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Browsing Tag: #southern
No ships for me this morning No stroll for me today No bloody marys on the beachNo sunburn on the wayIt’s the tweeting of little songbirdsThe scolding of the squirrelsThe dew thick upon the fescueThe buzzards as they whirlThe mountains call me homeI see them in the distanceThe air has cooled the light has changedThe mosquitoes are persistent My old front porch beckonsAnd I reflect upon this lifeI’ll sit right here with my beerAnd bid the South goodnight…
Like, restaurant? Or locale? Or city? I don’t know, and it seems unfair to only list one, so I’ll do three. Place to eat: Aubrey’s. Good food, drinks, and atmosphere. I always have a good time, no matter what time of day or who I’m with. I used to frequent the one off Papermill nearly every Tuesday afternoon, meeting a friend for $2 pints. Eventually, I transitioned to the one at Strawberry Plains due to traffic and I was kind of outgrowing the bar scene. Now I have one in my worktown! Lunch spot!! The food is excellent, with emphasis on local meats and produce. The ambiance is warm and it the restaurant is clean. The waiters are attentive and friendly, the TVs are always set on something of interest (as if I actually watch them), and the bartenders have never let me go dry. They will even mix you up something special if you don’t see anything to your fancy on the menu or you’re feeling adventurous. Locale: I really like the Apple Barn. Especially now that they have a brewery. I always feel right at home. It’s so homey & cozy, and I’ve bought several decorative items in the barn. The best thing about the restaurant, besides the creaking, gleaming, burnished yellow pine floors, is the apple fritters. Gah. I can taste them now and my mouth is watering. There aren’…
Sometimes I dream of moving. Living elsewhere. Like the Oregon coast. Or the forests of Idaho. Then I laugh and know I can’t– I’m southern through and through. I talk southern, I cook southern, I dress southern. I love horses and God and football. Lord, how I love football (SEC football, that is). I love beer drank on a tail gate and sweet tea sipped on a porch swing. I love cotton fields and apple festivals. I love Dolly Parton. I love magnolia trees and pearls and swimming in the lake. I love old stately homes and hound dogs and athsmatic preachers. I love old ladies who wear hats and whose pocketbooks match their shoes. I love flamingos in the front yard and rusty mailboxes and picking squash. I love taking the long way home and giving directions that include “turn right where Charlie Maples’ grandson used to live”.I love barn cats and pocketknives and flipping over rocks to hunt for crawdads. I love novels set in the south, movies set in the south, and people who come here searching for the real south. I love butterflies and bluebirds and barn swallows. I love fishing from a riverbank with worms you just dug from under the apple tree. I love blue tailed lizards and groundhogs and counting the stars. I love tomato sandwiches on white bread with Duke’s mayonnaise and a dash of salt. I love knowing summer’…
I try to make my blog posts about me. Not only because I’m vain and self-centered (what? Y’all thought I didn’t know??) but because every English teacher I’ve ever had stressed that you have to write about what you know. And I know me. I was striving to name things I felt like I had conquered and it all seemed like such a sham. People tell me I’m competitive, but I don’t see it. I just want everybody to work as hard as me so we can get the desired result quicker. If one man isn’t rowing, it puts a strain on the rest of the crew to pull his weight. I can’t stand people who take up space and don’t contribute. I realized I haven’t conquered much when I set down to it. There’s so much unfinished business out there. But let me tell you, I just finished a book by someone who has. Jewel Kilcher. She frankly amazes me. She fended pretty much for herself growing up in Alaska. She moved to Hawaii for a semester, staying with her aunt, just to try something different. When that didn’t work out, she got the money up and came home. She was yodeling in bars with her daddy when she wasn’t any bigger than a minute. She hitchhiked all over Alaska as a…
I was taught to lie at a young age. I also had my butt busted at a young age for lying about the least little thing. It did not occur to me until this morning, at 38 and a half years old, that I was brought up a liar. I was frying bacon and eggs for a sandwich. I thought, “Oh, goody! We can use our new Christmas plates since this is just a sandwich and we don’t need big plates.” I then went over to the table and felt their heft as I lifted them. Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea. I broke my new turtle glass the other day, and I didn’t want to risk these so early in their life. What if I couldn’t replace them? I mean, they’re just Wal-Mart plates but I really like them. No, not the Pioneer Woman ones they’re pushing. These are the Twelve Days of Christmas. I could just see me washing them and their soapy slickness slipping through my grasp and thirteen million pieces as it went everywhere. So I set the plate back down and thought, “Lets not and say we did.” Which. Is. A. LIE. But that’s a passable lie, since it was always used in jest. Like when I wanted to do something that nobody else did, like go to the store, or…
