Friends of a Long Year is a private mailing list bringing stories to your inbox like it's still 1995. It's written in the spirit of Mary Austin. It was originally called Place Without a Postcard, which does a better job of summarizing what I like to write about. Friends is delivered roughly twice a month.
Oconee County, Georgia, U.S. – Something called touch-a-truck that rolls through town, or just south of town at a place call Heritage Park, every year. It turns out to be pretty much what it sounds like: a place where kids can touch trucks — semi-trucks, fire engines, ambulances and more.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – I love storms, preferably summer storms with plenty of warm humid wind, lightning and the attendant thunder, but winter storms are nice too.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – It’s always struck me as strange that we have a separate word for walking in nature, hiking, as opposed to just walking. Is walking just too mundane?
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – The evolution of toys in my opinion starts with what is still the greatest of all toys -- the stick. After that, I suggest my friend Chris's handcrafted wooden toys.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Watching the sun rise, coffee on the stove, light in the world.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – New Year's cynics are boring. What they miss is that, sure, the only meaning in New Years is what you bring to the table, but that’s true of every day you exist on this planet. So bring something to the table damn it.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – There are no real blank parts of the map anymore, to misquote Conrad, but there sure are a lot of empty spaces left. We intend to see some of them in our new (to us anyway) 1969 Yellowstone travel trailer.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Every voyage has a night before. We tend to remember the excitement of the next morning, when our senses are on edge, hyper-aware and it's easy to be anchored in the now. But me, I like that night before. I like when you're still imagining what it might be like. Still trying to picture it all in your head, fit yourself into your own imagination.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Searching for what the Danes call Hygge in the sugar deliciousness that is Bourbon Bacon Bark. Because you rarely go wrong with alliteration.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Creamed corn doesn't lend itself to showy food photography, but then neither do most Thanksgiving dishes. Strange holiday that one.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Autumn in the South is never as spectacular as is in New England. The colors here are neither as intense nor as long lasting. But still, it is our autumn, our season, our reminder. And this is by far the most colorful year of leaves that we’ve seen in 15 years.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – When you're two years old everything in the world is new every day. Even things you saw yesterday look different, feel different, *are*, inexplicably, different today.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Loons, Maine, Memorial Park. *What that sound is?*
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Halloween with three owls, a Theremin-wielding ghost band and a zoo full of ghouls.
St. George Island, Florida, U.S. – Watching birds teaches you to see the world a bit differently. You're always alert to flittering movements in your peripheral vision. After a while you start to scan the tree line, the edges of the marsh, the place where the buildings meet the sky, the borderlands where movement begins. You quite literally see the world differently.
St. George Island, Florida, U.S. – The world of oystermen and local fishing industry is doomed. Even the people resisting the transition know they’re no longer fighting for their way of life, but avoid watching the death of everything they know.
St. George Island, Florida, U.S. – St. George is just off the Gulf Coast of northwest Florida and offers a seemingly endless amount of gorgeous white sand beaches.
Apalachicola, Florida, U.S. – If you know the name Apalachicola at all it’s likely because of its eponymous oysters.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – My grandparents left the home they lived in for 60 years today. I don't know how much of my life was spent in that house, probably well over a year if you added up all the holidays and family gatherings. And now I'm thousands of miles away and someone is clearing out the house.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – Cheap food, made fresh, in front of you. Served hot, wrapped in newspaper. Street food is the people's food, it removes the mystery of the kitchen, lays the process bare. It's also the staple diet of people around the world.
Los Angeles, California, U.S. – When we first came here, there was nothing. Downtown Los Angeles was an empty husk of a place fifteen years ago. Now it's reborn, alive and kicking. Yet there is something in the older buildings, something in the old walls, something lost in the bricks, something in the concrete, the marble. Something you don’t find anymore. Something we need to find again.
Athens, Georgia, U.S. – The world outside the house is blanketed in snow, a monochrome of white interrupted only by the dark, wet trunks of trees, the red brick of chimneys, the occasional green of shrubs poking through. The roads are unbroken expanses of smooth white, no one is out yet, no footprints track their way through the snowy sidewalk. The world outside is the same as it was last night, before the snow began, and yet, it feels totally different.
Charleston, South Carolina, U.S. – Charleston alphabetically. For example, Q is for quiet, Charleston has a lot of it. Just head down to the Battery area, walk through the park and starting walking down the side streets. Take one of the many alleys and walkways that weave between the massive, stately houses. Get lost. It doesn't take much to find a quiet place of your own.
Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado, U.S. – This is the only real way to see Dinosaur National Monument — you must journey down the river. There are two major rivers running through Dinosaur, the Yampa, which carves through Yampa Canyon, and the Green, which cuts through Lodore. Adventure Bound Rafting runs some of the best whitewater rafting trips in Colorado and I was lucky enough to go down the Green River with them, through the majestic Lodore Canyon.