Happy Samhain (Sow-ain)

Happy new year, from the old ways (Celtic, Irish, Scot, British, Mexican, Guatemalan, Native American). The end of a farming year on Oct. 31, and the next day is the beginning of a new one.

"Visioning" Susan Seddon Boulet, 1987

The veil between the living and the dead is thinnest at this time of year.  Which ancestors would you honor? Which ones would you like to ask a question of?  Perhaps there's even a famous one who would be wonderful to go for a walk with in the woods, or talk with for an hour besides a fire?

Ruins of Native Americans' buildings, (see PBS show Native America at 9 pm EDT Tues.)

Many people honor an ancestor or more for the Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, which is on Nov. 1.  There are candles lit and altars prepared with the favorite foods of those dearly departed, and their pictures, and perhaps things they gave you.

So it is celebrated by many who say they are Pagan.  The spirits are not to be feared, but welcomed.  They are warned to keep pranks to a minimum.  They are celebrated for having given us life.  And if any malevolent ones should appear, they are perhaps listened to, then banished.  No one is welcome that would do the living any harm.

Liberty prevails

On the tablet in the hand of Lady Liberty, the statue of liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Posters, descriptions, and prescriptions!

As a docent at the Swannanoa Valley History Museum (it's really called an even longer name, S.V. Museum and History Center,) last Wednesday afternoon, I looked far and wide for posters.  After all, a history museum has lots of antiques.  I found some signs...close I thought.  And displays.  So I'm checking them for the theme prompt of Sepia Saturday this week.

Our theme image for this week asks you to seek out any adverts in your collection - either up front or in the background - and feature them in your post on or around Saturday 27th October 2018.

When I moved to Black Mountain NC in 2007, there was still a small airport/airfield, with a radio station on the same property.  I don't remember any planes coming or going (the small ones of course). Sanavo was the aviation gasoline and oil before Exxon or Standard oil companies.  Most old metal signs in the area have the pock marks of someone's target practice with their rifles.

Then that area was bulldozed and became the Ingles Grocery Chain main warehouse...a huge building.  And some other industries took over the radio station buildings and the antenna was gone also.

The next two displays talk about area buildings.

Our nearby town of Swannanoa used to have a big mill, Beacon Blankets.  There's a good display of how that industry was very successful until it's close in 2002.  The empty building then burned just before I moved here.

One of the Beacon products of the 40s and 50s.

 There were beautiful designs woven into the blankets, many with a Native American chevron design, and bright colors.

These might be considered posters (the last 2 photos)

Asheville's newspaper covered the building of the railroad into Black Mountain.  There are also books about the area, including the railroad engineering.  The museum also has a little diorama with an electric train that you can play with.  

And what about the prescriptions? There's a display which shows some of the earliest prescriptions filled by a local pharmacy.

That "drug store" is no longer in business.

An old calendar shows what many ads looked like (1967?) I remember many calendars hanging on the wall advertising a lot of different things.

And some advertising used to hang on a screen door to a "general store."

 Starting Friday evening, Ghost Tours of Black Mountain will be conducted by the Swannanoa museum, and here's their own poster on the door.  There is rain forecast, so the tours will be conducted with umbrellas.

 A poster for an event here in Black Mountain, an art show this Saturday. I think the rain will have passed on through by then.

A Black Mountain College poster from Asheville Art Museum in 1978.  The college closed in 1956, but there's a lot of abiding interest in it and it's innovative methods in the 40s and 50s.  There's an excellent exhibit at the Swannanoa History Museum here in Black Mountain about the College -up until Dec. 8, 2018.



Have a happy weekend!

Appreciation comes to mind

I suddenly (or gradually) became aware of my signs and symptoms that say "stop, do something different" when I was coughing continually yesterday afternoon.  I was only sitting at a desk, welcoming people to the museum...doing my docent thing.

But the cough kept coming along.  That's with me all the time, but when I feel tired at all, I've learned that signals me, the conscious me, that the body me is not doing well.

