We Now Have Complete Confidence in the New Generation
March for Our Lives, Washington DC, March 24, 2018.
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March 26, 2018
All Gone …
Houck's Gin, Cameron, S.C., dismantled February, 2018 All prima facie evidence of my family’s agriculture history is now gone. My grandfather, Bernard “B.C.” McCollough Houck, was one of eleven children. Born in 1900, he died as a young man at the age of 52. I barely remember him; I called him “Mr. C.”; I would have been two. The impressionable occasion was when he took me to the carnival rides at the Waynesville Township High…
March 2, 2018
Houck Family Plot
Farm, Family, and Cotton
When my mother passed away in 2012, she wanted to be "taken home" and buried in the Houck Family plot of the Mt. Lebanon Cemetery in Cameron, S.C. The cemetery is on the edge of a field, and depending on the year of crop rotation, the field could either be in cotton, peanuts, or soy beans. This year it was cotton. It was also cotton a few years ago when we first began to photograph…
November 20, 2017
E. Craddock Morris, Sr.
A Real Newspaper Man – Craddock Morris
Craddock Morris, Sr. has always been a newspaper man; he has known no other life since he joined his father's Calhoun Times (St. Matthews, South Carolina, Calhoun County) at the age of 23 in 1955 to make it a two man paper. Morris graduated from Citadel College in 1950 and fulfilled his obligatory military service in Japan with the U.S. Army. He joined his dad at the Times the day after he was discharged. Craddock,…
November 9, 2017
“With Floyd gone, this feels more like home than anywhere I could be.”
The Jelly Lady on 221
This November, Barbara Gragg will have run the honey stand on U.S. 221 between the Grandfather Mountain entrance and the Blue Ridge Parkway for 60 years. Fifty-five of those years were with her husband, Floyd, whom I first became acquainted with years ago when I would see him playing his banjo at the honey stand to draw in and entertain tourists. “Floyd passed away in four years ago,” Barbara says. “I used to play the…
August 19, 2017
"Base Camp" Meadow Garden
The Gift of the Unexpected Gift
One afternoon this week, I opened the front door of our 1800’s log home (our previous full time residence) in Old Salem and to my surprise found an arranged bouquet of freshly cut zinnia’s on our granite front steps. Totally unexpected, no predisposing circumstances or situation to our knowledge which would have precipitated such a generous act. There was no note. We were saturated with a sense of wonder as to who may have left…
July 3, 2017
Roy Anders, Ham Handler
I have a love affair with country ham and the guy who wraps it
I have a love affair with country ham and THE guy who wraps it. It is no secret that one of my favorite destinations of all times is Ronnie's Country Store in Winston-Salem, N.C. When I moved to town in the late 70's, the store was known as "W.G. White and Company" – founded in 1925. In 1994, Ronnie Horton bought the store from the White family; but the county health department came down hard…
June 3, 2017
Cheryl Ferguson Plum Granny Farm
“And over there” … Successful Farmers are Entrepreneurs
Since I have been documenting organic farmers and farming, I have been searching for and cataloguing common denominators that characterize this special breed of growers. I had the opportunity this week to visit with Cheryl Ferguson and Ray Tuegel, owners of Plum Granny Farm. In only a moment of a conversation, Cheryl exclaimed “And over there…” Who but an entrepreneur would be excited about “over there” and how it would fulfill a vision for what…
March 26, 2017
I couldn’t pay my Duke Energy bill with these. What would they care?
Deconstructing a childhood stamp collection … An emotional journey to the past When my mom and dad passed away in 2012 and 2013 respectfully, the task of “cleaning out” and “settling up” HOME in Waynesville, NC became forefront in my and my sister’s lives.’ My tangible personal connections to HOME changed when I moved out of the house in 1978 as a young adult to become a permanent resident of Winston-Salem, NC. While I took…
March 18, 2017
The Elusive Artist Statement
For the convenience of those readers who struggle with the metaphorical language of other artists when they write statements requiring a close-read i.e word-for-word', then pause, then again, read word-for-word; I have tried to make it easy. Simply, this is "Who I Am". Enjoy! Here is another great example, one for Mary Presson Roberts, an emerging fine art photographer, educator, and published author.
February 20, 2017