Loose Leaf Notes

________Wordless Wednesday

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 28, 2022.

Leo Weddle was a Floyd Country Store Jamboree regular for more than a decade. With his trademark straw and feathered hat and his smiling face, he made quite an impression on everyone he met there.

“I love the Country Store. I loved the people. I met so many people all over the country and the world,” the Willis resident recently said.

For the last few years Weddle’s health has kept him largely housebound, but he stays optimistic. Three times a week he is picked up and driven to a clinic in Radford for kidney dialysis. He remains independent with the help of his family and hopeful that he will return to the jamboree. “I can’t walk, but I’m alright,” he said.

Soon to celebrate his 85th birthday on May 19, Weddle lights up when talking about his love of dancing at the Country Store. “I just can’t hardly wait,” he said about returning, noting that his brother was going to buy him a new pair of leather dance shoes.

As a younger man, Weddle lived in Roanoke and Basset where he made chairs at Basset Furniture for 29 years before returning to the Willis road where he and his siblings were born and grew up. He recalls that he started going to the Jamboree on occasion before it was owned by Jackie and Woody Crenshaw. After he lost his wife Rachel to cancer, he became a regular and learned to dance on the jamboree floor.

“That Woody (Crenshaw),” Weddle said endearingly, “He turned me out to be famous.” He recalled a Country Store group picture that was taken with him wearing his signature hat that was framed and sent to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. “They treated me like family,” he said about the Crenshaws and the Country Store employees.

Referring to the newer Country Store owners, Heather Krantz and Dylan Locke, Weddle clapped with enthusiasm, “The new young people are fine. I met them.”

“It’s been a few years,” Locke said when asked about Weddle. “We miss him and miss a whole lot of people from the late ‘90s early ‘2000s generation who have passed or who can’t get here for different reasons.”

“On the flip side,” Locke continued, “The Floyd Country store is a regenerative community. Literally, on the dance floor on Friday nights there are 4-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 35-year-olds, 60- year-olds and 80-year-olds. Everybody. We know that Leo and the others are happy that is a reality,” he said.

Locke recalled Weddle’s uniqueness, his smiling face and his openness to meeting the diverse people from all over the world who come to the Country Store. “Leo (and others like him) had so much fun because he was proud and honored to share what he loved, his culture and dance with others.”

“These are my cooks,” Weddle said, introducing his sister Ester Marshall and her daughter Wanda Howell who had dropped by to deliver Weddle a hot meal of roast beef, taters and green beans. “It’s Texas longhorn from his brother, said Howell, a nurse.

Marshall described her older brother (by 2 years) as “all boy” when he was younger who “tried to get into everything.”  “Leo is good to everybody,” Marshall said because their daddy and momma brought them up that way.

Weddle’s health has slowed him down but his activities have also been curbed because of the pandemic. He got his shots and wears a mask when it is called for but has been advised to keep a low profile. He has every intention of making it back to the Country Store but admits that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to dance like he used to, “but I’m going to try, Lord willing,” he said with a thumbs-up.

His secret to keeping a happy nature?  Weddle says, “It’s like this: My daddy always said ‘we only live but one time in this world.’ Why do you want to sit around depressed? Enjoy your life! I am.”

____________Colleen Redman

Photos: Leo Weddle at home today. 2. Jason Gallimore, Leo Weddle and Mike Kravinsky, writer/director of the romantic comedy Geographically Desirable that was being filmed at the Floyd Country Store in 2013. More on that HERE. 

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 28, 2022.

Customers were waiting for the doors to open for the Earth Day Soft Opening of the Soup Shop, said shop owner Susan Huff. Huff, who started making soups from farm fresh local ingredients and delivering them to customers last summer, now has a brick-and-mortar store that sells a little bit of everything local.

“Floyd is a farming paradise,” said Huff, who described her focus of supporting local farmers by purchasing and cooking with organic and seasonal ingredients as the inspiration behind The Soup Shop, a bright yellow house located at 7360 Floyd Highway in Copper Hill.

Educated in biodynamic farming, Huff once owned and operated the first organic restaurant in St. Petersburg, Florida.  She and her husband John Bell discovered Floyd County when they were traveling from their home in Michigan to another home in Florida and stopped at the Spikenard Farm and Honeybee Sanctuary in Floyd.

The couple met with Spinkenard director, author and lecturer Gunther Hauk, who Huff referred to as her “first biodynamic teacher” when he was based in New York. Following their visit, Huff and Bell moved to Floyd a week later and have been in the county for the past three years, living the winter months in Florida.

