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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Anna had an endoscopy today, and she was as good as gold, cooperating at every point with the medical people. The preliminary report was very good; it looks like we'll be able to manage her spitting up with diet and medications like Prevacid. We are just extremely thankful that the years of acid reflux apparently have not caused any complications for her. Tuesday, July 11, 2006 Erika watches the third base coach for guidance as her t-ball team crushes another rival in its quest for the 2006 Championship. Mom and Dad, however, are wishing they'd won the first game in the tournament. So while the Cubs are chewing up their competition, it is a longer, harder road in the losers' bracket.
Sunday, June 4, 2006 Mountains, strawberries, and friends made for a fun combination yesterday for our family. While Anna, left, makes short work of a handful of strawberries (follow the juices down her chin onto her jacket), Erika runs up the mountain for a few more to take back to her friend Victoria, where they happily sat munching the fresh berries in the late afternoon sun. We had a great time yesterday with the Moores (Kenneth, Tracey, and Mallie) and the Fowlers (John, Jennifer, Victoria, and John). What visit is complete without a trip to the highlands of the Roan?
Monday, May 29, 2006 We wanted to share a couple more Tommy (Thomas Graham) shots today.
The first photo is Tommy with his namesake, Tommy Oaks. Tommy Oaks is an evangelist and storyteller who preached at our church a month ago (April 30). I (Eric) personally had the life blessing of being a member of a campus ministry from 1979 to 1982, where Tommy was the campus minister. Tommy was a discipling minister (and phenominal preacher, teacher, and example) who really challenged us students to grow-up spiritually. Our baby Tommy is also named after evangelist Billy Graham, whose life and teaching have been deeply inspirational to Kassi. The second photo is from today. Tommy's uncle Scott dropped by today, en route from Limestone to Durham. You can tell how much little Tommy has grown in a month. Uncle Scott's a real pro at bottle feeding and burping! Tommy kept checking Scott out during the feeding. In other family news, about two weeks ago my mom, Kathy Job, underwent knee replacement surgery and has been in rehab for a week or so. She gets to come home tomorrow; we appreciate all those who have prayed for her recovery and ask that you continue to pray for her to be able to walk and manuever even better than before! Saturday, May 13, 2006
Now that preservation interests prevail, the festival is no longer held on the mountain. Instead, the festival has split into two separate events, held in two states, but always the on same weekend. The Tennessee event is held at the Roan Mountain State Park (near the town of Roan Mountain). This festival features fair food, crafts, and varieties of local music (June 17-18, 2006). Over in Bakersville, North Carolina, activities include a street fair, duck derby, car show, street dance, and the ongoing traditional beauty pageant (June 16-17, 2006). The two festivals are separated by only twenty miles on a drive over Roan Mountain on Tennessee 143/North Carolina 261. So, one can make a weekend visiting both festivals and the beautiful Roan Mountain itself. The unusual photo featured at right was taken by my grandfather in 1959. Aside from calling your attention to the contestants (many of whom still live and reside in our area today), I want to point out that the second line of ladies are standing on remains of the Cloudland Hotel that once stood on this spot. Today, there are no perceptible traces of the foundation. (For more about the Cloudland and other historical information about the Roan Highlands, I recommend Jennifer Bauer’s excellent Roan Mountain, A Passage of Time.) I’m also thrilled that this image, numbered among five thousand other Kodachromes in my grandpa Elmer Job’s collection, digitized remarkably well. During the next month, my sister Laura and parents, Gale and Kathy Job, plan to sort through Grandpa’s slides, and later in the year, we will begin a massive digitization project. Watch our web for exciting tidbits and surprises that may emerge from their work. Wednesday, April 26, 2006 For some of Dad's writings, we are scanning old family pictures to include with them. The first photo was dated 1939 and shows the whole family on the porch of 824 Lafayette in Columbus, Indiana. From left to right, they are Gale (my dad), Gertrude (Trudy), Alma, Elmer, Joanne, and Jim. Elmer (my grandpa) would have been about 43 at this time, close to my age now. (Click on any of the photos to enlarge them in your browser.)
Alma, Gale, and Elmer posed for the photo on the left (which suffers in quality due to motion blur by the photographer). This was taken back at the farm in Cloverdale, Indiana around 1927. The photo on the right is undated (estimated 1935). My grandmother, Gertrude Job, was examining the tallest hollyhock in their yard at 1110 Pennsylvania Street in Columbus. My aunt Alma stood below, smiling at the photographer. While this isn't the photograph, Dad says that a picture of Grandma and a story about the hollyhocks appeared in the local newspaper about this time. This was where my grandparents and their four children first moved during the Great Depression. Grandpa (Elmer) left his calling as a farmer and took a position at the U.S. Postal Service in Columbus. Eventually, he became the Superintendent of Mails. My grandparents never left Columbus and ultimately settled north of town next to Bakalar Air Force Base. In his retirement, Grandpa run a plant nursery in the back yard. Being at Grandpa and Grandma's was always exciting, and it's there that many of my fond memories begin. Aircraft would soar overhead; we'd play croquet around the roots of a sprawling tree in the backyard; the garage had a dark attic space we could explore; we'd frolic through (what seemed to be endless) rows of flowers, shrubs and trees in the nursery. The memories go on and on, and I don't know if my grandparents knew what a discovery place they had on their hands for inquisitive grandchildren. Sunday, March 26, 2006
We thought it was time to post our first entry in the Spring of 2006. Yesterday we had over six inches of snow fall, which managed to melt on some surfaces but lay heavily on others. It was pretty, and the girls enjoyed being out in it. Little Tommy marked his sixth week out in the world on Saturday. While it's been a bit of a struggle with his back-to-back colds, we're all relieved that he's feeling better and acting considerably more interested in the world. He's not talking or doing any of those other exciting baby things yet, but Kassi reminds me that the girls didn't either at six weeks. (I have dreams where he's already talking. Weird?) The top picture was a cute cuddling time shot of the three kids; above and left is yesterday's snow (which lingered into today as well); and at right, we have Tommy the thinker, pondering his future with two big sisters for siblings. I believe he is forming a strategy.
Visit Archive for Fall and Winter 2005-2006
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Here's
Tommy, talking to that baby in the mirror again! They've gotten to be good
friends, and they say things like "Hey!", "Ahgee", and "Gliggspooph" to each other.
We know it has been a couple months since we've posted; we're still living, but
we've been busy with T-Ball, Erika's 
Forty-seven years ago, my paternal grandparents attended the thirteenth annual Rhododendron Festival on Roan Mountain (which straddles the Tennessee and North Carolina boundary). Held on a grassy flank of the Roan, the festivities included local entertainment (music and clogging), a beauty pageant, food, and of course, breathtaking natural beauty at six thousand feet above sea level. Most striking were the festival’s namesake, the blooming Catawba Rhododendron (see images from
