Loose Leaf Notes

1. I covered an event at the iconic Roberson Mill (less than a mile from my house) that is currently being restored. While writing, I had to stop myself from saying ‘attendees enjoyed a pot luck meal and then milled about.” – More at Floyd Times HERE. 

2. Water-power grist millers were like woodfire potters in that the production is primitive yet very technical. Mills were prone to catching fire and blowing up. Millers had to pay attention to every smell and every sound, which is where the phrase “keep your nose to the grindstone” came from.

3. Later that day, I hung out with some friends with the last name of Mills at a neighborhood birthday party.

4. Lordy Lordy look who’s 40.

5. Can a letter be an onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like what it means?

6. I love how the letter K looks like Kick and wonder why there are three alphabet letters that make the same sound, C, K, and Q.

7. Awesome or awful? Awe full or awful?

8. “We have vocabulary today that we didn’t have back then. Totally. We never used that word. Ever. We were sort of happy, we were sort of interested. And now we’re ALL OVER IT. We used to say “very good” and now we can say AWESOME. Back in my day, awesomeness was limited to the Grand Canyon and you had to go there to be awed and now it isn’t odd to hear it applied to clothing items and personal jewelry…”

9. “…And now I’m going to sound like an old man, which, at 83, I have earned the right to do. I feel that texting is wiping out the art of small talk. You get on an elevator with a stranger on it and you notice something interesting and comment — “What breed of dog is that?” — and he says, “Shropshire shepherd.” And this leads to conversation. I have encountered young persons who treat small-talk overtures as a personal assault.” Garrison Keillor

10. This is an old house in the neighborhood that I have been photographing through the seasons since we lived in our cabin of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

11. This is my friend Rowan before he turned 40. The house we were in then is also in the neighborhood.

12. The porch rebuild is nearly complete.

13. We  have skylights now that bring light into the cabin.

___________Thirteen Thursday