I didn’t want to go to work today. Sometimes I have an ominous feeling on the anniversary of September 11th, those are the days I keep my bug out bag within arm’s reach. Sometimes I’m despondent, dwelling on the lives lost starting with this fateful day through the War on Terrorism. And sometimes I’m just mad. Today I was dejected, thinking about how useless it all is. And the hurricane, on top of all that. And yes, it could have been a lot worse, but is that how we’re going to live our lives? It was going to be dreary and wet and cold. So I just wanted to loll in bed and read, and kinda forget the rest of the world existed for one day. In short, I wanted to be selfish. On this day. This day. THIS day. The day when selfishness was banished from society in one of the hardest cities on Earth. When strangers kissed on rooftops, thankful for their lives. When emergency personnel rushed into burning, tumbling buildings just to save one more life, knowing they probably couldn’t save their own. When the President of the United States of America kept reading to kindergarteners after receiving the worst news possible whispered in his ear. So yeah, I could get out of bed. I could do this. And so I drove to work, thinking about people in New York City and Washington 16 years…
For the Mountain People I’ve been whittling on this since the day after. It seems I run a full mill of emotions as I work through it. It’s disjointed and twisty and repetitive but I’m leaving it as it is for now because that’s what it’s been like here-confusing and excessive and unsure. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it and get it right, but for now it will have to be enough to get it out. It’s been seven months and five days since the sun rose and illuminated what remained of Gatlinburg. Seven months and five days later…it is raining. And rain is appropriate. We’ll still take all we can get. Even on the Fourth of July. I say hooray because it will put a damper on fireworks activity. Fireworks start fires. I never TRULY believed that until my days at dispatch. Here’s what happens: It’s high summer, which generally means it’s been fairly dry. People drink all day, out in the sun, then they play with fireworks. They may possibly even hurt their fool selves, or the kids who don’t obey orders to “Get back!” (or maybe the kids were never even warned, or maybe it’s just bad luck). The dogs are barking, or howling, or quivering in the corner. The cattle and horses are…
About a week ago, there was a post on the Sevierville Speaks Out Facebook page. A gentleman was requesting local writers message him their word rate to write a local article, 2000-4000 words, twice a week. I was tagged by four people. So I thought, I’ll humor them. “Good morning” I wrote, using his name. “I was tagged by a few people on your post in Sevierville Speaks Out. I’m a native Sevier County resident. I worked at the Co-op downtown for 13 years, and now work as a secretary for {I’m not publicly announcing my location to potential stalkers}. I’ve met a lot of local color…some might say I AM the local color. 😁 I’ll be completely honest, I don’t have a rate per word. I have a blog that I started last year. Please feel free to check it out and you can get a clear idea of my style. Amysappalachia.com I have written two articles for our local fair book, an article for 911 magazine, and the feature for the first installment of Sevierville Living. I would be interested in learning more about your position. Thank you.” The message I got in response five days later was clipped and standardized. “Hello. We offer 3 cents a word. If you are still interested, please send you name, address, and a sample writing the 3rd person…
In the South, everyone has at least one snake story. I guess they probably do up north, too, but I don’t make a habit of drawing Yankees into conversation if I can help it (Jeannie, you are excluded). And it’s that time of year, snake season, where everybody and their brother is telling about having one in their yard, house, or car. Anyway, here is mine: I had bought my new bedroom furniture and it was delivered and set up while I wasn’t home. I didn’t know that the frame legs and hardwood floors didn’t go together until a few months later. So I had to call the store up and tell them about their faulty installation and make plans for my uncle to accompany them into my home since I couldn’t be there–I had to work to pay for said furniture. The day they scheduled I also had a riding lesson, so I didn’t get home till dusk-thirty. The first thing I noticed amiss was my grill brush lying on the far side of the porch. Normally it’s on the grill stand. My old dog, Crockett, wasn’t acting like he was the culprit, so I just continued on my way up the sidewalk. That’s when I saw it. On the backside of the concrete step was a long, slender, black tail…
Here we find ourselves at the tail end of 2016. I’m ending it much the same as I have every other Saturday night of this year: in my pajamas with a book and a glass of wine nearby. Although I have recently debated the merits of hot chocolate over fermented grapes… I am fully dreading taking down the tree tomorrow. Not because it’s enormous and laden with decorations, unlike the trees of years past. I’m dreading it because I’m lazy. That’s really all there is to it. I don’t WANT to. I got around to packing everything else up today: all the candles and knick-knacks…I broke my Pottery Barn reindeer but I have high hopes for the miracle that is superglue…once I eventually find it. That can wait till next November, at least. Until then, I have plenty of things to keep me busy, such as this blog post I’m rushing to finish before midnight (or, more realistically, until I fall asleep, which would have been by ten o’clock if I hadn’t been going back and forth with the good techies at Bluehost). I almost lost my mind there for a minute. You see. Turns out I’ve been logging into the wrong WordPress account. Who knew? When I log into Facebook, I log into Facebook, whether I want to post something on my page…