Huff primarily sources the ingredients for her signature soups from Riverstone Organic Farm, Patchwork Family Farm and Field’s Edge Farm.  She said it was important to go to the farms herself and make personal connections.

Along with her soups, which are frozen in 32 ounce containers and ready to be used as needed, Huff also makes salad dressings, spreads, sandwiches and sweet treats that will be sold in the store. She carries jam, honey, dairy products, fresh eggs, salads and Big Indian Farm artisan breads from Floyd. Local grass-fed beef comes from Clover Hill Angus in Bent Mountain and is used in her Best Beef Stew recipe.

The idea is to have a one-stop-shop establishment. “I’m trying to have a little bit of everything,” said Huff, who noted that she plans to continue taking soup pre-orders and making deliveries to downtown Floyd once a month.

Rashminder Hargis, another woman chef, is owner of Meta Meals, an organic-focused vegetarian and vegan ethnic food company whose snacks are for sale at the Soup Shop. Hargis and her husband, who are in the process of moving to Floyd from Roanoke, served fresh food samples at the soft opening. They’re currently running a crowd funding campaign to launch a Mega Meals food truck with plans to park it at Buffalo Mountain Brewery.

The Soup Shop is spacious and colorfully decorated with limited indoor seating and ample picnic umbrella table seating on the outside deck, which is under construction. The customer base for soups is a mix, said Huff, but currently is primarily 50 – 70-year-olds who want healthy foods, know the importance of sourcing locally, but don’t want to cook.

The shop has an active Facebook following. Commenters rave about Huff’s soups, which include those with tantalizing names, such as white chicken chili, lentil carrot kale, creamy wild mushroom, West African stew, roasted red pepper and bacon and more.

Customer traffic remained steady throughout the opening.  “I have to go make more soup. We almost sold out,” Huff said as the opening came to a close.

“I started cooking beans at 6 a.m. this morning. I have 12 crockpots set out.” That’s what you do when you have a passion for supporting local farms and cooking with whole foods as path to wellness.

The Soup Shop can be reached at 727-902-0453 or susan.huff@icloud.com. A Grand Opening is planned for Saturday May 21 and will include music, food trucks and games. Visit floydsoup.com or the Soup Shop Facebook page for more information.

I

The moon likes to shine
from different angles
It changes its pose
and each one is whole

Not one thing
I say one and move on
like the moon across the sky
I orbit round and back again
Always changed
but the same

II

Don’t tell me the moon
is always full
I can see with my own eyes
But half-truths are tricks
and truth can’t be fixed
I’m glad I can admit
when I’m fooled

III

Life etches itself
like tattoos I can’t hide

Truth is hard enough
Lies are insult to injury

Time’s sea level is rising
I’m preparing to drown

I’m preparing to love water
and to hold my breath

Life etches itself
where love collects

______Colleen Redman  / Poets and Storytellers United /dVerse Poets Pub / A Year of Haiku: Saying More with Less by Katherine Chantal 

1. This Easter I was missing having an Easter bonnet. And then this happened.

2. I like to call this series of shots “You Wear It Well.”

3. It all started when I was looking for flat bean seeds for planting and no one had them in Floyd, a crop failure I was told.  Joe and I were driving to Roanoke to spend the day with our grandsons and I googled “garden center in Roanoke” and the “Parakeet Garden” at the Science Museum in the Center in the Square came up. I couldn’t resist.

4. I had a blue parakeet named Pisces in the 70s that I didn’t like to land on my head. I must have gotten braver because look at this.  There were 150 of them!

5. “A Japanese woman certified the world’s oldest person has died at the age of 119 died Monday. “Kane Tanaka was born January 2, 1903, the same year the Wright brothers flew for the first time…Tanaka was in relatively good health until recently and lived at a nursing home, where she enjoyed board games, solving math problems, soda and chocolate. In her younger years, Tanaka ran various businesses including a noodle shop and a rice cake store. She married Hideo Tanaka a century ago in 1922, giving birth to four children and adopting a fifth. She had planned to use a wheelchair to take part in the torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the pandemic prevented her from doing so. When the Guinness World Records recognized her as the oldest person alive in 2019, she was asked what moment was the happiest in her life. Her answer: “Now.” – More HERE.

6. When asked ‘when did you feel old?’ I answered,” “When I turned 71. I would have felt old when I turned 70 but I lie about my age by a year to give myself time to get used to it. I call it buffering.”

