My cousin Sid Paine died the other day while on a trip with his wife Elaine up in Vermont, pursuing their common passion for travel, meeting other folks, hearing their stories and telling, oh, I would guess about 1,000 stories of their own.
When we woke up yesterday the thermometer told us what season it was: 46 degrees, and no longer late summer.
—Jack Betts
My grandfather died a decade before I was born, but among the things I eventually inherited was his vintage set of Handy dies and taps. They helped save the day when we discovered our water supply system had three separate leaks, and we would need more than just good will and man power to fix them.
On a peg on a wall in a dusty corner of my workshop hang the collars and tags of some of the best friends I ever had. We've had four fine dogs who have graced and enriched our lives with their intelligence, heart, companionship and unconditional love. I suspect there'll be at least one more.
Jack Betts, who resides in the Blue Ridge mountains, was shocked to find a that the western North Carolina wildfires had caught up to his old cabin, and left it in ruins.
