A New and Little Bit Different Blog

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Hello good and faithful followers and readers of The Hillbilly Blogger. It has been quite some time since I have made a meanigful post here.

A lot has happened in my life since that time. I’ve had a lot of health issues, I lost my mom in January, I’ve been bustin’ my butt tryin’ to find a job that I can do from home, which I finally have done and a few other things that have been and still are goin’ on.

I’ve had a lot of time to do a lot of thinkin’ and make a few life changes since mom’s passing. I’ve had to re-think and re-purpose my life since then and it has not been, and still isn’t, an easy road to travel.

I start my job Monday, well actually it’s orientation week and I will only work for two hours a day the first week but it’s not gonna be bad because I’ve done a job like it before, I just have to learn their system.

Anyway, I’m gonna retire The Hillbilly Blogger offically. I’m not gonna take it down but I won’t be posting here anymore after this. I’ve kinda grown in my blogging world, branched out you might say into video and and podcasting as well as writing.

I’ve had a good run with THB, met a lot of good people and I’m hoping you’ll follow me over on my new and final blog, which will have all of the aforementioned methods of blogging all rolled into one neat little package. (And it’s not self hosted this time)

The link to the new blog is Whispers from the Holler, it will resemble THB in that I will be posting about growing up in the mountains, hills, and hollers of the Appalachian Mountains and in this little coal town I live in.

I’ve really just started it so there are only a few posts on there right now, I’m still settling in as it were, gettin’ things fixed up. I’m not in no big hurry and I will only be posting when something inspires me to do so. Something like a memory or a person I once knew or perhaps a place or places I frequented growing up.

Some stories you may have already read, or parts may be familiar to you if you’ve followed along with THB, mainly because some stories will be the same, just written differently and with a somewhat different perspective. As I said, a lot has happened since my last real post here.

And also like I mentioned, I would love to see all my friends and followers from here at THB over on Whispers from the Holler. If you liked the stories here, I’m pretty sure you’re gonna love the new one.

So check it out, follow along, spread the word and I hope to see a lot a familiar faces and names soon. If you choose not to just let me say that it has been a real priviledge knowing you, writing for you and sharing bits and parts of my life with you.

I will be following the your blogs from Whispers from the Holler from THB, so be on the look out for a new follower soon.

Again, thank you and I hope to see you soon!

Tim

Please Help

My Old Man

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My Old Man:

I first heard this song by Zac Brown last week when Home Free covered it and released their video. I really don’t listen to the radio all that much anymore, or much music for that matter. When I was younger, music was everything, I was always playing it.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about in this post.

I don’t know if I’m the only dad that ever feels this way or not, but sometimes I feel like I fall way short on being a good dad. I don’t feel like I did enough for my oldest and I don’t feel like I’m doing enough for my youngest. I don’t mean materialistically either. I’ve never been the kind of parent to base parental love on material things. No, I mean in much more meaningful ways.

Sometimes I feel as if I holler(ed) at them way too much, or I don’t/didn’t give them enough of my attention. Was/is the advice I provide(ed) good enough to help them through life and to make good decisions? Am/was I a good role model for them?

I listen to that song and wonder, was/am I that dad? Do my boys think of me that way? Or do they have more bad memories than good when they think of me?

Where our house is small and my youngest has to sleep with me still, sometimes I will lay and watch him sleep and wonder what he’s dreaming about, especially if we’ve had an especially rough day or evening. I will watch his eyes dart back and forth in dreams and wish I could peek inside to see if he was having good dreams or was dreaming about an argument we had or of me telling him no for the hundredth time.

When I don’t hear from my oldest for a long time, I wonder if he thinks about me, or if he talks to his little boy, my grandson about me. Does he tell him about his younger years growing up with me or do I cross his mind much at all?

Ya see, for the better part of my oldest sons younger years, I was a single parent and I’ve been a single parent for my youngest son since he was two and sometimes I can’t help but have these thoughts and wonders.

All I can do is hope that I did/am doing my best. I know for sure that I’m proud of my boys, I just hope that my boys are proud me too.

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Her Name Was Penny

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Today, as I was driving back from town, a drive I make very often as it is the only way to actually GET to town, or just about any where else from where I live, a memory bubbled to the surface of my crowded mind when I passed a certain dirt road leading into a small holler.

As I said, I pass this road every time I go to town, twice actually, going and returning, and I don’t know why this memory decided to make itself known today, but it got me to thinkin’.

Back in my high school days, like most boys my age, I was girl crazy, and like most boys, blondes got my attention first, in most cases. There were exceptions to this rule in my case, which concerned other body parts, but we won’t go into those for this post.

I had a best friend who also turned out to be my biggest rival for the attention of the female of our species, usually. Most of the time, it turned out that if one of us liked a girl, chances were good that the other one did too, even if we were totally unaware of it until it was too late.

Such was the case for a little blonde beauty that lived not too far from me, up that dirt road, into that little holler I told you about earlier.

Her name was Penny, and she had the most gorgeous, naturally wavy, long blonde hair I had ever seen … among , other, things of course.

Her face was beautiful, and to me, at the time, she had the features of an angel and I was completely in love. It’s just too bad she didn’t know it. I doubt it would have done any good anyhow, but never-the-less, there she was, the object of my dreams, and just like a dream, always just out of reach.

Sometimes I would get lucky enough to sit beside her on the bus ride home, we’d talk and laugh and such, but that’s as far as I was ever brave enough to take it. I would always feel sad when her stop came up and it was time for her to get off the bus.

I soon came to find out that my best friend also liked Penny, which, as usual, made me mad, but I didn’t say or do anything because I knew Penny would never want to “go with me”, that’s what we called dating back then.

I always took consolation she never “went with” him neither and I felt vindicated in knowing neither one of us was good enough for her.

I wonder where she is today? I wonder where a lot of the people I grew up with are now? Some still live close by, but the biggest majority of my childhood friends and schoolmates have long since moved on, some have passed on, others just moved to different states.

When I stop and think about the number of people I started out with in my “circle of life” and the ones that aren’t here anymore, well, it’s a sobering thought to say the least. It also takes me back to my first ever real kiss, sittin’ on a branch in a cherry tree.

The cherry tree is long since cut down, the girl that gave me that first kiss married with grand kids now and many many miles, memories, hardships, failures, happiness and victories under these feet on mine.

These mountains that surround me as I sit and type this post have seen much of my life, recorded it in their memories. If only they could talk, oh the stories they could tell.

They couldn’t tell you about a pretty blonde girl though, because she was just a fleeting part of my many dreams, and her name was Penny.

Uneasy Optimism For January 20, 2017