Testing. As per recent usual.
I continue to struggle with the devil on my left shoulder that keeps insisting that I must be more productive of shared thoughts and conversation-starters and the one on my right that tells me I have become irrelevant and off in an eddy of society that no longer has anything to contribute to public dialogue.
So I’m putting this in a bottle and casting it into the sea of oblivion and hope, to see on what shores it might land.
Let me see if I can find an image to add, just for visual interest. There is a lot happening (mostly frustrations) in the cosmic world from our top of the hill and in the darkness. Perhaps more about that at some point.
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.
Always happy to visit you, Fred!
Hardly irrelevant… I wish my son (a 14 YO budding zoologist with a love for snakes, frogs, lizards and pretty much all critters) could sit and visit with you. We love your books and your way with words.
Just stumbled in from Google, searching for the local/regional “Blogroll” that Doug Thompson used to keep on Blue Ridge Muse before picking a new WordPress theme that pulled in some repetitious ad blocks. Glad to see a few rarely visited old friends in your right margin… Thank you!
Trying to get myself to cut down on the Facebook habit and do more writing in my own spaces, too… and update the old-homepage that used to link more reliably to what I was up to. (http://stepno.com — neglected for several years, and a mess even then)
Hi bob. I just wrote a somewhat lengthy reply hear, but clicked out to your site without saving the reply. Meh. Looks like we are both trying to regain lost ground and exercise our writing muscles and find readers to share with. I am doing some piddling with words via Substack but have hopes of resurrecting Fragments. See you on the other side.
Hello my old friend
It’s so great to reconnect with you again. I do hope that you are well.
I cannot recall the last time I visited your site, but it must have been a good while.
I am wondering if you still have a special furry friend to enjoy.
I used to enjoy all of your exploring adventures with Tsuga.
I know you’ve had other dogs since. Surely you still have one now.
The reason I looked you up now was due to reviving some of my old writings to share at a family gathering yesterday. One was “Where I come from.” Finding it in my computer files and printing it out for sharing, I recalled how you had been involved in its’ inspiration and creation. I loved that composition.
Looking at the photo above here, I wondered what you do with that telescope. I checked it out on-line and saw that it was some serious magnification. Are you branching out into some other fields of interest? I may have already found answers to my wonderings if I had spent more time browsing your offerings. Being 82 years old now, and never knowing how much time I have left, I try to use it as wisely as possible. That recent family gathering was to celebrate our dear brother’s life after he passed last week. I have lost four of my eight siblings already, two of them older, and two younger than me. My own health is declining so quickly, it stays in my mind much too often.
I’ll end this lengthy comment now and try to look around here at your place, if I can find my way.
Thanks for hanging in there Sir.
Clarence Bowles, Sr.
Clarence, well hello sir!
I find it really hard to finish anything the same hour or day or week that I started it. I will make an exception in this moment, to say I enjoyed hearing from you, and I am going to create a draft with reminder to reply at greater length when mental and physical energies (and the wife) allow.
Great to know you’re still paying attention to the world and managing to get some keystrokes off now and then.
We have moved from Goose Creek. Long story but a decent ending. Nothing lasts forever.
More soon….meanwhile send me an email address (at fred1st at gmail.
Fred