The Jelly Lady on 221
“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…

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Two national parks, a night sky, “The Soul Tree”, and the poet laureate of the Blue Ridge Parkway …

I receive personal pleasure by creating occasions which bring constellations of memories and relationships into view at one time. An intent  on a recent clear evening around 11:00 pm was to execute a test exposure for a motion time-lapse project that I will be doing for Grandfather Mountain this winter.  I chose the Waterrock Knob Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, looking west towards the Smokies.  The foreground incidentally included an old fir snag which was the subject material of…

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Mr. Morton is still alive on the mountain …

While attending one of the 60th anniversary events for Grandfather Mountain's swinging bridge, both of Mr. Hugh Morton's daughters were there. Catherine (Morton) said to me, "Houck, with your being here with your camera, I feel like my dad  never left the mountain." With an instant lump in my throat, and a tear in my eye, I said, "Catherine, with you and your sister, Judy, looking so much like your dad and being present at…

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