Ron Hill’s life has been a timeline of service to country and community.

Like so many of my friends here in the mountains of North Carolina and North Georgia, I met Ron Hill when he attended a writing class I taught over a decade ago. We have kept in touch although we have not seen each other in all these years. 

Ron is a veteran of Korea, Viet Nam, and even Desert Storm. He has been given many honors for his service to our country. I want to honor him here today.

Ron Hill - SAR Magazine Fall 2021[9646].pdf

Ron is shown here after returning from serving during Desert Storm in 1991

Eighteen year old Ron Hill ready for action in Korea

Now in his eighties, Ron continues to work for the good of others. 

He has long been active in charities in his community. 

For my readers who live in western NC, Ron is originally from our area and held the position of Director of the John C. Campbell Folk School many years ago. I believe he said he was the first local person to hold that job. 

In the past 20-plus years, I have met some of the most interesting and genuine people through my writing classes. Ron is one of those people. When we write and share the fabric of our lives in a class with others who are doing the same thing, we form a bond that is almost like family. 

In a world where so many families and friends have developed a chasm due to political beliefs, I am grateful that the friends I have made in my classes don't let that happen. We don't talk about politics or religion in my classes.

Thank you, Ron Hill, for being my friend and for all you do for your community and what you have done for our country.

First Love

Where I spent two years as a college student

Do you remember your first love when you were young and not ready for a serious relationship? 

I was a college student at a girl's school. He was in a military school across town. We were together as much as possible for two years, walking on the beautiful campus, sitting under the giant oaks, and enjoying being with each other. That was love back then. But it was not to continue. I was going away to the university and he would be attending another military school as he planned to make the Army his career. I knew I didn't want to be a military wife. 

This poem is about our last date.

In Love Too Soon

Your aftershave still lingers on my skin,
the smell of bruised spring grass. Raindrops, 

like falling tears, track the glass that separates us.

I see you by the streetlight
as you walk away, your boots
careless of the puddles.

You stop, turn, look up. I glimpse
the anguish, the disbelief I etched
on your dear face.

You can only see a black hole 

in a red brick building filled

with other students like me.

I covet your embrace, your kiss,
but fear I’d not be strong enough
to send you away this time.

Our hearts meshed much too soon.
Love crept in while I was unprepared,
still trying to find the woman in the girl.

You grow smaller in the murky light.
Past the movie house where holding
hands on Saturday afternoons, we barely 

watched the screen.

Past Ray's diner where we first met,
where you gave me your captain's pin,

marked me yours for all the world to see.

I cannot turn my eyes away until, like
an apparition, you’re gone, vanished
into darkness and forever.

                --- Glenda Council Beall

 

 

Six Week Writing Course has Begun

I am happy to say I have an interesting class that started last Tuesday. 

With six adult students from California, Colorado, Wyoming, Asheville, NC and Winston Salem NC, I know this group will be a joy for me.

Once again, I am thankful for Zoom and the technology that allows those of us from differing states and towns, to come together and work together to help each other become the best writer each can be. I always learn from my students and that is why I enjoy my work.

This class is unlike my other classes because we only have one man in the group, and we have three people who are visually impaired. One of my students is Abbie Taylor whose blog I have followed for years. I admire her so much because her disability doesn't slow her down.

I have taught people who had visual issues in the past, but this is the first time I have had three students who could not see normally. The wonderful thing I am learning is how through new technology they don't miss a thing. Each of them is equipped with products that enable them to read what I put on my screen and they handle their computers with ease.

Writing has always been my favorite way to communicate, and now I can meet and talk with and share writing with people from far away places while I sit in my little cabin in the Appalachian mountains.

It is particularly important to me now because I can't travel and hold classes in different places like the local college campuses. My home is my classroom and my computer brings these writers into my house. For ten years I held classes in my downstairs studio where some of the best poets and writers came, taught, and slept overnight. Those are happy memories now. 

When I move to Roswell, GA I will be able to continue to hold my online classes. That is a comfort to me. 

In spite of all the stress lately, I am a very fortunate woman and I count my blessings every night.

I hope you have a good week. It will be too hot for me but I am grateful I have air conditioning. How did I ever stand it growing up in southwest Georgia with no AC? 

Poetry by Glenda

I am going to break my rule on posting poetry that has not been published. 

I would like for people to read my poetry and find something in it that is meaningful to them. If they read it on my blog or in a book, matters not to me.

This past week has been a hard one, and this poem says it all for me.

 A Place of New Beginnings

I wish there were some wonderful place 

we could go to begin anew, 

where all our grief and heartaches, 

could be dropped like a shabby old coat 

at the door, never to wear again.

