Saturday, October 10, 2009

Blessings from Blogging

A nephew from whom I’ve heard little over the years, his big brother, and a niece from whom I rarely hear have begun commenting on my blogs. This is great fun for me. I would never have guessed that people my children’s ages would be any more interested in what I had to say than my own children seem to be. Of course my own children have probably already heard everything I have to say.

When they used to stop me in the middle of a “mama meltdown” with comments that I had already given them that lecture, I’d tell them that once they could repeat the lectures verbatim, I’d stop giving that lecture. I threatened to write down and number all my rants so they could memorize them by number. Then I could save my breath and their ears by just yelling their names and a number. Maybe my blog is like that, but thankfully some people who haven’t been privy to my rants seem to be reading the entries.

I got a call about my latest blog entry from our local cop friend, Adam. First, he gave me a bit of good advice. Adam asked if I had a navigation system for finding my way to and back from all my adventures. I assured him that I’d never get back to the holler if I didn’t, so he told me the dangers of having the actual directions to your front door saved as “home” on your GPS. I had one of those “Duh!” moments after he brought it up.

How many times have I given my car over to a valet (not in Coker Creek, mind you), being very careful not to hand over any key other than the key to the ignition. I knew from a bad experience many years ago that miscreants can cross reference your license plate number to your name and address. I sure didn’t want strangers making copies of my house keys and using them to break into my house -- that they'd found thanks to my license plate. And here I’ve been leaving my GPS with my address and complete instructions for finding our holler. It won’t get you to our front door, but close. Even GPS has limits when dealing with finding things in the forest.

Adam programs a random address near his home into his navigation system. He figures that he can find his house without help from there. And since nobody with an ounce of sense would try to drive these roads drunk, this would probably work for most of us.

Before handing the phone to his wife, Adam questioned me about the information I had posted on my blog about Jack’s bridge. Several years ago, an effort had been underway to take a large portion of Jack’s land to build a million dollar plus bridge at the same location. Since only thirteen cars cross that bridge on a given day and there are alternate routes to everywhere the bridge connects, the locals protested enough to squelch the pork barrel project – they thought. I guess the elected officials in the area have a new chunk of stimulus change to spend and decided this was a good way to create local jobs.

An owner of a local paper, The Monroe County Buzz, who had championed Jack’s first bridge battle subsequently became a fan of Jack’s stories. I told Adam I’d contact The Buzz. Then he gave the phone to “Mrs. Mott” who swears that Adam doesn’t know her first name since he alternately calls her “Rabbit” and “Mrs. Mott.”

Josie is another of Coker Creek’s multi-talented artists. My niece, Nikki, is the proud owner of a sock monkey quilt created by her. Josie is also an avid nature photographer interested in publishing her work. We spoke a bit about Jack’s sweet potatoes, his way of life, and the publication of his book -- which led her to offer to introduce me to the owner of a bookstore about an hour’s drive from here.

People can continue to talk about the power of the press. I’m excited about the blessings I’ve received from my blog.