Journeys with Jackson

  I love my big brother. I really like him too. It was just the two of us growing up and if we ever got into trouble, it was usually because I talked him into doing something we weren’t supposed to do. He’s a good guy with very few bad habits. He’s never smoked, drank or even said a cuss word. It was wonderful growing up with him but also hard because of his “always do the right thing” ideology. He set a high standard for a younger sibling to try to follow. I’m not sure, in my 62 years of life, that I can think of a single time when I’ve ever outshone my brother in general overall goodness. My brother is funny too. He’s a great storyteller and uses social media weekly to share random thoughts that are often self deprecating and humorous. Last week he shared about the emergence of the cicada and how it has served as a catalyst to his coming close to saying his first bad word. This particular random thought went something like this: “As I’ve worked my mowing business these past 2-3 w...

  Many retirees have a list of things they want to do that were put off while they were working. Traveling seems to be a universal item, high on the list, whether it’s to see the world or visit relatives. Mark and I fit in that general category, and we’ve found that some of our favorite trips combine traveling with opportunities to interact with family. Mark’s older brother, Karl, and wife Nancy, live in Florida most of the time but a few years ago purchased a villa/condo in a resort community in the North Carolina mountains called Olde Beau Resort and Golf Club. Now that they’re retired, it’s a great place to escape from the summer heat in Florida and the perfect fit for their active lifestyle. We were pleased that our trip to North Carolina coincided with their being home at Olde Beau. Throughout our marriage, Mark has taken the opportunity, when it presented itself, to tell others about his older brother Karl and what a great golfer he is. What a perfect day we had seeing Karl a...

Sometimes good things take time. Mark and I journeyed to Mountain City, TN, today where my grandmother, Mary Blanche, was born. My grandmother was adopted from an orphanage in Nashville, TN, in 1918, and the only information she was ever made aware of, about her adoption, was where she was born (Mountain City) and her surname (Shepherd). Today, with the application of DNA matching and some good old fashioned sleuthing, our family finally knows a little bit more about her biological beginning. From what we can piece together, Blanche’s mother’s name was Biner Shepherd. I won’t pretend to know the narrative of Biner’s life but it appears she was poor, never married and struggled with her health. She lived out her life with two sisters, some nieces and nephews and a son named Jesse. She had two daughters, in addition to my grandmother, who both ended up being adopted. I won’t go into the details of each adoption but for Mary Blanche it seems probable that at 18 months of age my Nan was tr...

After three consecutive nights of trying to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis, Mark finally captured the faintest of purple glows with his iPhone and we decided it sort of counted as seeing the northern lights! A nice Mother’s Day gift from Mother Nature. Ironically, in keeping with the overuse of the word mother, we are now camping at Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia. We love this park with its tranquil lake and beautiful woodlands. Our campsite is creek side and so, so peaceful. We are happy campers!  

  Normally, by the time May rolls around, Mark and I are thousands of miles from home on a 6 to 8 month adventure in our camper. Last year, after just such an adventure, we came home to discover the not so great news that the soft tissue sarcoma we’d battled two and a half years ago, in Mark’s leg, had returned in his lung. We felt pretty devastated for a while but after treatment and care, from his amazing team of doctors, we got a more positive report from the scan in April and immediately planned a short adventure. We can’t wander too far because of more tests in July but it feels good being on the road again. We plan to meander through TN, NC, VA, West VA and KY. Our first stop is at Panther Creek State Park outside Morristown, TN. This is an amazing park with 17 hiking trails, 15 miles of mountain bike trails and a championship level disc golf course. Even if we only sit in our lawn chairs and admire the wildflowers while we are here, it’s nice being in a park with so much to ...