Loose Leaf Notes

The only thing my congressman’s representation is worth
is the stamp on the return envelope of his fundraising letter
which I plan to pull off and use to pay a bill
if his boss doesn’t ruin the Post Office by then

He wants my money and wants my vote
but calls me names like “the lunatic left”
He talks about left-wing bullies and militants
but not the armed militia who stormed the Michigan capitol
after his boss told them to liberate the state from shutdowns
and not the white supremacists and conspiracy theorists
who the FBI calls domestic terror threats
and his boss says are some “very fine people”

He doesn’t mention his boss by name but talks about values
while his boss pardons criminals, takes revenge on heroes,
sides with dictators and calls Americans and allies the “enemy”

My congressman never mentions the Covid-19 pandemic
that has killed more than 150 thousand of us
particularly in the states that his boss convinced
to open too early after he insisted the virus would disappear

He says nothing about police choke holds
that kill people in broad daylight
Nothing about Russian bounties on American soldiers
or Russia’s interference in our elections to help his boss

He doesn’t say anything relevant to our district
He ignores the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression
and doesn’t mention his boss’s record-high deficit
or how we can fix it

The last time my congressman spoke in our town
he was still complaining about Jane Fonda
I’d like to vote him out
but no one’s running against him
I’ll vote his boss out instead

__________Colleen Redman / dVerse Poets Pub  / Poets and Storytellers United

1. I don’t have a lot to juggle in these pandemic times, but so many parts of my life feel up in the air.

2. Don’t try THIS at home, only at Grandma’s house.

3. “The pandemic is a beautiful thing for an old guy like me. Young people do all the complaining so I don’t have to, I’m free to be cheerful. I detest physical exercise and now I have an excuse: heavy breathing spreads the virus. I also have a cover for not wanting to travel: Europe doesn’t want us. Even the Canadians don’t want us. As for restaurants, I never liked eating out; I haven’t hung out in bars since I was in college. I’m an introvert and social distancing comes naturally to me. Down deep, I have an aversion to people who subscribe to complicated conspiracy theories or who think the virus is a hoax or who like to use the word “systemic” and now I can block them on my phone. I love to watch baseball without spectators in the stands, no video close-ups of couples kissing, no mascots dancing around in cartoon outfits. And I’ve discovered that if I put one tablespoon of fermented mead in my wife’s Cream of Wheat, she becomes giddy and laughs at everything I say.” – Garrison Keillor

4. Floyd Facebook post: Alert! do not leave your vehicle in Floyd town unlocked or someone you know may put vegetables in it!

5. Window Swap? Let’s face it. We are all stuck indoors. And it’s going to be a while till we travel again. Window of Opportunity views around the world HERE. 

6. What now sparrow? / Will the meek inherit the earth / or will the squeaky wheel run over it? – Read the rest of my poem Fight or Flight HERE.

7. Drum roll please for Phlegar Road, who we saw and danced to at Dogtown on Saturday.

8. I’m not into face mask fashion like I’m not into emojis.

9. THIS is my kind of Yoga class.

10. The word juggle and jiggle kind of make me want to giggle.

11. Today I learned what a contronmym is: Single words that have to contradictory meanings, like bolt: to secure or to flee, dust: to add fine particles or to remove them, left: remained or departed, sanction: to approve or to boycott, weather: to withstand or to wear away.

12. “Every word is a bird we teach to sing.”  That’s the name of a book by Daniel Tammet, a high functioning autistic savant with synaesthesia. I’m currently reading his memoir Born on a Blue Day.

13. “Because there were so many books in the library, with so many different names on them, I’d assumed that one of them somewhere had to be mind. I didn’t understand at the time that a person’s name appears on a book because he or she wrote it.  Now that I’m 26, I know better. If I were to ever going to find my book one day, I was going to have to write it first.” -Daniel Tammet

___________ Thirteen Thursday

We spotted it while hiking the trail along the Rock Castle Creek.

It was caught in a spider web.