7. I didn’t feel old in my ’60s and I felt young in my ‘50s.

8. Birthdays: “I was going to celebrate how age and the grace of myopia have given me the perspective that almost everything sorts itself out in the end. That good will and decency and charity and love always eventually conspire to bring light into the darkest corners. That the crucifixion looked like a big win for the Romans. But turning 68 means you weren’t born yesterday. Turning 68 means you’ve seen what you’ve seen—Ukraine, Sandy Hook, the permafrost…Marjorie Taylor Greene. By 68, you have seen dear friends literally ravaged by cancer, lost children, unspeakable losses. The midterms are coming up. My mind is slipping. My dog died.” Anne Lamont

9. “So we look up. In 68 years, I have never seen a boring sky. I have never felt blasé about the moon, or birdsong, or paper whites in bloom. But how does us appreciating spring help the people of Ukraine? If we believe in chaos theory, and the butterfly effect, that the flapping of a Monarch’s wings near my home can lead to a weather change in Tokyo, then maybe noticing beauty—flapping our wings with amazement—changes things in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It means goodness is quantum. Even to help the small world helps. Even prayer, which seems to do nothing. Everything is connected.” Anne Lamont

10. Parakeets live for about 6 years in the wild and 15 years as a pet. The male parakeets have blue patch over the beak and females have a white or light tan one. Parakeets don’t tweet as much as the chirp incessantly. They are very social and, as part of the parrot family, can learn to speak words.

11. I received a call last Thursday that my dear friend of 30+ years was likely on her way out, and I had planned to see her briefly the next day, as many of her dear friends probably were. I likely would have whispered in her ear some lines from a poem I recently wrote called The Final Leaving: Become a disembodied name that slips the mind / Fall out of character / Start at the end/ and take a number / Walk through walls / or walk on water / Become the air/ for others to breathe / A memory that floats / like a fragrance. But it was her poetry Joe and I read this morning to the light of a candle flame in honor of her after we heard she has passed.  – More For Alwyn from  HERE.

12. Peace activist, environmentalist, animal lover, artist, Waldorf kindergarten teacher, fellow-writer/poet, lover of mystery and depth psychology, Alwyn was primarily my girlfriend. She passed peacefully the morning after the phone call. And these are her own words, a poem from her book Remembering Their Names: A Gathering Time, read at her burial service: The Longing – Take me to the Ocean / get me to the Sea / lay my weakened body /where sand and shells must be / Let my fading hearing /awaken to the sounds / of pounding waves and bird call / where water meets the skies. / There, O there, there only / my longing can be met. / Where vastness overwhelms the small / and drowns the fear of death.

13. Birds are your angels now / You practice to be one / You save your voice / and hold out for an heirloom / You vow not to forget / love’s lasting imprint / when life has been spent / and time no longer counts you … From When Time Doesn’t Rhyme HERE.

__________Thirteen Thursday

_________Wordless Wednesday

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 21, 2022.

A full house of family, friends and fans came out to The Floyd Country Store on Saturday to hear a home-coming performance by Floyd’s own rising star, Morgan Wade, who was fresh off her Grand Ole Opry debut in Nashville.

Billed as a Meet & Greet, it was a surprise event and tickets sold out in minutes. “I had to keep my mouth shut. Even my grandma didn’t know,” Wade said from the stage, speaking directly to her grandmother.

Floyd Country Store co-owner Dylan Locke introduced the 27-year old and referenced her interview with the Rolling Stone in which she spoke about coming to the Floyd Country Store as a young girl and falling asleep in her grandpa’s lap as the music played.

Wade has performed at the FCS’s Americana Afternoons in the past and played in the Warren Lineberry Park for Floyd Small Town Summer, which Locke organizes for the town. That was before her career took off after a 2018 performance at Floydfest that led to her being discovered by Sadler Vaden, the Nashville-based guitarist for the Grammy-winning Jason Isbell band who produced and co-wrote some songs for Wade’s widely acclaimed album, Reckless.

Wade did a four-song acoustic set, telling stories to the friendly crowd in between songs. She spoke about finishing Reckless with Vaden at the same time that the pandemic lockdown happened and the fear of the project being shelved. But it turned out well in the end.  “I got signed with a major label and got my first top 40 hit.” Wade said to applause.

Introducing the song Wilder Days, Wade said, “This one is my radio single. It’s actually climbing up the charts.” She expressed her appreciation for the turn-out and spoke about the hard work of recording and getting radio play, giving credit to her “great team” including Vader, who took her under his wing. “I don’t think I’d be doing any of this without Sadler. He’s become a best friend,” she said.

Wade is set to be on the road till November with a tour (morganwademusic.com) that includes shows in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain and Amsterdam, along with an appearance on Austin City Limits and U.S. shows with Brooks & Dunn.

