An Old Familiar Place

of The Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina is a splendid place to retreat. It's called Balsam Mountain Inn. Getting to it is as much fun as sitting on the porch of this 1905 bed and breakfast. I could have stayed here for a while. But far better than that... I think sitting on this porch or in any of the gazillion parlors I could write a really good story. Balsam is a little whistle stop between Waynesville and Sylva. In earlier days, people from the Low Country who could stand the heat and humidity just so long used to take the train up to Balsam and recover on this very porch and in these parlors. As you cross the railroad tracks and head toward the Inn, there's a Whistle Stop Cafe or Grocery Store (could have been either) that sits beside the tracks. Time has surely woven a story about this place, now all grown up with morning glories and kudzu and honeysuckle. Clapboard wood, once painted white is now in dire need of a coat of something.  There must have be...

Unforgettable. A treasure. Etched forever in my mind. Some places affect me that way. Oxford is one of them. I guess you might say I'm just plain smitten with this little city. For many years I didn't know about it. Oh, I had been there when I was in high school. I had to perform a piano duo with another classmate once for school competition. At Ole Miss. It was the worst day of my life. The piano was bigger than big.You know, one of those concert grands with added keys on the bass. I had never seen anything like it in my small-town life. And the absolute lowest keys on the bass didn't play when I touched them. As a matter of fact, I remember struggling to reach that far down. The same thing must have been happening to my counterpart, because we both kept hitting those keys to try and get them to give us some sound. We just looked at each other and gave up. Later we laughed about it.That must have been fifty-seven years ago. And it was not until just the last few y...

All my Memphis and North Mississippi friends  are so invited! Holly Joyner's House (Holly's my beautiful granddaughter!)  115 Walnut Creek Road Cordova, Tennessee 38018   Saturday, August 18, 2012 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. There is no more familiar place to me than Memphis. It was my town for many years. Like my coming-up trip to Clarksdale, going back to Memphis is always like going home again. I have so many ties to the old Bluff City. My son and grandson are there! Sleepy head! This kid is amazing. Both of them are! They have lived in Midtown for well over ten years, almost as long as we've had Harrison, who is now thirteen! Where did the time go? And, my granddaughters are there with their lovely families, which makes Memphis Town special, indeed. This is Nichol and hers! And this is Holly and hers! So you can see, coming to my signing in Memphis will have lots of bonuses! I won't be able to call names and ...

This Delta Girl is proud to be going back —back to Clarksdale— this time to sign some books  and I want you to be there with me! The Tourism Building In Historic Downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi Saturday, August 11, 2012 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. I know—I've been away for a long, long time. But I did go back nineteen years ago and after that trip, I began to write HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS . I couldn't give up on it and some fourteen years later, I got it published. Here's a little excerpt from chapter one of my first book, my memoir, my love for the Mississippi Delta . . . By the time the late fifties rolled around, my interest was not the surreptitious exodus out Fourth Street to Highway 61 North, for I knew nothing of it. Nor was it neighboring Tunica and the casinos, not yet a twinkle in Mississippi's eye. It was those oak-shaded streets—West Second, Catalpa, School, and Oakhurst Drive. It was Alan's and Powers' and Shankerman's dep...

From Chapter 16 JOAB When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drowned in sleep, Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, Sweet Spirit, comfort me. Robert Herrick The night was long and Joab slept little. Tossing and turning, thinking about the task at hand reminded him of the sleepless nights in Sarepta before he returned to Oxford Town. Was this the true meaning of bittersweet? He was fond of Will and felt a kindred spirit because of the war. Not only that, without motive of any sort, he was hopeful he could help Will. The purpose of the trip to Shiloh was to try and bring an end to the harbored hate and hostility. It was not Joab’s intention to stir up a hornet’s nest of a different sort, one that could potentially do even more damage. On the other hand, he was so in love with Aggie he couldn’t see straight. In moments of reprieve from sinister thoughts of how it would play out with Will Cavanaugh, Joab remembered the scene on the Stephens’ porch. The touch...

JOAB From Chapter 4   Listening long for voices that never will speak again, hearing the hoofbeats come and go and fade without a stop … Donald Davidson Said of General Lee after the War   The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The soldier’s last tattoo; No more on life’s parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. From Bivouac of the Dead Theodore O’Hara Joab spent the night on the bank of the Tennessee River, rose with the first light of day, rolled his blanket, and rode up the hill in knee deep grass to Shiloh. The rain had stopped and the early sun cast cheerful rays through hundreds of live oak trees whose fresh green leaves glistened with every drop that clung for moments and then dropped to the acorn-covered ground. He was seeing the beautiful state of Tennessee for the first time. If not for the sickening thought of blood and treasure strewn across the hills of Shiloh, it wo...

I sat on the wicker swing, thinking about the ties that bind. About my mother, and peeling peaches with her on the back porch, dreaming about the day when I would leave this place and begin a life of my own, with not the least thought that this wonderful man would walk right into my life, leaving me drained of myself, filling me with his own dreams beyond my wildest imagination. Only God in heaven knows the extent of those dreams and visions that played to the hilt on the stage of my life, enhanced through the years by His amazing love and grace and brought to closing moments with continued joy unspeakable and full of glory. I was exhausted. Filled to the brim with memories. Of things I will never forget, duly reminded by this old plantation. I had to leave. I turned around to watch the wicker swing moving back and forth like a scene from an old movie in slow motion, looking up to the attic windows of the old plantation house. I slowly took the steps down, touched the hawthorn t...