Every time I saw a yellow swallowtail after that, I thought it could be “our butterfly.” _______Our World Tuesday

“My hands never leave my wrists,” promised juggler, puppeteer and circus act entertainer Gypsy Geoff.

This trick involved a volleyball Geoff called “Wilson!”

Don’t try this at home, only at grandma’s house.

It was the grandmas who pooled their resources to hire Gypsy Geoff to put on a show for the grandchildren, which included some lessons in juggling.

And juggling plates.

Where or however you can spin them.

My Kind of Yoga Class is led by Bones who opens with a James Brown number.

My grandson Liam and his H(opa) made the watermelon basket of fruit for intermission.

And then the practice began!

Sometimes, what goes up comes down.

_________Our World Tuesday

What now sparrow?
Will the meek inherit the earth
or will the squeaky wheel run over it?

Will the few cut in line
and leave the many behind?
Will they hit and run
and spin their sins?

What now sparrow?
Will the voices of reason prevail
Will the flock fall or fly
rise above the divide?

What now sparrow?
What now?
Will the meek inherit the earth
or be the ones to save it?

_______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

1. Trump lovers are like women who are always attracted to the bad boy even after he abuses them.

2. New bumper sticker: BYEDON

3. Suspicious activity: When a person with a Chinese accent calls to say they’ve suspended your social security because of suspicious activity.

4. The only thing our current representative is worth is the return address enveloped stamp on his fundraising letter that I plan to pull off and use to pay a bill if the U.S. Post Office isn’t ruined by his boss by then.

5. We woke up Sunday morning to see who was banging at the door. It turned out to be an earthquake, the second one I’ve experienced here.

6. Colleen to Joe after watching the HBO documentary Spielberg: “Steven Spielberg is the Steve Jobs of film making.”

7. I love THIS idea. Too bad I lost all my vinyl albums in the divorce long ago.

8. Is THIS the future of outdoor music festivals?

9. Years ago I participated in a shamanic drumming ritual and it was revealed to me that my animal totem is the crow.  At first I was disappointed, wishing for something more majestic like an eagle or a panther, but then I found out how intelligent crows are and that they have a masterful and complex language and, being a lover of language, the crow totem made sense.

10. When’s the last time you saw one / those independent types? / Disney’s got a museum of small town life / They bulldozed a real on to build it / For trinkets and beads and color TVs / they moved all the people / to the reservation city… Read The Last of the Rural Americans in its entirety HERE. 

11. My poem, Streams That Find Their Way to the Ocean, that I wrote to my late sister, is in the new issue of Artemis.

12. Built in 1972, the campground was owned and lovingly operated by Marion and Rick Smith for the past 35 years. The 14+ acre site includes a fish pond, a bath house, a camp store, a playground, a pavilion, a laundry facility, free Wi-Fi, 8 RV full-hook-up sites and 36 camp sites, most with water and electric. There is also a pet rabbit named Rocky at the campground. Pam, an animal lover who has 3 dogs, 2 cats and 12 chickens, said she enjoys telling friends about the campground and saying, “It came with a rabbit when we bought it!” – More from my Floyd Press story about Daddy Rabbit’s Campground under new ownership HERE. 

13. Some wisdom recently seen on Facebook: You can distinguish and alligator and a crocodile by paying attention to whether they  see you later or in a while.

_________Thirteen Thursday 

Toad Pool

A Venus of Willendorf Before

And After

Grown to be eaten out of house and home

Could be mistaken for a Reese’s Cup

Could be mistaken for a turtle shell

Smurf Village / aka Much Mush Rooms

Smurfette’s Best Bet / aka Fun Ghee Whiz

_____________Our World Tuesday /My Corner of the World

-The following poem was published in 1994 in The New River Free Press’s Appalachian Voices. It’s from a collection of Floyd-based poetry/prose that I read with Little River Poetry Festival co-founder Jack Callan at this year’s festival, titled “Where Else But Floyd? A 30+ Year Retrospective in poetry and essay excerpts.”

