You Can Never Go Home

...it's never the same. But sometimes there are good surprises. The Jamborree in Floyd, Virginia is bigger than ever. It looked to me like the Cracker Barrel, all renovated and much larger and nicer and newer with new "pressed-tin" ceilings. Thanks goodness they kept the old wooden floor that's seen so many dancers' taps. A lot of the old folks were there, too and lots of new ones. Banjoes and fiddles and guitars, stand-up bass, still played around town in every nook and cranny they could find.

So far, I've never lived anywhere longer than Blacksburg. It felt like home. This is the memorial to the students and teachers who lost their lives in April 2007, a stone and a holly bush for each.
View of Pearisburg from Angel's Rest on the Appalachian Trail.

The best surprise, besides seeing good friends so happy, was re-visiting Newport and Eggleston, two of the towns I documented ten years ago. Newport looks exactly the same. The old store in Eggleston, where I first met shopkeeper Gladys Dowdy, is open as a restaurant with live music and a great menu! After some recent years of vacancy after Gladys passed away, the 1926 building is beautiful as ever and the old cash register Gladys used is still there.