“I’m hitting the road with a guy name Luke Combs. At the end of the month, I’ll be doing a benefit show with Matthew McConaughey,” she said about the rest of this month, later adding, “I’ll be back here in July with my full band at Floydfest.”

Following her performance, Wade chatted with attendees, 175 ticket holders and 25 guests and family members. She signed CDs, vinyl records and posters and posed for pictures with fans.

Locke later said, “It was exciting to see and feel the support and care for Morgan from the Floyd community, as well as folks from far away. It feels important to acknowledge one of our own and encourage others who want to pursue their creative goals. I was happy to see so many young people excited to spend time with Morgan.”

Read my 2019 Floydfest interview with Morgan HERE.

My close friend for the past 3+ decades passed away this morning. I’m told it was a peaceful passing. Alwyn was 95. We had a 95th birthday for her at her Warm Hearth apartment this past November. Friends gathered, songs were sung (listen HERE), cake was eaten.

The last time I saw her was for a Christmas Tea this past December, just me and her. She recited the poem above for me to videotape. It was one of her choosing from her poetry chapbook Remembering Their Names – A Gathering Time, which I reviewed in THIS post on her 94th birthday party. At one point during our time together she announced “Now I love dogs!” Anyone who knows her as a cat person will appreciate the humor in that.

A year before that in December 2021 she had fell and broke part of her hip during Covid lockdowns. I visited her at the Warm Hearth hospital after a surgery, through a window and by a phone. She said, “I’ll tell you a funny story. You can put it on Loose Leaf…”

“I’m 94, you know.”  Of course, I know that. “I was so proud of being 94,” she continued. “You know I wrote a book about cats?” I knew that too. “I saw a cat when I was out walking, and I bent down to pat it to show that I could at 94. And I fell!” She said I should title it Pride Goeth Before the Fall. 

Also last year, after the hip ordeal, she was back at home. I visited and brought her a story that I had written for our local newspaper about a Floyd woman about to turn 100. “Are you going to write a story for me when I turn 100?” she asked. “I’ll write one as big as a billboard!” I answered. Later, I posted a blog post titled Young at Heart with a picture of her reading the news story and a link list of all the stories I had written about her over the years with titles like A Word from Alwyn: TO FLY THE EARTH FLAG,  Never Love a Feral Cat (a review of her book), The Secrets Have Come True, Thomas Berry: The Great Story, Images in Color and Blue Mountain School: Memories Shared and Memories Made. She made copies and sent them out to friends. See HERE. 

I received a call yesterday that she was likely on her way out and had planned to see her briefly today, as many of her dear friends probably were. I likely would have whispered in her ear some lines from a poem I recently wrote called The Final Leaving: Become a disembodied name that slips the mind / Fall out of character / Start at the end/ and take a number / Walk through walls / or walk on water / Become the air/ for others to breathe / A memory that floats / like a fragrance. But it was her poetry Joe and I read this morning to the light of a candle flame in honor of her.

Here is one of the poems (a recent one) from her chapbook that we read this morning:  The Longing – Take me to the Ocean / get me to the Sea / lay my weakened body /where sand and shells must be / Let my fading hearing /awaken to the sounds / of pounding waves and bird call / where water meets the skies. / There, O there, there only / my longing can be met. / Where vastness overwhelms the small / and drowns the fear of death.

Peace activist, environmentalist, animal lover, artist, Waldorf kindergarten teacher, fellow-writer/poet and lover of mystery and depth psychology, Alwyn was primarily my girlfriend.

_____________Poets and Storytellers United 

1. The finches flocked / woodpeckers knocked / robins hopped / and the cardinals showed off.

2. Joe was away leading a retreat Easter weekend and so I spent Easter Sunday on my own, celebrating the return of spring by watching congregations of birds, planting potatoes and cold weather greens, enjoying the tulips and what was left of the daffodils. Then I had to go to town to meet with our accountant to sign our tax return papers.

3. That reminded me of this poem, written in the late ‘90s:  In April I calculate poetry / the way others do their taxes / as though the world was overdue /for a good accounting / Bursting to put into words / what the birds already know / with each emerging daffodil / I mark spring’s growing windfall / Its affluent bloom / and excess of green / are annual assets / we all get to claim.

4. Or as Bob Dylan says, “When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez / When it’s Easter time too / And your gravity fails / And negativity don’t pull you through / Don’t put on any airs / When you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue / They got some hungry women there / And they really make a mess outta you.“

5. Being on the computer is like doodling to me. It helps me to think as my mouse hand circles round and clicks from one point of interest to the next.