When’s the last time you’ve seen one
those independent types?
They don’t do well in captivity
They were overrun by six-lane highways
Coming like the cavalry
Eating up the scenery
like dinosaurs, dragons
and government treaties

Fork-tongue promises
for jobs and economy
meant low-wage slavery
and trickle down theories

When’s the last time you saw one
those independent types?
Disney’s got a museum of small town life
They bulldozed a real on to build it
For trinkets and beads and color TVs
they moved all the people
to the reservation city

When’s the last time you’ve seen one
those independent types?
They were plagued by poverty
and land grab bureaucracy
Left to stand in lines for subsidies
or scratch to heaven lotteries

And in the end you’d see them
in films and documentaries
Homeless as the buffalo
no place left to go
no place left to go

___________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

Read about this year’s Little River Poetry Festival HERE. 

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on August  6, 2020.

“I’ve always loved to cook and I love to experiment,” said Michelle Scott, the owner of Jonesburg Pepper Company, a new Locust Street take-out restaurant, located where Oddf3llows used to be. It’s adjacent to the Sacred Star and Stone, which opened just two weeks before the restaurant. Both businesses are women-owned and both owners spoke about the support they give each other.

Jonesburg Pepper offers a full menu for breakfast, lunch and supper, featuring egg biscuits, chicken wings (which they are already becoming known for), chips and salsa and sandwiches, all of which make use of Scott’s specialty pepper jellies, sauces and salsas.

“Everything we make has a pepper in it, in some capacity, but that doesn’t mean it’s hot. It could be a bell pepper. We try to cater to everyone,” Scott said, who previously worked in customer service and has a degree in psychology from Radford University.

Why peppers? She grows them and had an abundant supply that she had to do something with. For eight years Scott sold her jellies on the craft show circuit. In 2014, she became a legitimate business and got her jellies certified, which she sells at outlets, such as Draper Mercantile, Buffalo and More and Wildwood Farms in Floyd. Her home kitchen was certified in 2019.

Scott’s cousin was one of the workers renovating the former Oddf3llows building, owned by Brian and Alison Lynch. He told Scott about the space, which includes a kitchen and an order/take-out area. The longer she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of moving her business there. “The pandemic started and everyone was focusing on take-out,” she said.

The restaurant opened for the last three days in June to get a feel for business traffic, Scott said. What did she learn from that trial run? “I learned that we ran out of food. We sold out of everything on the 1st day,” she said. So, they made a new game plan that included being open all day, currently from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

There is one table where customers can sit and eat inside, but the general focus is take-out. Eight employees share the cooking and daily workload. “We work as a family and all pitch in where it’s needed. It’s a family atmosphere above all else,” said Scott. She lives in Christiansburg but feels at home with the small-town life in Floyd, where her parents grew up.

Meals are made to order and include those suited for children, such as a 4 cheese-grilled-cheese sandwich, chicken nuggets and PBJ with regular jelly or one of Scott’s jelly recipes, which include mild to hot tantalizing flavors like Raspberry or Pineapple Flamingo (Mango), Mixed Berry Pecan, Dark Cherry Carolina Reaper, and Peach Jalapeno.

“We just rolled out 7 new salsas. They’ll change in the fall with some standards remaining,” Scott said. Her Barbeque sauce recipes will be rolled out next and promise to be uniquely tasty.

PHOTOS – 1. A couple visiting Floyd from North Carolina enjoy some Jonesburg Pepper take-out in front of the shop.  2. Jonesburg employees Taegon Morgan, a 2020 Floyd County high school graduate, and senior Jacob Stull take a moment to pose and flash the love sign inside the shop.

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on August 6, 2020. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

“A most unique kind of rock shop.” That’s how Sacred Star and Stone owner Katrina Gravely describes her Locust Street store. Gravely, who joins the trend of women-owned downtown businesses, says her shop grew out of her interest as an avid rock collector when she couldn’t find reasonably priced items that what she wanted for herself.  “I’ve never met a rock I didn’t like,” the Willis resident said.

