Appalachian Mountain Dreams

“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

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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

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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

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North Carolina Moon

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

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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

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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

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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: $5,562More than $1 million: $41,977″ Ok, I am trying not to go off into the political blog side

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