This must be the place: Ode to Anna Marie, ode to the kids of Smith Street (and beyond)
Stepping outside the small log cabin, I took a moment to collect my thoughts. Vast farm fields and ancient dirt in the rural countryside outside of Goldsboro, the cool air of an impending fall was felt with a sense of relief in a place where heat and humidity reign supreme.
This must be the place: ‘It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work’
Somewhere around Schroon Lake, New York, just following a quick hike in the Adirondack Mountains, it was decided to head further down Interstate 87 to I-78, onward through Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to get to Raleigh, North Carolina, for the International Bluegrass Music Association award show last Thursday.
This must be the place: ‘The questions of a thousand dreams, what you do and what you see’
It’s never easy to go home. And I think it only seems to get harder, perhaps more abstract and blurry, as one gets older — further and farther between from the starting line, literally and figuratively. Case-in-point, I recently returned home to my native North Country.
This must be the place: ‘A sunbeam’s shining through his hair, fear not to have a care’
It’s 9:54 a.m. Tuesday. I’m sitting at the old wooden kitchen table at my parents’ farmhouse in rural Upstate New York, within close range of the Canadian border, just a few farm fields away from the mighty, ancient Lake Champlain.
This must be the place: ‘I don’t know, don’t really care, let there be songs to fill the air’
It’s 11 a.m. Monday. Currently sitting in the rec room of my aunt’s high-end apartment complex on the outskirts of Charlotte.
This must be the place: ‘A horse is a horse, of course, of course’
The alarm on my smart phone echoed throughout the small cabin. It was 7:30 a.m. Saturday and I had to be somewhere in an hour — hopping onto a saddle for an early morning horse ride.
This must be the place: Ode to STS9, ode to intent and intuition
Emerging from the rental car, a slight drizzle from an early evening storm rolled across the high-desert landscape of Morrison, Colorado. The Western skies overhead turned dark and ominous, only to quickly retreat and head for the skyline of nearby Denver.
This must be the place: Sweating out my worries, just another day
Covered in sweat, I was about three miles into a Friday afternoon run around Lake Johnson on the outskirts of Raleigh.
This must be the place: ‘Scarecrow and a yellow moon and pretty soon a carnival on the edge of town’
Mailbox 278 (pictured) along Route 581 in the unincorporated community of Nahunta, North Carolina. In the rural depths of Wayne County on the outskirts of the small city of Goldsboro.
This must be the place: ‘Make another dime just to lose it in time, what's the meaning’
Exiting the elevator of the Cambria Hotel in downtown Asheville on Monday morning, I noticed the “Sunset Time” scribbled on the lobby sign said 8:29 p.m. Four minutes shorter than what I first saw when checking into the Cambria last Thursday evening.
