Another Appalachian good book

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap...by Wendy Welch.
What a lovely entertaining read.  With the subtitle of  "memoir of friendship, community and the uncommon pleasure of a good book."
With a black cat pictured on the cover.

How could it be otherwise?
I've been enjoying this book, and will be sorry when I finish it tonight as my go-to-sleep read.  Ms. Welch writes of her own life starting a used bookstore with her Scotch husband in small small town Virginia.  This book speaks of literature as comfortably as walking down the street looking in shop windows, and yet the most memorable part for me is the continuing stories of interactions with the customers of the book store.

I did have to look it up on the map...and even then didn't believe Virginia had a little town there...it's coal country, it's near KY and TN...but not as near NC as I thought it would be.  But it's just a stone throw up in the mountains even so.  Big Stone Gap, VA.

I highly recommend this book, and was delighted that our library had the large print version!

 

Home for Children

Black Mountain Home for Children (formerly Presbyterian Children's Home) (see their site here.)

I apologize for pictures as I was driving by.  A beautiful setting, but hard to stop along this road.

Quote for the day:

Not only must the most privileged feel they are brothers and sisters of the most destitute, but the most destitute must feel as well that something within them makes them equal to the greatest sages and geniuses.

 Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Montreat creek

Montreat College has a nice auditorium, Anderson Hall.

 And as you drive to it, you have to pass this little playground along the creek.  It has been upgraded since my grands and I poked around one summer a few years ago.

An inviting trail leads from a parking lot to a picnic table by the creek.  I took my Tacos there, and didn't have too many mosquitoes tickling my legs (wearing shorts...bit of a mistake).

Boys seem to gather together at any age.  I would have loved to get to come to a park like this when I was a kid...and I did take my children to a few river parks, but the parks in Florida were differently situated...mainly flatter.

This would have been me, about 65 years ago.  But I made my dams in the gutter outside our St. Louis apartment...until my mother caught me and said how dirty the water in the streets was.

I can appreciate the fellow in the swing with a book, just not into getting his feet wet at all!

 

There's even a climbing wall on the playground.  Let's see, that's a man-made object copying nature, put back out in nature for kids to climb on...what's wrong with that picture!

As I left, a family had moved into my picnic table and their lovely teen daughter was posing as a mermaid.

Quote for the day:

Along with faith comes the requirement for dogged persistence. At first meditation may bring you mild highs or some relief from suffering. But there may come a time — just as there does in the development of any skill — when there will be a plateau. You may be bored, discouraged, or even negative and cynical. This is when you will need not only faith, but persistence. - Ram Dass

Cattails and ?

Antique car

My neighbors at the end of my road drove past me the other day, and I whipped out my camera, and they paused long enough for me to click the shutter.

That's their lovely home right behind them.

Pairs smiling at cha.

Beautiful pair of Austrian Shephards at the Tailgate last weekend.  Their mom's have new mugs to drink out of too!

Another pair of cute little guys with furry ears dropped by the MudBuddies booth.

This pair of goddesses are helping me (on left) celebrate being a year older, and the sash from Teresa says "Ultimate Goddess Supreme."  The button on my shirt shows cupcakes which light up.  Oh my, goddess help me!

Playing in water

In the town up the valley from Black Mountain, namely Montreat, is a wonderful little park that focuses upon straddling a creek.

Many children in the mountains of North Carolina grew up playing in creeks in the summertime.

But many kids these days live around concrete, not creeks.  So I happened to visit this park when a big bus also brought a lot of small ones to enjoy whatever kids do in water.  I know I wished I had worn my suit and felt like sitting in it and moving some rocks around.

I'll show a few more pictures of these happy kids tomorrow!


Today's Quote:

It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard. 

May Sarton

 

Our Library

I dearly love this local library, which also connects to all the libraries in the county, and then even further if we don't find what we want here!

To the right you find the periodical and reading room, as well as computer stations.  They are frequently all busy, but sometimes the waiting time isn't too long for your own hour of the net.

Looking left you see check out counter and 3 of my favorite people, the librarians.

The newest books are there in the low shelves, with DVD's and books on CD's beyond.

One of my favorite areas takes up most of the opposite wall...

And the Staff Picks are always good, and the latest large print (the sign hanging from the next shelf which glared out to white).

Music CD's are also available.
The fiction section is huge, as well as a smaller collection of paper backs.  I have even found books I enjoyed in the Juvenile Fiction area, but I confess to not having availed myself of the welcoming children's area.

I do spend time here several times a month...and if you ever drop in, I may run into you!

Exercise is good for you

Every morning throughout the summer, lap swimmers have enjoyed the Lake Tomahawk pool for an hour.