In this place where all is fresh,
the sun would shine through gentle rain.

Snow would melt in our warm hands
before it could freeze a single rose.

In a land of new beginnings, only joy
would make us weep. No hurt, no pain
would scar our thinking capability.
We’d leave it all behind
like the wake of a ship on blue seas.

I wish there were a place like this
where mourning ceases to exist. I’d go
there, never leave. I’d breathe the pristine
atmosphere, feel healing flow through me,
shedding uncertainty like a chameleon sheds its skin.

                                                ---Glenda Council Beall

Writing Your Memories

Writing class at my studio a few years ago. We like small classes so we can all share our work.

Pass the word!

No matter where you live, you can attend my next writing class on Zoom. Online classes help us reach writers in distant areas who cannot attend in person. 

Beginning May 17 for six weeks I will teach a course on writing your life stories. The classes run weekly through June 21.

Because many work during the day, I am offering this class Tuesday evenings.  6 PM - 8 PM. Fee: $40

Writing Your Life Stories for Your Family or for Publication:

Our life stories are a precious legacy. Putting them in writing is a gift to all who know and love us—they can be treasured and enjoyed for generations to come. Facts bring us knowledge, but stories bring us wisdom.

If you are interested in writing family/personal life stories – those significant tales of adventure, transition, love, loss, and triumph, as well as the lovely everyday moments shared with loved ones from the past or the present, come learn specific tools and techniques to retrieve and record them. 

Your questions about writing your memories will be answered.

Students will write a short piece each week and receive feedback from their peers. Each student receives personal attention from Glenda. This class is structured for beginning and intermediate writers.

This is my story so far.

Geraniums, red or pink, are favorites for the deck

My cousin told me, years ago, that it is no fun having to take care of two houses. 

She lived in Florida and in the summer she and her husband came up to their cabin in Franklin, NC.

She said they spent most of their time cleaning and repairing things at the cabin. 

I will be going back to my home in the mountains very soon and I know there is much to do there. My ongoing downsizing project will keep me very busy, and getting help for the little things that need repair or replacing is always a challenge.

When we first moved to the mountains we still had our house in south Georgia. For almost two years trying to maintain that house and the big yard was overwhelming for me. We tried renting it and that turned into a real fiasco. We found the motor for the garbage compactor in the kitchen missing. We were shocked about that and never found out who or why that happened. My bicycle was stolen. I think because my house on the farm was fairly isolated and not easily seen, thieves found it ripe for picking.

At this time, I have some friends watching my house and checking on things, while I am away. My new neighbors said they would keep an eye on it, also. And when I leave this apartment in the city to go back home, I won't have to worry about it at all. My sister and BIL will take care of it. So having two homes will not be such a problem as it was in 1995.

I know people who come up to the mountains every summer and go back to Florida for the winter months. I think it would be easier if there were two people instead of just me making these trips. A friend who bought a cabin in the region of my house about the same time Barry and I moved in just sold her place. She is also alone and I think it probably became too much to care for. A house owns us, we don't own the house. The house demands we paint, repair, and keep things running. 

The husband of one of my cousins said, "We used to like to travel, but now it takes a U-Haul just to carry all our medications."

I thought that was funny at the time, but I am beginning to understand his comment.

City living is hard to get used to. I have learned the hard way that I should not get on the city streets after 3PM unless I want to wait in long, long lanes of traffic. And I don't try to make a left turn between 3 and 6:30 PM. I have had to make many right turns to get to a place to make a left turn. In Hayesville,  the only time I deal with much traffic is when the summer residents come. I will never complain about that traffic again. I might have to wait for two or three cars before I get on Hwy 64 to go east or west, but that is not a problem. 

I have enjoyed the restaurants in Roswell and the change of food choices from what I have at home. It is easy to order and pick up meals when I don't feel like cooking. Although Slopes Bar B Que is under new management now, I can still order a good vegetable plate to go. They cook southern like my mother did, not the new fancy-pants southern cuisine most Atlanta restaurants serve.

I really like my little kitchen so new and clean, but my Frigidaire refrigerator has not worked properly since it was installed. After calls and more calls, I had a repairman come out. He took the freezer door off and re-installed it, but I still have icicles hanging and frost on all that is in there. I guess I will start the phone calls again.

What I look forward to:

Thursday, April 28, Carroll Taylor will host Mountain Wordsmiths on Zoom at 10:30 AM. I will speak that day about my friends, Kathryn Stripling Byer and Nancy Simpson, both gone now, but I will read some of their poetry as we celebrate Poetry Month. 