6. And sometimes I feel like Captain Kirk at the Star trek bridge.

7. The moon strikes a pose for a poem / shines like a model from different angles / from portrait to profile / the moon swaggers by / across a runway of sky.

8. Swagger or saunter? Stroll or strut? Stride or slink? Sashay or shimmy?

9. The largest space telescope in history is about to blow our minds – With the new Webb Space Telescope, astronomers will be able to see so far back that they’ll potentially spot the very first stars and galaxies. Hubble has seen light dating to about 400 million years after the Big Bang, which took about 13.3 billion years to reach us. Webb has the capability to take us to 250 million years after the Big Bang,” explains an astronomer who has been approved to work with the Webb Space Telescope.

10. I imagine my mother’s kitchen / still existing somewhere in time / after the big bang / and near a bright galaxy / that a giant telescope can see.

11. My kitchens are blue / like the delft blue platter / that my grandmother carried / from Ireland to America / when she was 13 years old and alone

12. I found our grandmother’s platter online. Turns out that it’s a scene from Syria, was made in Scotland and is worth $288. Scroll down to see HERE. 

13. The daffodils wilted / tulips tilted / redbuds blossomed and dogwoods looked awesome.

_________Thirteen Thursday

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 15, 2022.

Emmaline Hicks, who hails from Indian Valley, has been singing since she was four or five years old and began writing her own music when she was 12. She grew up singing in local churches throughout Virginia as Emily Gerald, before adopting her stage name, “Emmaline,” and getting married in March. She is a member of the Voices of Truth band.

Hicks will be performing for the first time at FloydFest Heartbeat (July 27 -31) as one of the festival’s Local Love performers. “It’s super exciting and big opportunity,” said the 23-year-old about performing at Floydfest 22 Heartbeat.  “You grow up in Floyd hearing about Floydfest all the time.  It could be a big step in my musical journey.”

Hicks, who works as an office tech at Wall Residences in Floyd says she began writing music to process her emotions. “The thing I love most about music is how it connects everyone — how two people could be total opposites but sharing a love of the same band or genre can form an instant sense of camaraderie. It’s like magic.”

Inspired by the music of Stevie Nicks and Carole King, Hicks said, “I grew up listening to a lot of that era of music. I also really enjoy a lot of indie music and singer/songwriter types. For me it’s really about what the singer is saying and how their words make you feel. I’ll take meaningful lyrics over catchy beats any day.”

Hicks has worked at the Floydfest Box Office as a volunteer in the past. She enjoyed seeing multi-Grammy-winner Kacey Musgraves perform in 2019, and this year she’s looking forward to hearing Lake Street Drive, a multi-genre band that was formed in 2004 at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and is now based out of Brooklyn.

“I’ve been listening to them for years, and this will be the first time I get to see them live. Their music is really different and the lead singers voice is just so unique,” she said.

Hicks will be performing her original music at the Ferrum College Workshop Porch at Floydfest on Sunday July 30th. _________Colleen Redman

I got there early. Not only did I get a first-class seat (which happened to be a bench in front of the Floyd Country Store) while waiting for the doors to open for a Meet & Greet with our rising star homegirl Morgan Wade, I got a front row seat when I went inside.  To top that off, I was thrilled to find my daughter-in-law in the crowd and invited her to sit in the empty seat next to me. We couldn’t have planned it better!

Morgan played an acoustic four-song set, chatted with the crowd and filled us in on what’s new.  Here’s a sneak peak.  More to come…

My mother had a red kitchen
with apple and strawberry plates
before her kitchen was red it was pink
but her life was not rosy

My father had two answers
when asked ‘how are you?’
A good day answer was
“I got out of bed
I’m ahead of the game”
A bad day answer was
“It’s a rocky boat”

When he rocked the boat
my mother helped steady it
My father was fun-loving
and my mother got things done

My kitchens are blue
like the delft blue platter
that my grandmother carried
from Ireland to America
when she was 13 years old and alone

Not blue like stormy weather
but like the quilted jumper
I wore in the first grade
that my mother dressed me in
for school picture day

I imagine my mother’s kitchen
still existing somewhere in time
after the big bang
and near a bright galaxy
that a giant telescope can see

The sun pours in on my dad
who is sitting in his favorite chair
at the red gingham covered table
He’s ahead of the game
he no longer plays

My mother picks lilacs
from her pink kitchen days
while I sing my heart out
to Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush

I watch from a distance
closer than I seem
until I blink like a blue star
bound by its orbit
until I pass like a dream
in my mother’s deep sleep

__________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United  

dVerse Poets Pub