Living in Black Mountain, NC: blogger friend

Sunday, July 23, 2023

There's gold in the flowers, plus a blogger friend loss

Before I give my post today I want to confirm that we've lost fellow blogger John, of Beans And I on The Loose. His wife Janie wrote and said...

Hello follower's from Beans and I on the loose...

I am sad to report that John passed away July 21, 2023 in South Dakota. It was very unexpected, he was 74 young. It was a peaceful passing, he went to sleep in motorhome. I am his wife of 53 years. I knew something wasn't right when he was not replying to my texts, emails, or calls. I was able to find him with help of our two adult children. Beans is doing fine, however misses him a lot too. He was a good man and will be dearly missed by his family, and his followers. He loved his followers these past 10 years, as much as he loved reading and writing. There may be additional posts here in near future. Hold him in your daily thoughts...

I added this comment:

Sending heart felt condolences to Janie and family, and poor old Beans. I just decided to check (his) old post again, and was somewhat relieved, but mainly shocked that John is gone from our blogging community. Thank you Janie for letting us know what happened. That is the relief. My heart goes out to you all as I'd been chatting as a commenter here for the last couple of years, and not expecting many answers. The posts were always interesting. I understand other bloggers have been followers for much longer. There is now a gap in our network, in the shape of John.

I've lost other blog friends, and there was often a sickness that was known about, so their sudden disappearance was kind of understood. One blogger said she moved to be with her daughter, and we never heard from her again...which I hope means she was getting good care. Our blogger-land is fragile, where there are new people every day starting to post, but not as many as there were 10 or 15 years ago.

The Swannanoa Histry Museum is the next entrance, then the Fine Arts Center. But this historic marker should really be placed in a less visited place, and the one down the hill which nobody every sees since it's in a driving area, not walking, and it talks about Black Mountain College and Bucky Fuller teaching one summer...it should be here in town where all the visitors would see it. Michaux had little influence on anything!