Old Times There…

…are not forgotten.

Back in Dixieland. It has its charms and its memories. Spanish moss and mistletoe overhead; fireants and armadillo scratchings in the sandy soil; the smell of salt spray and marsh mud in Mobile.

Today we leave from Birmingham where I grew up. This is the first time I’ve ever stayed in a motel when visiting “home”. Mom has some back problems and we didn’t want her to worry her with beds to make, wet towels and such, though of course she insisted we could stay in her bedroom since she hasn’t been able to sleep in the bed now for a month.

Between baulky wireless connections in the places we’ve been and Blogger.com eating one long post that I made the mistake of composing directly in the blogger edit window instead of my usual Notetabs text file, it’s not been a good few days for any kind of writing, but particularly not for jotting to Fragments. That should change by midweek and the old rhythms return.

Right now, the four-cup coffee brewer smells like it has successfully done its job. We’ll fill up our insulated cups from home to the top with hot coffee, swing from I459 to I59, next stop: Waffle House in Gadsden. Home to Floyd in time to pick up Tsuga from puppy camp. To Goose Creek before dark, in time to get the fire going in the woodstove to warm the place up again–a task that will take a day or more after it cooled down for four days without heat.

Ah well. Good to travel, great to travel home. See you on the other side, Y’ALL.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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