All families have their secrets, but some families have deeper and darker secrets than others. In June Titus’s novel Banjo Man (Fulton Books, Inc. 2020, 258 pages), we meet such a family.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Waynesville. Been here going on eight and a half years. Aside from my shelves of old books (many already read, most to get to, someday) and vinyl records, there are a handful of old guitars in the corner, of which I’ll pull one or two out around my third beer of the evening, usually strumming some uplifting chords, either through memory or by way of simple curiosity along the fretboard.

When the Lyft driver asked where we were from, our answer was, “outside Asheville, in the mountains.”

His reply: “Wow, the mountains and the coast. You’re getting the best of both worlds.”

Like every Thanksgiving, I’ll figure something out. 

With my family over 1,000 miles away back up in the North Country, I tend to be an orphan during this holiday feast in Western North Carolina. Luckily, over the last eight years here, I’ve been invited into homes all over Southern Appalachia, where the food is plentiful and there’s always an extra seat at the table for you.

Jessica Merritt is counting down the days until her husband returns home from his final days of service in the U.S. Navy. After more than 20 years in the military and nine deployments, Cory Merritt will return home to his family for good in about two weeks, and this time he’ll return to their new home in Western North Carolina. 

Canton native Eric Hill was 18 when he decided to join the military. It was a quick decision. He wanted to get married and needed a way to provide support. What sprang forth from that decision was more than he could have envisioned.

It was during the third sip of my second glass of wine that I decided to splurge. As a minimalist, in terms of materialistic things, I choose to spend my money on good food, drink and experiences. Thus, it was a time to celebrate, so why not purchase the $89 bottle of champagne, eh?

As the sun began its descent on Monday —  the eve of Election Day — I sat down to write this column and my thoughts turned to happiness and satisfaction.

I thought about being in a place, a state of mind, where one can look at one’s life, both into the past and into the future, and perhaps break into a small grin and say something like, “Somehow, surprisingly, I’ve managed to create a pretty good thing, a life and a family I never imagined for myself. I’m happy.” 

They say when a mom dies a family can fall apart. 

I’d heard this before, in movies and in real life, but I never thought it would be an issue for my family. We’ve always been so close. We always made it a priority to be together for holidays and other special occasions. But when a mother passes, the remaining souls realize it was often she who made all of this happen. 

Lately I’ve been feeling tightness in my chest, an inability to take a nice relaxing breath. When I told my boyfriend this, he asked if I felt OK otherwise. We live in a time where anything related to breathing is immediately connected to COVID-19. How I knew it wasn’t a virus is that when I went on a long run, my breathing got easier, not more labored. When I slowed down for a five-minute meditation, my breathing calmed.