Modern worries – Our technological infirmity

The Five Shirt Day

An overlooked challenge of the pandemic is that it has been very hard on clothing, specifically shirts. I have never been easy on clothing. I have a long history of getting dirty. When we lived on the farm, my wife, Glenda, was known to sometimes hose me down and make me take my dirty clothes off in the woodshed before I could come into the house. Back in my lawn mowing days on the North Carolina coast, not only did I come in encrusted in dirt from a yard that was more dust than grass at times but I also ended up fishing, walking on the beach, gardening and working at my desk. It all required a lot of different clothes, but I am not sure that I ever had a five shirt day.

The pandemic has made it more challenging to do almost everything except work from home. The statement that clothes make the man or woman has changed to shirts make the man or woman. With Zoom and Team conference calls, how you look on video is what matters these days and our video cameras only show us from us from the face down to our desks. So we pay attention to the shirts that we wear.

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Infinite Parental Wisdom

Mother's Trout at Meadows of Dan, Virginia — Mother’s Trout at Meadows of Dan, Virginia

My mother pictured above with our good friend, Mr. Cruz, never knew a lot about fishing, but she was smart enough to trust the experts.

Apparently, today’s parents have grown so smart that children no longer need schooling by teachers. Perhaps that is an exaggeration and not completely correct. The most vocal parents are okay with teachers as long as they teach their students to think exactly like their parents. The teachers should also do this while not wearing masks and certainly without asking students to be vaccinated or wear masks.

Considering how much time most parents spend on their smartphones where I am pretty sure they are not reading books, there must be another miraculous way of absorbing knowledge. I am sure it is not Facebook or Fox News. Based on the precipitous fall in newspaper subscriptions, it is certainly not from reading the daily paper. Read More

Writing Our Own History

A Cathedral of Trees at Rich Park in Mocksville, NC

When I started writing for the web almost seventeen years ago, I had no idea how much I would appreciate my own writing. It turns out that few of us have memories as good as we think they are. Time after time, I will start writing about a subject and remember to look and see what I have already said about the subject. When you combine years of writing with extensive photographs from the same time period, you come up with local history that is often invaluable.

Local history is valuable in running local governments and even HOAs. In fact the governments, especially HOAs, that ignore their own history and precedents often get into the most trouble especially when they try to rewrite history.

Just because something is written down on the web does not mean it is automatically true. However, if it is written by someone with a long history of truthful writing, then you should likely give whatever they are saying consideration. I pay special attention to getting the facts right. I take some measure of pleasure in being right especially when I have been challenged by some who would rewrite history.

If you want to make sure your own story is correct, make sure you take being an author seriously. It takes a lot to build a reputation, but very little to ruin it.

Read more at my article, The Disappearing Narrative of Our Lives.

Our Pandemic Move – Life Lessons – Part 1

Early spring blooms in our neighborhood near Mocksville, North Carolina

Moving is never easy, but moving during a pandemic is a real challenge. However, we did and learned a lot – even some minor things like it makes sense to take paper towels and paper plates with you when you are huddled in the safe zone of your hotel room. Most of all, this move reaffirmed the value of working with a great real estate agent. While technology made the move possible. Our great realtors actually made it happen. Read more at this link.

A Safe Warm Spot for a Challenging Fall

We have spent fourteen years here along Raymond’s Gut just off the White Oak River north of Swansboro. I managed to learn enough about the White Oak River from my kayaking and boating to know Ed was right. Many times, I fished a cove just off the river when the main River had whitecaps on it. Then there were times you could be in the middle of the river with hardly a ripple. Sometimes it is blowing on the river but quiet on the backside of Bear Island.

Ed, a good friend of mine who died a few years ago, used to say that if you were willing to look a little, most of the time you could find a place on the water in Carteret County where the wind wasn’t blowing. Ed grew up here and knew the area’s waters better than anyone I have ever known.

It turns out Ed’s wisdom also applies to our house. If you look a little, you can almost always find a cozy spot out of the wind. It is one of the reasons we love our home. The side of our house with the most windows faces the South. That and the protection provided by pines just across the water from us makes our home a delightful place as the air turns cooler in the fall. It also creates a great microclimate for gardening. Living on Raymond’s Gut just off the White Oak River turned out to be a lucky decision for us. Read the full article

A Loss of Innocence

Raymond’s Gut behind our NC home just off the White Oak River near Swansboro

It seems that I have finally lost even those places that I could retreat to in my imagination. The COVID19 crisis and the mass shooting in Nova Scotia have stripped away those places that have anchored my psyche for most of my adult life. Now there is no place to run. Read more here.