There are people, maybe even here in Washington County, who believe that tomatoes taste a bit like watery cardboard. They believe that peas, while sweet, have a starchy aftertaste. They believe that a good cantaloupe is one that doesn’t take that much salt to make “delicious.” They are the uninitiated, the poor souls who have not had their taste buds ruined by fresh, right-out-of-the garden ripeness. To them, we would say, read no further. Once you have tasted the medley of flavors found in in-season, fresh lettuce and other greens, you’ll never again stomach the watery, though crunchy, taste of iceberg lettuce trucked thousands of miles with thousands of ice cubes from California or some other place that’s not here or anywhere thereabouts. 

Coffee’s steaming from Smyth community

Coffee’s steaming from Smyth community

The old dairy barn is hot pink. The silo brick. The weather vane atop the barn’s tin roof looks from a distance like a pig. And is. 

Writer’s Note: I am currently sitting on the balcony of a hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is early morning, just after sunrise and I am enjoying a cool, refreshing breeze and listening to the waves crash against the shore. I am here with my darling Terry, my new wife. Yes, wife. The wedding was last Saturday and we are on a too short honeymoon. We are doing all the honeymooning tourists things, including taking tons of photographs. Thankfully, my dear editor Stephanie allowed me to choose a re-run column to send in this week. I chose this one as I have already been taking pictures this morning and it seemed appropriate. As it is now Fall, prime photo season in our Southern Highlands, I figured it was an appropriate one. I promise I will get my lazy butt back to work next week and will give you all the details. Hey…get your minds out of the gutter, I’m talking about the trip to the beach, not the honeymoon.

“Step right, rock forward and quarter turn to the left,” Susie Buckner melodiously instructed a room full of students, young and old, who kicked up their heels Friday evening as they learned the basic steps of line dancing. 

It was a sunny day, bright and clear. The surf beat against the hull of the USS Missouri. The world around the battleship was tranquil and serene.
Thousand, though, teemed on the deck. Some had duties. Many others had cameras. Nearly everyone felt a deep sense of impending peace. 

John Green writes plays that stick with you.
The words and actions of the actors last longer than the fleeting on-stage moment. They nag at you, make you think, trouble you, frustrate you. That’s one of the reasons the playwright of “Doubting Thomas” and “The Liquid Moon,” both of which were sponsored by the Washington County News, has grown used to controversy.

The Upper Tennessee River Roundtable and the Appalachian RC&D are offering a Tri-State Watershed Conference

It was 1942. Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor a year ago. World War II was in full swing. And Verna Mahaffey’s blood, like many Americans’, was running red, white and blue.