout the house Christmas is in charge.  It takes us about two and a half hours just to walk through looking.  It takes us many days to remember the beauty of the whole visit.

New Orleans Food.

 Royal Street is parallel to Bourbon Street.  With our hotel on Royal, we are right in the midst of French Quarter delights…especially food! At the Monteleone Hotel, the Carousel Bar is the center of things.  To actually get a seat at the revolving bar, you would have to arrive well before noon.  But, we were seated nearby and enjoyed crab beignets and fried chicken sliders…as well as Old Fashioneds!

Just down the street is the French Quarter Beignet Shop.  Each morning we would hop out of bed, run down the street and get coffee, hot chocolate, and hot beignets to go, then take it all back to bed for a late morning.  Delicious! 

Brunch at noon was at the famous “Breakfast at Brennan’s,” just down the street.  My favorite was Eggs Sardou, poached eggs on deep fried artichoke bottoms with Bernaise sauce.  We had to go back and take a nap after that!

We finished our culinary delights with dinner at Mr. B’s Bistro, another Brennan Family restaurant.  

It is a good thing we didn’t need to leave early the following day since it took a long night’s sleep to recover from all of our eating.  What wonderful days!

 

New Orleans!

 When I was a college student I sang in the Davidson College Male Chorus and we went in tour each year during spring break week.  My senior year our tour included New Orleans.  

We sang at the piano bar at Charlie Cantrell’s Pat O’Brien’s and then we had the night on our own.  It was an evening of discovery for college-age boys.  We never told our mama’s about our adventures among the bars and clubs of Bourbon Street!  

We stayed at the Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, so, when Trish and I had the chance to stop over for a few days between jobs in Texas and Georgia, the Monteleone was our home!  Of course, the wonderful old hotel with its Carousel Bar has been remodeled more than once in the past sixty years since I last stayed here.

The Royal Street location is perfect for walking the French Quarter.  The December weather was wonderfully mild and the street musicians were out as we wandered away the days.

We spent two evenings going to Preservation Hall to enjoy two different groups of older New Orleans Musicians.  This place was here when I cams sixty years ago and is as alive now as then.

We had a great time as we began our Christmas Season for sure!