Sitting here working on editing illustrations for a medical book in
the local language. Listening to JD Crow and Seldom Scene (Bluegrass)-
makes me miss the Blue Ridge. Thought I was getting to like the big
city, but as soon as I hear the banjo and fiddle, I go right back to
picking apples up near the Peaks of Otter, sitting around with Dooley
and Gabe on cold November mornings on the farm, walking through the
fields to fish the farm ponds in Appomattox and Brookneal, and
thousand other memories.
It's getting cold here. We had a warm spell that gifted us with nights
warmer than any I remember here even in July, but now it's getting
back to normal. The last couple of days I smelled snow when I got up
in the morning, but the clouds were just a little too thin with
patches of light breaking through and they blew over by afternoon.
Last night I snuck a little coal into my fire and dreamt of a
snowstorm back home. When I woke up there was a dusting on the yard
and the hills around the town were white. The clouds were that nice
thick, soft, low hanging ceiling of cotton batting and only showed a
little light to the north-east. It was cold enough that I pulled on
Uncle Johnny's heavy flannel LL Bean shirt and my Carhartt jacket
before heading into town to pick up my laundry. I've been looking for
weeks for a place that does laundry- I had enough of washing by hand
as a kid in Mexico and intend to exhaust all other options before
going back to that. I was on my last pair of pants when I finally
found a place in town. I took my stuff over there every day for the
last week and they were finally open yesterday. They told me to come
back at 8 this morning, so I did- to a locked steel garage door. I
pounded on it for a while till they woke up, got dressed, and opened
up shop for me. That's one benefit of the developing world- people
live in their shops so when you want to do business, you can pound on
the door till somebody takes care of you. Wish I had thought of that
last week so I didn't have to wear my dirty overalls around so long.
Well, I better get back to work. HA! The song that just came on "Blue
Ridge do you call to all your children like you've been calling me?
Blue Ridge why are you calling me home?"