We will have Open Mic and everyone who is attending is urged to read a poem, one of their original, or a poem they like by another poet.  I hope poetry lovers everywhere will join us. To receive the link for the meeting, contact Carroll S. Taylor, at vibiaperpetua@gmail.com  

I am also looking forward to seeing my friends in the mountains again. I miss them while here, even though I love being with my family members. I want to have a get-together with people I trust to have had their vaccinations and who are following the CDC guidelines. I still wear a mask when out in public and I will continue to wear one until CDC says I have nothing to fear. I had my second booster today.

In May I will teach another memoir class on Zoom. I have had a number of writers who want to take the course, so that will be enjoyable. I will post the dates and times in the coming weeks. 

July brings us to festival time in the mountains of North Carolina. In our little town of Hayesville, there is a huge festival held in the town square. NCWN-West, our writers in western NC and Georgia, will have a booth for two days where we will meet people from far and near. We will hand out brochures and fliers about our organization, about our local writers and hopefully sell some books. I enjoy meeting all the people who come by and chat with us. We also give away a number of books.

I have been invited to speak to the Kiwanis Club here in Roswell in September, so I will be back then. I look forward to meeting more folks here in the city where I will be spending time this winter. I am contemplating teaching writing at the local adult recreation center. I stopped by today and they don't have any writing classes on their schedule. 

The big event I will be attending soon is the 50th-anniversary party for Gay and Stu. It was originally scheduled for January but had to be postponed due to COVID. It will be fun to see so many of my family and Stu's family plus their friends. I think it will be a wonderful way to start the summer. 

Let's go forward with hope and joy, with friendships and plans to help others where we can. While we are faced every day with the horrors of war in Ukraine, we must be grateful that bombs are not falling in our country, and I hope everyone will support our president and our government as they do all possible to stop the killing over there. Those who support Russia are not true Americans. 

I hope you have things you look forward to in the coming months. If you want to share them, I would love to hear them here.

Poetry Month and my poetry here

I have decided to share more of my poetry on my blog. We always feel we must not share a poem online because then the poetry journals won't accept it. But, I have many that have already been published and I am happy for other eyes to see them.

So many of you emailed me about the poem, Stop the Trees from Growing, and how you related to it.

You might like this one, too. I wrote it about six years after Barry died.  Forgive the spacing. I know better but my computer is acting up tonight.

Shot into the Future, Clutching the Past

 Sometimes I forget the years before spiraling

darkness took its toll. Now aging wraps me in

silken threads, squeezes me into a box.


I forget until a whirlwind, half my age,

delves into my life. Her purpose, unclutter

my house, my life, set me free of the past.


I forget until she tells me 2005 was long ago.

It’s yesterday to me. She brands my computer

an antique, like me, I suppose.


Floppy disks? Does anybody still use them?

She tosses them in the trash. What can she know

of such things? I saved precious words on those disks.


I am saddened by the pain she has yet to face.

Her biggest loss so far – a breakup with her boyfriend.

Six years gone now, I kept his voice on the answering machine.

                        By Glenda Council Beall

Published:  - Main Street Rag,  Volume 21, Summer 2016 issue

Stop The Trees From Growing published by Your Daily Poem

Stop the Trees from Growing

by

Glenda Council Beall 

Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again,
But I came here today, to where Mother nurtured
my spirit and where Daddy kept the roof over my head;
where the fire warmed my bed at night when winter winds
howled ‘round the corners of the old frame house –
when this flat farm with ponds and pines was home.

The road that once the school bus traveled
taking me to spend the day
with someone who was not my mother,
looks like a highway to a place I’ve never been.

It’s not the buildings all torn down, the homes of friends
that now hold dreams of families I don’t know –
It is the trees.
Nothing stopped the trees from growing, growing ever taller,
till they dwarfed the house, the barn, the backyard –
now a tiny garden towered over by a lilac tree,
an oak, and one longleaf pine.

I traveled from what is and has been home for fifteen years,
to visit that which was but is not my home anymore.
Like you, Thomas Wolfe, I can’t go home again.
I can’t go home because that place I once called home is gone.

Forever gone, except in memories that linger like lazy chimney smoke
spiraling through my mind, thoughts that surge a yearning deep within
to hear the laughing voices, see the kindly eyes – stilled voices, loving eyes,
closed under sod upon a quiet hill.


This poem was published in 2019 by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer who is the owner of Your Daily Poem. 

She has published six of my poems and if you want to read the others, go to her website and look for my name.

You can subscribe and she will send you a poem every day in your Inbox.  Some poems are new and some are old. Her goal is to prove that all poetry is NOT dull or boring. She wants to bring poetry to the folks who don't think they like poetry.
Jayne does a great job, too.