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Locally Groan: The Family Plot
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013/05/the-family-plot.html
Sunday, May 19, 2013. 8220;This is the Jones. Cemetery,” the old lady sitting in the chair to my left says. “You know that, right? Her look is stern and she says “Jones” with much drama. I hadn’t noticed her until she spoke. My wife and I drove the back roads of Casey County, Kentucky in her father’s pickup truck looking for a very old family plot called the Cochran Cemetery. We had come to celebrate her Dad’s 95. It was a fool’s errand. Excited, we drove to a nearby farmhouse. The farmer saw us in t...
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Locally Groan: 06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013_06_01_archive.html
Sunday, June 30, 2013. Take Two of These. It's Sunday and when I took my morning walk to downtown Chapel Hill this morning an old Kris Kristofferson song , Sunday Morning Coming Down. Stuck in my head. If you remember the lyrics. You won’t find that surprising. Maybe it was that line about the “Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken”. This is the South, after all, and Lord knows someone is always fryin’ something. Heck, over at Mama Dip’s Country Cooking they deep-fry the napkins. Awesome. I loved to...
locallygroan.com
Locally Groan: Pullet Laureate
http://www.locallygroan.com/2014/08/pullet-laureate.html
Wednesday, August 13, 2014. I met a nice family over in Carrboro last week. Carrboro is a separate town, but no one knows for sure where Chapel Hill ends and Carrboro starts. It starts roughly over there by the car wash. In fact, no one at the car wash knows which fire department they should call if the place ever catches on fire, but they don't worry about it a lot because, well, it's a car wash. How 'bout that blue hybrid? And cogitate on the fire department question. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).
locallygroan.com
Locally Groan: 03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013_03_01_archive.html
Friday, March 29, 2013. Sometimes, I hear it in the afternoon, when I’m standing in the kitchen and the house is quiet. A deep rumbling in the distance and maybe a long, low whistle. I hear it more clearly when I’m working in the yard or laying by the pool. It enters my consciousness so gradually that I’m not really sure how long I’ve been hearing it. And then it’s there. If there’s any noise around me, a lawn mower, or traffic, or if I’m distracted, I don’t notice it at all. For a few weeks last year, t...
locallygroan.com
Locally Groan: 07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013_07_01_archive.html
Saturday, July 27, 2013. Hey Babe, Take a Walk on the Wet Side. I had planned to take a walk this evening, maybe into town, but then this rain blew in as we were eating dinner. (It rains at least once a day in Chapel Hill this summer.). That made me want to do it even more. I love to walk in the rain. Here's why. 10 I like when my wife looks at me before I leave and says, “Have you lost your mind? 9 I like when I come home wet and my wife says, “You’ve lost your mind.”. Elvis doing Kentucky Rain. He is c...
locallygroan.com
Locally Groan: That Bleepin’ Beepin’
http://www.locallygroan.com/2014/09/that-bleepin-beepin.html
Monday, September 29, 2014. That Bleepin’ Beepin’. Please listen to this sound. And see if you can identify it. Or, if your mouse finger is exhausted, just imagine it: four brief, electronic beeps. You hear them constantly. If you guessed it’s the sound of my microwave letting me know my chocolate is hot, you’re right! Done And you’d be right! Or maybe you thought the oven is telling us it has preheated, or that the self-cleaning is done, and you know what? You’d be right! You’re really good at this.
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Locally Groan: 04/01/2014 - 05/01/2014
http://www.locallygroan.com/2014_04_01_archive.html
Wednesday, April 16, 2014. My grandfather loved fiercely. Being loved fiercely is a blessing and a curse. It brings tremendous comfort and security and, at times, it smothers until you push back, fiercely, and scream, if only in your head. I think some Massey-Fergusons were red, too, so maybe it wasn't a Farmall. Theoretically, someone might have painted any brand tractor red, but painting a tractor is not something that would ever occur to most country folk. The tractor they used to pull logs wa...You w...
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Locally Groan: What I Learned on My Summer Vacation
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013/06/what-i-learned-on-my-summer-vacation.html
Wednesday, June 12, 2013. What I Learned on My Summer Vacation. About 1.2 million years ago, around the time I graduated high school, a section of North America about the size of Ohio and located around the Four Corners (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah) was uplifted tens of thousands of feet. It’s known as the Colorado Plateau. And its southern face is the red cliffs seen around Sedona, Arizona. This uplift is the reason the Grand Canyon and several other national parks in the region exist. I don&...
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Locally Groan: A Kentuckian's View of North Carolina
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013/05/north-carolina-from-transplants-point.html
Friday, May 24, 2013. A Kentuckian's View of North Carolina. My daughter-in-law recently posted 38 Signs You're From North Carolina. She's from NC, but I'm not. I grew up in Kentucky and then spent my adult life in Northern Virgina. I retired to Chapel Hill in 2005, though, and thought I should give you an outsider's perspective on the "38 Signs". You don't have to be from Carolina to hate Duke. Isn't very good, but it's cute and sometimes fun. I know how to pronounce Appalachian State correctly. Ohio is...
locallygroan.com
Locally Groan: Hey Babe, Take a Walk on the Wet Side
http://www.locallygroan.com/2013/07/hey-babe-take-walk-on-wet-side.html
Saturday, July 27, 2013. Hey Babe, Take a Walk on the Wet Side. I had planned to take a walk this evening, maybe into town, but then this rain blew in as we were eating dinner. (It rains at least once a day in Chapel Hill this summer.). That made me want to do it even more. I love to walk in the rain. Here's why. 10 I like when my wife looks at me before I leave and says, “Have you lost your mind? 9 I like when I come home wet and my wife says, “You’ve lost your mind.”. Elvis doing Kentucky Rain. He is c...
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