Back in March 2012, I was still doing a lot of hiking on the trails at Paris Mountain State Park. Most days I would park my car in one of the parking areas near Lake Placid, close to the front gate. I would walk down the hill to the lake, look around a little, take a photo or two if I saw something interesting, then back up the hill and down toward the dam.
A few minutes later I would be at the other end of the lake, ready to head off into the woods, if that was my intended hike for the day. There are a lot of different trailheads at Paris Mountain, and so each day was a decision as to which one I might hike.
Read MoreWhen I was approaching 50 years of age, I had a bad chest cold. At that point, I had not been to a doctor in several years. I was 50 pounds overweight and in terrible physical condition. I felt so bad that I went to a doctor, scary as the thought of that was for me at the time. I had developed a fear of doctors (and medical staff, procedures, facilities) during my stay in Vietnam. When asking about my family history, my new doctor learned that both my father and his father died in their middle 50s of heart attacks. The doctor looked at me quite seriously and told me that history might well repeat itself, given my current condition.
Read Morebefore baby sister came along and spoiled everything
it was just me and mama and daddy around the supper table
mama would cook up some beans
daddy would work the cotton fields
don’t tell nobody
but I’d probably be out exploring the forest down behind the barn
Read MoreThere is a story about this place that I will not tell today, perhaps later. But if you knew that story you would wonder how I managed to sit so peacefully on this wooden bench on the dam for Pinnacle Lake, facing the majestic Table Rock Mountain. This photograph was taken in the spring of 2013. Many years ago, long before I had received therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, I experienced a day at Table Rock that held no peace for me.
Read MoreOver the past 20 years I have found a number of different places to hike and take photos, most of them in South Carolina. One of the last places I found was DuPont State Recreational Forest in North Carolina. I had heard of it for number of years but had never visited. It was a more than two-hour drive, a long way just to spend an hour or so in the woods, but the online information seemed interesting, and so on an early morning I set out in that direction.
Read More