About-Updated 3/9/08

Update: March 9, 2008  Since I’ve been a student of Astrology for many years, I recently began posting a few astrological essays on this site. I’ve found that knowledge of Astrology has helped me to better understand myself and my life on planet Earth. Although I don’t do personal horoscopes I’ve included a link on my home page to Cafe Astrology. Click on it and let them do your free birth chart. If you’re new to Astrology, they can tell you where the planets were when you were born, and will give you some insight into their meanings. These are computerized reports and they can cast your chart even if you don’t know your time of birth. All you need is the date and place. The write-up may not be as indepth as it would be if you knew the time, but you will still get a good free report, and they also provide lots of other free astrological information. 

The story behind the memory book:

I was born in the Kentucky Mountains into a family of story tellers, but the stories we told were true. At family gatherings someone would say “Remember when?” and the stories would begin, to be told and retold over the years. My own children, who frequently asked for the retelling of these stories, encouraged me to begin a book several years ago, to write down the family stories they remembered from when they were small. At first I put the stories together for them into a work-in-progress I called The Memory Book.

But, as I gathered more information about our ancestors who pioneered the Kentucky Mountains, I also began including their stories. The book evolved into the personal and ancestral history of one family who was born into a gap, a gap in time, when the old ways of our ancestors could no longer sustain us in a changing world. We had to adapt, and yet still manage to hang onto those qualities that had made us great.

The book became my humble attempt to show how each member of an impoverished Kentucky Mountain family built our own bridges between the old world and the new, carrying with us the one thing that could sustain us, our love for each other, our love of God and family. “What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”

Since I’m the seventh of eight children, many of the stories I told my own children were passed down by my older brothers and sister, who remembered earlier times. I’m pleased that my sister Docia has allowed me to include in the book some of those family stories and the poetry she wrote. I’m also grateful to my sister-in-law Pauline Rupe Adams for the materials, writings, old letters, etc. she saved for me after my eldest brother Byrd passed away in 2000.

“Stories of a Kentucky Mountain Family As Told by Two Sisters and a Brother” can be purchased through either Booksurge.com or Amazon.com for $23.95.

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Peeing on the Flowers