Sacred Star and Stone has been in Floyd for three years. It was first located on the Floyd Center for the Arts property, next to the blacksmith shop. Gravely made the decision to relocate in November, when building owners Brian and Alison Lynch, also gemstone collectors, were renovating the space after closing their restaurant, Oddfellows. Gravely has partnered with the Lynchs to feature some of their museum quality specimens from their business, Schwartz Fine Minerals.

The spacious shop is jam-packed with everything from the whimsical to functional to nature’s treasures.  Along with rocks and crystals, it’s well stocked with herbs, resins, candles, essential oils, salts and scrubs and more. Gravely works one-on-one with approximately 30 vendors that she buys from.

Customer service is also done on a one-on-one basis. Gravely said it’s been important to get to know her customers and that she is happy to track down special items, treasures and unique stone specimens for them, whether local or from the other side of the world.  Nothing is mass ordered and everything is hand selected.

“People come from states away to see us,” Gravely said, explaining that she has built her customer base by going to trade shows and expos, selling online and out of her shop. She lights up when she talks about how children react in the hands-on shop with dragons, fairy houses, a life-sized knight in armor and Star Wars and Harry Potter items. “We create magic here every day for children and families.”

One example of the creative fun that goes on in the shop is a 50-year-old dollhouse that Gravely acquired on Facebook Market Place and that she and her employees have been renovating into an Adams Family House, complete with family figurines. “We enjoy making other people smile with what we can create,” she said.

The shop opened on June 19th after state COVID-19 shutdowns were lifted for non-essential businesses and is currently open six days a week from 10 – 6p.m.  She said they go above and beyond COVID safety protocols and that foot traffic has been incrementally increasing, but is still down from pre- pandemic expected numbers.

Gravely described how the shop renovators incorporated original architecture and remnants from past business incarnations into the shop’s design. The 1920 tin ceiling now lines the old fire flu.  Countertops found in the basement have been used in the Jonesburg Pepper Company next door, which was previously the entrance to Oddfellows and housed its kitchen. A menu sign from the long-ago restaurant “Moses” was also found in the basement. It was retrieved and given a sparkly facelift before being added to the shop décor.

A lit-up oak tree body donated by St. Pierre Woodworks and built by Gravely’s husband is a shop centerpiece that brings the outdoors inside and gets lots of attention from shoppers. Strung lights from one end of the ceiling to the other adds another bright touch.  Plans for outside lighting as evenings darken early are in the works. “We enjoy lighting up North Locust Street,” Gravely said with a smile. _____Colleen Redman

1.  I love to swim but I don’t like swimming in cold water like I don’t like biking up hills.

2. The first full dunk and breast stroke in the Great Oaks pool is like the first haul of a good IPA.

3. I don’t suppose I can get one of THESE for Christmas

4. This is not the first 13 Invitation. See HERE.  And HERE is the Open Door Invitation.

5. Does This Mean We’re a Two Stoplight Town Now? See HERE (where I photographed the chair above).

6. I just learned that Fred Rogers name was Fred “McFeely” Rogers.

7. Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after the magazine’s humorous “Feedback” column noted several studies carried out by researchers with remarkably fitting surnames… We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions—The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London—A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench… Aptronym merely means the name is fitting, without saying anything about why it has come to fit. The idea that people are drawn to professions that fit their name was suggested by psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud who studied pleasure and whose surname means ‘joy’. More from Wikipedia HERE.

8. I once met a woman who made sock puppets, not the Sesame Street variety, but matriarchal figures, wise women, and witches. When I learned that her last name was “Weinstock,” I couldn’t help but point out that her name also said “Wise in Sock.” When I mentioned to another woman that if she added a G to her last name, “Robinson,” it would become “Robinsong,” she changed her name! I believe that our names are our assignments and that there is mathematics to language. If we take a letter away or add another, everything changes. I don’t think it’s a mistake that the word “spell” means to put letters together in the right way, and it also means to make magic. -More from my Essay “Word Play” HERE.

9. Mr. Rogers is the sixth cousin of American actor Tom Hanks, who portrays him in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which we watched and enjoyed over the weekend.