So I stopped my plans for the evening, and settled down at home.  And enjoyed quietness.  Though I missed what I had planned to make at the studio...but it can happen today. I kind of volunteer there on Thursday afternoons.  That means unlocking the door, and maybe hostessing if any guests come in.

This is the "Leaf Peeper Season."  People come from all over to hopefully see fall leaves.  And last weekend was a music concert weekend, and next weekend is an Art show weekend, so there were a LOT of people in town yesterday.  They came to the museum in droves! (Many from a conference center, but also a dozen teachers from a school who wanted to see what we had to offer to classes. Fortunately our director gave them a tour.)

And did I mention the traffic? You can guess this is a good time of year to use the back routes to get where you're going.

I do appreciate all the tourists...bless their hearts! They help us have an economy which doesn't depend (on;y) upon property taxes to keep the town running.

So I'm appreciating a good night's sleep.  And a toaster oven which is baking up some nice biscuits for my breakfast.  There will be sausage links from freezer to microwave, and oh that lovely hot coffee for me to sip on.  I type on a computer which one of my sons gifted to me, when he upgraded.  I have an apartment with heaters in the walls, as well as being upstairs from another one, so I receive the free gift of whatever heat rises from her rooms.

I loved putting all my dishes away that were sitting clean in the drainer this morning...I made most of them!  The kitchen was all tidy to start the day. I put away a slow cooker (a.k.a. crockpot) which was free in the laundry room one day (when a relative was packing up her mother's apartment when she moved out.)  The daughter said "she never used it."  That the temperature labels had been worn away and re-written with a permanent marker shows a bit of different facts, but it still works fine and I've 2 quarts of delicious soup from the other day's efforts.

I must appreciate the internet.  I frequently get to see posts on Facebook of my grandchildren (a big thank you to their mothers and fathers.)  Where I used to have a daily chat with a friend who died earlier in the year, now I read more blogs, make comments, take free courses, and watch reruns of movies and TV shows.)

Oh, it seems I've succumbed to the the "old lady" syndrome of going on and on.  Sorry about that.

I am so appreciative of all that my life is full of.  Guess I get a bit carried away.

We have the power...use it!

I voted early...the second day of "early voting" at our library here in Black Mountain NC.  There was a short line (I was 10th in line).  It didn't take very long...about 15 min, including reading each of the 6 state amendments which were not to be approved (I'd heard many arguments about how the legislature wanted control over the judiciary and these would help that process.)  One of them was for a picture i.d. being required to vote...which we weren't required to have this election.

I do hope you vote.  This is a pivotal election.  The people in Washington DC are all (the ones who make our laws and determine if I receive my own Social Security and Medicare) to be voted in or out of power.  At least all the ones from my district.

I hope everyone I know (and all the rest of you too) VOTES.

I put energy into thinking about how important this is every day, hour, almost every minute.

Murphy Brown fan

I used to see this show all the time (whichever century it was in). And it promised to revise itself, about the same time that Roseanne hurriedly came back on the air, then her loud mouthed racist personality became objectionable to her own network executives...and Murphy hadn't even come on the air yet. So I was glad to see the Murphy Brown revision. 

I didn't particularly enjoy the first 2 episodes, they felt a bit dated (probably written when the network first decided to have a revision.)  But the one this week was more fun, and continued to be full of slams at the shameful political situation in the US.

In this episode she sparred against "Ed Shannon" author of American Carnage, a book about how our cities are failing because they are overrun by “crimmigrants.” (He represents a slightly disguised Steve Bannon.) But the message from Murphy (whoever wrote this script is my darling favorite) was on target.

Murphy had a fairly long debate, with a big finish to the writer, Shannon, "You're just “an old white guy who’s scared of losing his place at the table,” and “the good people, are going to stamp out your hatred and bigotry and they’ll replace you.”

She say's "You're a sad, sad, sad, sad dinosaur who’s going extinct..."

I then posted my approval of this description of the current GOP/patriarchal system in power in our government.

A bit of a lean to it...

From the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center: (This was a Facebook posting on Oct. 17, 2018.)

