Loose Leaf Notes

1. This time of year, when the neighborhood cows moo persistently at night they sound like Halloween ghouls.

2. Sometimes a pot of gold is red.

3. It was poetic justice that we road our bikes up the Parkway, came across the POETREE at the old Floydfest site and it was full of apples.

4. It was a full weekend that started on Thursday with a visit to the Buffalo Brewery with Joe’s sister who was in town, followed by an apple butter pizza (that I didn’t think I’d like but did) at Dogtown where we played Trivial Pursuit. We got booed at OuterSpace and danced to Psycho Killer performed by Seph Custer. We saw the aurora borealis on the Parkway, at chocolates from Cocoa Mia, rode bikes and picked apples to make a crisp. I recited an old poem at the Floydfest Poetree.

5. Also, my son, Josh Copus, who was on the front lines in The Marshall NC (just outside of Asheville) downtown flooding disaster, was in the Asheville newspaper, pictured getting a hug from the NC governor.

6. When it comes to the community clean-up efforts, my son Josh says the Marshall motto is “Get in where you fit in.”

7. An excerpt from the latest update from his latest posts: “We laughed and we cried. We did a ton of hugs. The governor came. I hugged him.  The military came and they helped us dig out the mud. They called me sir and it made me laugh. We did A LOT of pressure washing. We made music and sang songs. We picked each other up and looked out for each other. We came together. We found our strength in ways we didn’t know we had. There is an amazingly beautiful human story of resilience happening in Marshall and it’s an honor to be a part of it.”

8. It was an apple windfall at the Poetree, and I don’t mean that the wind took them down.

9. Loiter or linger?  In front of the Floyd Book House is says “Linger.” In front of the Floyd Country Store it says “Loiter.”

10. Joe calls us The Nutty Professor and Sloppy Joe.

11. Apples have figured in our relationship since day one. I met Joe at the laundromat after filling my car trunk with a bunch of foraged apples, and that made a positive first impression with him.  Later, when we got married on the Parkway he presented me with an apple, the fruit of our love, and I ceremoniously ate it.

12. We don’t tend to celebrate our wedding anniversary, which was on a blue moon in June on a date we both forget, but apple picking has remained an anniversary that we celebrate. Some past apple picking dates with Joe posted here are I Met Him at the Laundromat (2005), How Do You Like Them Apples (2023), Who’s the Apple of My Eye (2022), Eden’s Apples (2016), Happy Apple Pie of My Eye Anniversary, The Romance of Wild Red Apples (2006), Apple Picking (2008), Apple Sauce, Sippy Cup and Sing-along Nursery Rhymes, We Got Two Cows and They’re Chasing Us Now (2015, Nature’s Grocery Shop (2018), They Grow on Trees(2008), I Met Him at the Laundromat (2005).

13. Was it Sleeping Beauty? / Did she eat the wrong apple? / Was she pricked with a raging illness? / Yes, she was beautiful / Kissed and un-stirring / Were we all dreaming / struck with grief arrows full / promises of pies and tomorrow? – Read The Funeral Parlor, written in 1999 after a friend committed suicide as she was in the middle of making pies, HERE.

_______Thirteen Thursday