10. We also heard some live music outside at the Buffalo Mountain Brewery by a duo named The Paranormals, or “a Pair of Normals?”

11. “Don’t just do something. Sit there.” – My Dharmacratic poet friend Will

12. A battle with deer / for my lilies and phlox / Saving corn and hens / with an electric fence / The click of a cold can / Sparkling black cherry / Sliced ripe tomatoes / Flat beans to snap… More from Heat Wave 2020 HERE.

13. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” —Anne Lamott

____________Thirteen Thursday

Does green mean to GO to OuterSpace, the hip downtown outdoor hangout?

I pulled over after talking with OuterSpacer Ashleigh Ward because the light was just right and everything was cast in a summer glow.

I learned from Ashleigh that, along with Magic Bus Grateful baked goodies and art, Revolution Juice smoothies and Bootleg BBQ, the venue has added brunch to their offerings, breakfast bowls and burritos, avocado toast and more, Friday to Sunday 10 – 2 p.m. prepared by chef Ashleigh herself.

She said they’re working on getting their ABC license and are planning some pop-up dinners (Indian and Thai were mentioned) and live music.

There’s a piano, a lending library and a mailbox for poetry, love letters and suggestions on site.

HERE’S the story I wrote for the Floyd Press when the venue first opened last year.

And these guys are called The Paranormals or “a Pair of Normals.” They’re the duo that Joe and I heard earlier that evening at the Buffalo Mountain Brewery.

Ain’t life in Floyd grand? _________Our World Tuesday

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on July  30, 2020.

Two days after Christmas, Tim White was looking at camper prices on Ebay when the Daddy Rabbit’s Campground “For Sale” ad popped up. His wife Pam walked in the room and asked what he was doing.  He joked that he was looking at a campground he was “fixin’ to buy.”

“We were not looking for a campground. I didn’t expect that answer. I thought he was kidding,” Pam said. But Tim, a former commercial repairman, actually was looking to move in a new direction. “It all fell in place like it was meant to be,” Pam continued.

They closed on the place on April Fool’s Day, just as the governor was shutting down campgrounds due to COVID-19. But they weren’t worried. “It’s a beautiful place to be. I love it here,” said Tim.  Pam said she can’t wait to get back to the campground after working in Roanoke as a hairdresser.

The Whites, who grew up camping, live in Roanoke but are currently looking for a home in Floyd County. Pam, is an avid knitter and comes up the mountain regularly to shop at Michele Morris’s Woolly Jumpers yarn shop and have lunch. Neither she or Tim had heard of Daddy Rabbit’s before they bought it.

Built in 1972, the campground was owned and lovingly operated by Marion and Rick Smith for the past 35 years. The 14+ acre site includes a fish pond, a bath house, a camp store, a playground, a pavilion, a laundry facility, free Wi-Fi, 8 RV full-hook-up sites and 36 camp sites, most with water and electric. There is also a pet rabbit named Rocky at the campground. Pam, an animal lover who has 3 dogs, 2 cats and 12 chickens, said she enjoys telling friends about the campground and saying, “It came with a rabbit when we bought it!”

Ten-miles from downtown Floyd on Union School Road and five-miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the campground is close to the Buffalo Mountain Nature Preserve, Chateau Morrisette Winery and the FloydFest site. “We lost some business because of Floydfest being cancelled,” Tim said, adding that they were busy for July 4th and already have a lot of reservations for the Hillsville Flea Market, which takes place over Labor Day weekend. Most of the campground is booked for the first weekend in October by Sisters on the Fly, a cowgirl caravan of vintage campers from around the country.

The campground is open from April 15 to October 31 and sees lots of repeat customers. A newly upgraded website (daddyrabbitscampground.com) allows campers to reserve sites online with the help of a site map, Tim said.  He reported that one current camper had just caught a good-sized fish, and a couple of campers spoke about how much they enjoyed attending the backyard Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store.