Do you know where the Shuman Inn pictured in this 1930's era postcard was located? A Star Route is a postal delivery route served by a private contractor. In 1845, new legislation allowed for mail to be carried by contractors with "celerity, certainty, and security." According to the Smithsonian's Postal Museum, rather than write those three words in their ledger over and over, postal clerks abbreviated it with three asterisks (***) and these contracted routes became known more commonly as Star Routes. Black Mountain's Star Route was served by Mrs. Annie Mae Daugherty Fortune for many years. Mrs. Fortune was a lifelong resident of Black Mountain, lived on Montreat Road, and died at the age of 49 in 1970, the same year Star Routes were renamed Highway Contract Routes.

How timely, to see a historic inn (and I don't know where it really was) with a couple of leaning looking wings to it.  They might not have been leaning really, but still were perched on the side of a mountain.  US 70 used to go over part of Lookout Mountain toward Old Fort, NC.  It now has been swallowed up (mostly) by I-40 going through the same mountain pass.  We call it Old Fort pass, but they call it Swannanoa pass I think.  It just depends upon the direction you're heading!

These pictures are in reverse order (don't ask) of my trip home to the mountains from Florida in 2012
.

I love seeing those blue distant heights after driving through Georgia and South Carolina...they say "home" to me.

This was probably Georgia, or north Florida.

Maybe crossing into Georgia

Florida has frequent rain showers...people used to slow down or stop if they couldn't see the road.  Not so much any more.

I did pull over for a while,, and loved seeing the midst through the trees to the side of the road.

It was near a place selling peaches, so may have been Georgia.

Not on the interstate, but one of the state highways of FL, in Waldo.  There's a big flea market on weekends there.

And someplace along that route going north from Tampa toward North Carolina (obviously still in Florida, look at the palms) I tilted the camera, and thus produced this slightly tilted looking church.  This is my tie-in of the trip home to the Sepia Saturday meme for this week...as shown HERE.  (More below)

I saw a rain shower about to descend.

But it didn't catch up to me until later!

The Sepia Saturday's connection which invites us to share - based on this photo.

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week is all over the place. Well, to be quite honest, it is falling down. So if you have any old photographs in your collection that are falling down or leaning over, this is the prompt for you. Just post your post on or around Saturday 20th October 2018 and leave a link on the list below. Whilst you are waiting for the washing to dry - or for the building to fall down - take a look at what awaits you around the crooked bend.

A lunch favorite in Swannanoa NC

There are a LOT of barbecue places in North Carolina...and I'll go to the next town west of us to this favorite for just about everything naturally smoked (none of that fake flavoring here).  I do usually choose one of my favorite sauces to add to the chicken, or the ribs, or...

I sometimes choose to eat lunch with special friends (and my vegetarian friend could feast on the various southern style sides they have) and this is the first chance I've had to give credit to a wonderful restaurant.

It's also very close to the exit on I-40, for anyone interested in easy access on and off the highway...just 2 lights and turn right past the Harley Davidson headquarters store.  You still will be next to a Duncan Donuts, though I usually prefer the basket of brownies that Okie Dokies provides.

TODAY"S QUOTE:

In appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.

FRED ROGERS

My favorite selfie

Helen said "I only like my picture when we take one together."

It took about 3 tries, when we were both smiling and had our eyes open...and I'm thrilled with it.  Good friends are so wonderful in my life these days.

Plein Air painting

En pleine air

 Yes there's a fence between calf and woman with camera!

 

H. talks with visitors about his Monet color scheme for his house and gardens, while photographer captures cows in the background.

Ann is the first artist I've seen who uses an orange wash under her paint, which was oil.  Her style is slightly impressionistic.

Plein-Air Artist, Ann Devane at H's home for Art in Bloom June 15, 2013

a repost from 2013...

Thanks for Sepia Saturday's prompt this week...a really vintage plein air artist!

Come on over and see what others have come up with HERE...hopefully some more vintage photos!  My series of photos are just 5 years old, and have a cow rather than a horse/pony.