It’s always so much fun to celebrate a new release with a giveaway contest because I get to hear from so many of my reading friends – you. Thank all of you who have entered already, but here are the details for those of you who haven’t seen my newsletter. If you want to be on my e-mail list and among …
Macaroni Collages and Soup Can Pencil Holders at VBS
June 3, 1965 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Holly County. School was out last Friday and then the folks at church say we have to have Vacation Bible School right away. No time off. They must think all us kids will forget how to sit still or maybe be able to use our brains for learning if we have a …
Countdown to Rosey Corner #3
Are you ready to go back to Rosey Corner and see what’s going on with the Merritt sisters? I hope so because my new Rosey Corner book, Love Comes Home, will be releasing soon. (Available for pre-sale now on Amazon and other sites.) In fact, reviews are already popping up. The first one right off the bat was a nice one …
A Beautiful Day for a Homegoing
A beautiful day for a funeral – you might be wondering if you read that wrong. But that’s how the preacher started the funeral service for Darrell’s aunt today. Annie Pearl needed a few more weeks to reach her 96th birthday. This picture was taken when she was 91 on one of her rare visits to our house. She was …
Barefoot Days are Almost Here Again
Photo Courtesy of Anita Peppers May 26, 1965 Jocie Brooke reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. A very excited Jocie Brooke because in three days – three short days!! – school’s out for the summer. Yay!! It’s not that I don’t like school. At least most of the time, but in May, I hate school! Nobody should have to spend all of …
Freedom’s Price
Better than honor and glory, and History’s iron pen, Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men. ~Richard Watson Gilder Memorial Day weekend – the weekend that launches summer. Schools are out or will be soon. Seniors are graduating and getting ready to grab life by the horns and see what’s next. Some young men and …
On the Hunt for “The End”
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~Hart Crane Once more I am searching for the end of a story. Once more it seems to be hiding from me behind a crazy mixture of words that don’t seem to be paving the …
The Peonies are Blooming
May 19, 1965 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. The peonies are blooming here in Holly County. Most every yard has at least one bush. Nobody knows who planted the first bush in Holly County. Some early settler must have carried a bulb in from Virginia, because, to hear people tell it, every bush since has been started …
When Depression Turns Deadly
Forty-nine years ago on this date, I lost my beloved aunt, my father’s sister. She was like a granny to me and to my sisters. She never married or lived away from her childhood home. She was a devoted daughter who took care of her mother who died when I was very young and then her father who died when …
Ever Dream of Living in a Castle
http://southernguidetolife.com/a-castle-for-sale-in-versailles-kentucky/ A man’s house is his castle. ~James Otis You expect to see horse farms in Kentucky. Or farms with cows grazing on the hillsides. You expect to see small towns and even a few big towns with high rising buildings. What you might not expect to see in Kentucky is a castle. But right here in Central Kentucky in …