Loose Leaf Notes

– More 2015 Floyd Christmas Parade photos HERE and look for more in upcoming issues of The Floyd Press. _______Our World Tuesday

  ___Shadow Shot Sunday

1. Vocation is the work we are called to do and vacation is the fun we are called to have. 2. The less said on something isn’t always the better because often we tend to fill in what we don’t know with the worst. 3. Sometimes adults say stupid things to kids:  My 5-year old […]

I went looking for my poetic voice in my childhood home and found it in the floral wallpaper of my bedroom I found it on the stairs to the second floor where I had a past life memory of living in a castle My dad is still standing on the stairs between floors He’s got […]

 – The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on November 19, 2015.  An Evening with Patrick Holden – a farmer and global voice on sustainable food practices – drew a large crowd at the Floyd EcoVillage last Tuesday night, November 10th. The free event included a beans and rice community dinner, homemade desserts and […]

This is the restaurant in Hingham, Massachusetts where my sister Kathy and her husband Ozzie met.  Kathy was a waitress there, back when it was called Ye Olde Mill Grille. They were both single parents with young daughters the same age at the time. My mother worked for decades as a waitress at the Grille, […]

-The following first appeared in the November 12th Floyd Press but the end of the story got cut off. Here it is in its entirety.  The Floyd chapter of PFLAG (parents, friends and family of lesbians and gays) hosted an Equality Virginia house party at the June Bug Center on a recent Saturday evening.  The […]

1. I come from a family of nine siblings. After losing my sister Kathy last week – and after the deaths of my brothers Jim and Dan in 2001 – it’s hard to grok that we are only six now and that I’m the oldest! 2. I’m glad that our family grieving time included tears, […]

Walking to the A Street pier in Hull at sunset, Joe and I could see inside the windows of people’s houses as we passed. The most obvious thing we noticed was that everyone had the Patriots game on TV. Like the Red Sox, the Patriots are in the DNA of almost everyone in Massachusetts. We […]

Writing is the way I process, the way I tap my emotions that I sometimes otherwise block.  This is not THE story, but just a little piece from my perspective that hopefully gives a glimmer into what was gold: My sister Kathleen Marie Redman Osborn (aka Kathleen Flying Boat by our father) January 29, 1948 […]

1. The word pie is in piece. 2. I can’t understand how the official rules of Scrabble say not to use slang but they allow “za” to be used for “pizza.” 3. While driving to Roanoke last week I saw a red barn on the top of a faraway ridge that looked just like a […]

-The following first appeared in the fall issue of About HER and the October 29th issue of The Floyd Press Phyllis Beall lives in Paradise. When Floyd County went from using rural farm road numbers to street name addresses, residents were given the opportunity to name their roads. Beall named hers Paradise. “And everyone agrees,” […]