Why the Blog?

What is the object of this blog? Hmmm. Good question.

I suppose the purpose of this blog is to record and convey my experiences (a) living in rural North Georgia after living for 37 years in crowded Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast of Florida, (b) being retired after a busy and stressful career as a trial attorney and (c) investigating homesteading, country culture, and the old ways of doing things.

I’m not exactly Zsa Zsa Gabor on Green Acres or Billy Crystal in City Slickers, but by the same token, I’ve never truly lived in a rural area. For 37 years, up to September 2013, I lived and worked in one of the most densely populated counties the southeast. Then I retired and moved to Fannin County, Georgia. Fannin County is located in North Georgia on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. The population is about 24,000. The biggest town in the county, Blue Ridge, has about 1,700 residents. This is a place where the Super Walmart is the primary place to shop, where the nearest indoor movie theater is 20 miles up the road in another town and where discovering that a Red Box has been installed in front of the Mineral Bluff Family Dollar is grounds for major entertainment excitement. 

I have been accused of having a wry sense of humor and a different perspective on things. Hopefully I will bring these to the table as I write about my experiences going from a major urban area to Southern Appalachia-the land of Flatt and Scruggs, old time religion, and four wheel drive pickup trucks. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Things have changed in this neck of the woods from the days of true hillbillies and feuds, and I doubt I will see an albino kid sitting on a log cabin porch plucking the banjo.

I have been interested in self-sufficiency, gardening, and the skills that early Americans practiced in order to survive since I was a young man. I remember reading the Foxfire books when they first came out and wishing I could learn how to do the things that they did. I used to devour the old Mother Earth News magazines. I like looking through seed catalogs and dreaming of growing all types of vegetables and grains.

I am fascinated by history, particularly colonial American history, the westward migration, and Appalachian history. Investigating and learning the practical skills of these early Americans can only make this history more real for me.

This blog will not be a tutorial on how to live off the land. There are plenty of You Tube videos and internet sites that will show you how to make cheese, raise and slaughter chickens, and make a wood burning pizza oven. Since I don’t know how to do these things, I can’t teach others how to do them. But I can tell you about my experiences in trying to learn how to do some of these things. I suspect that many of us have toyed with the fantasy of moving back to the country, learning the old ways, and living a simpler life. It may turn out to be a true fantasy, rather than a practical reality. I don’t know, but I will find out. Maybe this blog will allow someone to experience the fantasy, or the disappointing reality, vicariously through my experiences.

Will anyone read this blog? I don’t know, but it would be nice if I developed a few followers. Otherwise this blog becomes an exercise in intellectual Onanism.

To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it will be. At least that is my hope.