Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  I have come to Gatlinburg with my husband to an optometric meeting.  I've been coming to such meetings with him for years, armed with a book to read and/or papers to grade.  The weather has turned cold and the traffic is unbelieveable, but we're here in the beautiful Smokies.  From inside the hotel on the mountain top, it's beautiful.

   We first came to Gatlinburg in the 1950s, when Bill was still a graduate student working on his dissertation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Just out of college, I was in my first year of teaching at Clinton, Tennessee.  That's a story I want to tell, but just now, I'm concerned about Gatlinburg.  It was a picturesque tourist town then, with lots of souvenires.  Cheap black bear statues, mostly.  We learned something weird about those later.  The supplier was Japan, all right, but northern Japan, where the black bear was sacred to local inhabitants.  We learned that from my cousin, whose husband was stationed in Japan in the 1960s.
      Gatlinburg now is anything but cheap.  But it has been eclipsed by Pigeon Forge and Dollywood.
      We're glad to be here in this beautiful place.

It's a beautiful fall day, and my husband and son are watching football on TV.  This is when I used to grade papers, spending my Sunday afternoons catching up.  But I'm retired now, and I'm trying to get used to that.  My son Karl rode his motorcycle from Durham, NC because he's on fall break.  When he was in college, he had a bike and we worried.  We worry now, too.  At least his son isn't into the Harley scene.  Even our other grandson has cooled off since he peeled skin with a minor accident.
        Last Monday, the Night Writer's Guild met at Books-a-Million and the crowd enjoyed a Halloween costume contest, as well as the open mic.  Todd Bailey was awesome dressed as a medieval knight, and Kayleigh was dressed as Alice.  Dorothy and Toto were there, too.  Rod Sterling read a scary story.
     My "scary" poems were about flying.  "When I First Learned to Fly" I was scared, more scared even than when we made a "Forced Landing."  But my husband and I were pilots for over thirty years and had some great adventures.  I've tried to write about some of these adventures, but mostly they came out flat.  I hope to get back to trying.
     But back to Monday night, Billy played, though not in costume.  (He would have come as Superman.)  And Nick didn't come as his poet either, but he read "An Angry Poem," delightful.  Miranda came as Amanda Cross, a character I'm not really familiar with.  Sophia Webb read three poems; "Stick People" was really nice.  Chelsie Martin read "Little Lego" about her nephew.  I don't know all these wonderful people yet, but I'm so pleased to be involved with these young people.  





     

First and foremost, I want to thank Todd Bailey for creating this website for me.  He's a poet in his own right, and a generous and kind person.  After reading "Flying Blind," he tells me he's a pilot too and appreciates all the detail in that poem.
      Monday night, the Night Writers are holding forth at Books-a-Million again--7:00, October 10.  Be there.
      But my greatest treat recently was a celebration at Roane State Community College on September 23.  It' been 40 years since RSCC opened its door in an elementary school in Harriman, Tennessee.  I was one of the "dirty dozen" who started there.  Keith McDaniel, who produced the "Clinton Twelve" and "Secret City," has done a celebration of this fortieth anniversary.   It premiered that Friday, and there were folks there I have seen in twenty years--Dr. and Mrs. Cuyler Dunbar were there, and Dr. Anne P. Minter, Dr. Harold Underwood, John Needham,  and Jim Kring.  There were six classrooms in that school.  The library was in the school cafeteria, and the science labs were in the school kitchen. 
     There were others who came later but carried on the tradition of excellence and caring--Becky Howard, Ann Powers, Bruce Fisher, Larry Bolden, Gary Heidinger.  In 1984 I went on the Southwest Field Trip with Bruce and Gary.  They laughed at my floppy hat, after all these years.
     Anne Minter was honored in the afternoon when a conference room was named for her.  Jim Brown had done a painting of the view from her office window.   It was good to be with old friends.
       Bye fo now, Nancy