Campers Terry and Jennifer Simmons reserved their site for the Floydfest weekend, but they were not deterred by the festival’s cancellation.  On Saturday, they visited the Floyd Farmers Market, the Wildwood lily farm, went river kayaking at On the Water and bought fish at the Indigo Farms truck to cook on their camp stove, while trying to maintain social distance, Jennifer said.

The Simmons were married at Daddy Rabbits five-years-ago by local ceremonialist Kim Kessler. They come back from Winston-Salem a couple times a year to their favorite campsite. They like to visit the tree they got married under but discovered it had come down in a storm this year.  The Whites had it sawed up into logs and the Simmons took one to bring home.

The Simmons started going to Floydfest at year #4 and went for 12 years in a row, always staying at Daddy Rabbit’s campground, where they love the woodland setting, the friendly camping experience and the close proximity to the county’s eclectic offerings. They’ll be back and are already looking forward to Floydfest 2021, they said. ______Colleen Redman

_________Our World Tuesday /Wordless Wednesday / Welcome to My Corner of the World 

From kimono to sundress
to a wet bathing suit
hanging from a porch chair
in the afternoon

A battle with deer
for my lilies and phlox
Saving corn and hens
with an electric fence

The click of a cold can
Sparkling black cherry
Sliced ripe tomatoes
Flat beans to snap

The sky’s weight hangs
Drowsy thoughts linger
Barefoot and sluggish
Clay soil under nails

Stifled ambitions
amid a fruit fly population
wilt like squash vines
in the mid-day sun

Every day comes down
to meals made and eaten
and good faith attempts
to get something done

Until the stars bring relief
and mysteries to ponder
from a lounge chair dragged
to the middle of the yard

A night vision cam
catches a coon
obscured moon winks
and fireflies elude
attention

________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

1. Joe looking for the mayonnaise jar buried in the back of the fridge for me: “You’re better looking but I’m better at looking.”

2. Alice or Dorothy?

3. I’d really like to tour THIS abandoned clown house.

4. Me to Joe at the beach: “Don’t think about sharks. Don’t think about the chickens home alone. Don’t think about the drive home. Is there anything else we shouldn’t think about? Joe: Yes, but I don’t want to think about it.

5. Cooking breakfast in the hotel room, Joe calls me the hot plate gourmet.

6. I brought a beach book, but so far mostly I’ve just been reading menus in search of fried clams, but I think that’s a New England thing. -More from The Sea Side of Things HERE. 

7. I’ve been reading Sally Mann’s memoir, Hold Still, one of the best books I’ve ever read. Mann is best known for her photo series “Immediate Family” in which she chronicles her children growing up on their farm in a series of intimate shots, some of which show the children nude, which were controversial. Although I enjoy her writing on growing up in the ‘60s, her life as an artist and the wild turns her story takes, like a murder suicide mystery in the family, I have been especially interested and moved by her chapters on growing up in a segregated south and being raised by a black nanny/maid, Gee-Gee, who she loved. “How could I not have wondered? How could I not have asked? That’s the mystery of it—our blindness and our silence,” she writes after describing how Gee-Gee had to wait in the car while they ate at Howard Johnson while on vacation (they did bring her a sandwich) and how Gee-Gee couldn’t use the same bathroom as they did.

8. While I was dancing at the Surf Ballroom in Hull, Massachusetts, Sally Mann was buying desert boots in Hingham at Talbots, a few miles from where I grew up. Mann lives in Lexington Virginia, about an hour and ½ from me. Her mother was from Boston, MA and her grandmother (a descendant of president Adams) was born in Braintree, MA. She went to Hollins College in Roanoke.

9. Moon Ink: A scratch of light / marks the sky’s / western shoulder / like a night tattoo / of unfinished moon

10. In 2008 I wrote this in a 13 Thursday list:  I have an imaginary green shamrock tattoo somewhere on my body but haven’t imagined where yet.

11. Stained glass windows in church was my first psychedelic.

12.“Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth.” – Robert Fuller

13. How many children do you see in the first photo above?

___________Thirteen Thursday

______Wordless Wednesday