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Published: January 7th 2007
FOLLOWING SHADOWS
Loaded and heading southTUESDAY 1/2/07
We’ve just finished a week with Andy’s brother’s family in Piney View, WV (near Beckley). We arrived on Christmas Eve day with Kevin in tow. The prior week we had spent in Andover catching up with dentists, doctors, hair dressers, friends and family. Kevin and Heidi arrived on the 21st just in time to celebrate her 31st birthday. Andy Wall joined the crowd on Friday night in Boston. On Saturday, Heidi & Andy headed north to Maine and the three of us headed South.
Our week here in West Virginia was unseasonably warm and allowed for some great walks and short local hikes. We even worked in a trip to John’s cabin on the New River. The rest of the time was spent with lively Apples to Apples games, euchre, and Blokus. In typical family fashion, we made fantastic meals, created some wonderful pictures, watched and laughed at Kevin’s video creations and marveled at how fast time flies. Matt and his wife Casey came up from Atlanta and worked with John and Andy to build a bookcase/window seat for the dining room Andy enjoyed working on this project and picked up some important woodworking tips from Matthew, who
WEST VIRGINIA
mountain momma, take me home, country roads... is a finish carpenter/cabinet maker.
As many of you know, Kevin is a talented videographer with a special knack for telling family stories. Many of you have seen some of his clever creations and have wondered if there have been others. We are happy to tell you that he indeed has created more and they are posted at http://bricofilms.blip.tv. So, for those inclined, check out the site and take a moment to leave him a message. (That will require that you sign-in to the bliptv site.) Another spot to watch his activity is where he has posted a film (Cardboard Box Race) he and his classmates created in college.Hopefully they will post more in the next year.
Having spent the darkest days of the year in Maine, we continue to marvel at how quickly one can gain daylight at one end of the day and loose it at the other. Sunrise at 7:40 a.m is positively civil! Now we get to experience changing time in Tennessee. And then we will be back in the early sunrise, early sunset routine!
Morning stop at Highlander Center just east of Knoxville--an adult education center for community workers involved in
KEVIN
in traditional fashion, Kevin "wears" his xmas gifts social and economic justice movements. It played a significant part of the Civil Rights movement as it’s history dates back to 1932 when folks began to meet and talk. Rosa Parks and MLK Jr. were among many to attend workshops there. Predictably, the gatherings were misinterpreted as a communist training school. The founding principle and guiding philosophy of Highlander is that the answers to the problems facing society lie in the experiences of ordinary people. Those experiences, so often belittled and denigrated in our society, are the keys to grassroots power.
Arrived in Nashville, TN mid-afternoon and went to the Opryland hotel complex, which is an impressive collection of indoor gardens, ponds, waterways and fountains surrounded by hotel rooms, restaurants and boutiques. It was quite spectacularly decorated for the holidays—LOTS of poinsettias--and comfortably free of crowds, except for the County Music Dance Finals! We didn’t have tickets, but saw some talented line dancers in the lobby.
Walked through downtown Nashville past lots of music, cowboy hats and boots. We are definitely in tobacco country. It was a challenge to find a restaurant that was not filled with smoke. After a bite at the Big River Grill, we stopped
THE SOCKS
they fit! to hear a few numbers at The Stage, a club on Broadway that had a nice country band playing. It was nice to be able to walk from our hotel to dinner and back.
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