The Champagne of Bottle Beer

August 27, 2019 / cigarman501 / 16 Comments

I can remember the best beer I ever drank…can you?

I have a love-hate kind of relationship with beer. Mentally I think, “I love beer,” in my best Brett Kavanaugh voice. Mentally I should think, “I love ‘good’ beer.” I’m not sure Justice Kavanaugh cares if it is good beer or not, just cold and in large quantities. I also understand ‘good’ beer is a subjective term and I might not know what a good beer is should it bite me on my ass. I’ve had many bad beers bite me on the ass too and any beer past three is a bad beer.

A video of a very young country “singer” triggered my thoughts. Thanks, so much for sending me that at five in the morning Leland. The young crooner was singing of “ice-cold root beer in long-necked bottles” and the thought of ice-cold beer took me down a pig trail to a hot summer on a loading dock or in my case an unloading dock. I was between year four and five of my teaching career and working summers to help make ends meet.

Ten-hour days, eight on Friday. Time and a half over forty unloading goods for a five and dime chain. Big boxy trailers that had made the long ocean voyage from China, offloaded on our left coast and stacked on flatbed railroad cars headed east. Off-loaded again in Greenville and hauled to me to be unloaded and broken down before being distributed all over the Southeast. I remember thinking of my Asian counterpart slaving away loading the trailer I was now unloading. He or she got the ball rolling as these goods would be loaded and unloaded at least one more time before they found their way to shelves near you.

I wondered why he had loaded so much dust and filth with the flimsy boxes I manhandled out the back of those trailers. Now I wonder what life-threatening timebombs are waiting to go off in my body from that filth and dust. Get back on the subject, please.

The subject was beer, the best beer I ever drank.

A six a.m. to four p.m. shift had ended and it was still hotter than forty kinds of hell. The day had been spent in an airless trailer pulling out corrugated boxes filled with who knows what and covered with who knows what. Every box I moved sent dust swirling in the airless trailer. Even on the dock, the mid-July sun and humidity was merciless, pounding me like a superheated hammer on the anvil that was my head.

Bone weary and headachy, I drug myself to my car. With no air conditioning, I dropped the top of the ’76 MG and headed home, fifteen miles away. I remember being dry as the Sahara and stopped at a country mercantile featuring peeling white paint and rusting Esso and ice-cold Pepsi signs. I could think of nothing better than an ice-cold Pepsi to relive the dryness in my parched head and made my way straight to the old waist-high blue cooler with Pepsi in red across a white field.

Opening it I found no Pepsis…or Coke. There were no soft drinks in this cooler. Instead, tall long-necked bottles of Miller High Life beckoned to me and I contemplated a change in beverage.

The woman behind the counter, a peroxide blond fireplug with too much makeup and carrying an extra fifty pounds in weight cautioned me, “That’s the coldest beer you’ll ever find as long as you keep the top closed. You’re lettin’ the cold out. You need to make up your mind.”

Sufficiently chastised, I made up my mind and was rewarded. As I removed a Champagne of Bottle Beer there was an audible crunch as the ice gave way. It was so cold it was stuck to the bottom of the cooler. Promptly I picked a second one and after paying the blond fireplug headed to my car.

Huge oak trees formed a canopy over a wide pull off and I decided to enjoy my heavenly elixir picnic style. I was rewarded with ice crystals in my first swallow…and the second. I drained that amber potation in seconds. I remember holding the still cold empty against my forehead, the condensation providing a cool bath.

After wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I twisted the top off the second and drained it almost as quickly. The beer went straight to my head and I was still a dozen miles from home.

I broke the law, but the law didn’t win. It was a different time and I was still young and stupid. This wouldn’t be the last time I drove impaired but maybe God does take care of drunks and fools. At this stage of my life, I was certainly equal parts of both.

It would be the last time I had a beer, two beers, so good. Believe me, I’ve searched high and low, and stopped at the little country mercantile enough times during the summer that remained to find out the blond fireplug was named Ramona. She was a nice lady with a boisterous laugh and a bawdy sense of humor.

Miller High Life, The Champagne of Bottle Beer. I do love a crisp pilsner so cold you have to snap it off the bottom of an ancient Pepsi cooler. I wonder…no…I’m sure it would be a wasted trip. I’m sure the general mercantile only exists in my mind…just like the best beer I ever had.

Further wanderings may be found at Don Miller’s author’s page by going to https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

King of Syrups, All Hail King

August 21, 2019 / cigarman501 / 3 Comments

I have a sweet tooth I must guard as tenaciously as we should be guarding our nuclear launch codes…not a good analogy because I slip up and let my guard down. While letting my sweet tooth guard down might equate to an increase of a pound or five on my bathroom scales, letting your guard down concerning the launch codes could equate to increases in radiation levels and nuclear ash swirling about. I’ve seen too many end of the world movies. This morning my end of the world scenario involves my sugar and fat cravings.

I awoke with a hankering. I flat out fancy something sweet. To avoid such scenarios, I have made my fridge and pantry a post-apocalyptic, barren wasteland of sweet treats. If not, I would be chin deep licking the container from a former half-gallon of Breyer’s Chocolate Chip Mint ice cream or reaching into the bottom of a bag of Hersey’s Dark Chocolate minis I had just opened.

Absolutely…No…Willpower. Twice I’ve walked over to the freezer to see if there was something sweet hiding behind those frozen Lean Cuisines. This is despite knowing, “There ain’t nothing there!” Wait…I wonder if Linda has something stashed in her purse…“F@#$ Me!”

My cravings have taken me down one of Alice’s rabbit holes. Instead of enjoying a cup of tea with the Mad Hatter I’m thinking about thick, lard infused, buttermilk biscuits, “runnin’” in butter, topped with King Brand Golden Syrup. Even those cravins’ are for naught. No lard, no freshly churned butter, and no King Syrup.

As I mentally toast the Mad Hatter’s similar insanity, I regale him with stories of peanut butter and Missouri cookies served by my grandmother. They too are favorites from my youth, but for some reason, this morning it’s biscuits and King Brand Golden Syrup.

Biscuits and honey, you say Mad Hatter? I would not turn it down…it’s just that in the memories of my youth it wasn’t honey, it was Golden Syrup…or maybe molasses…”Wait! I have molasses…a little toast drizzled in blackstrap molasses!” Nope! It ain’t what I want.

Growing up in a Southern rural area one might think I would crave honey…or sorghum. One would be wrong. I found sticky, sweet heaven in a large, red labeled metal can featuring a lion’s head and a pry-off lid. Made in Maryland, somehow the syrupy ambrosia found its way South to the shelves of Pettus’s Store. From there the contents had found their way onto the cathead biscuits my grandmother had made and placed before me. A dessert fit for a King…or made by a King…All Hail!

Some people don’t consider biscuits and sawmill gravy a meal. My guess…those same people would not consider butter covered biscuits drowning in a King Syrup a dessert. Their loss…and mine cuz I ain’t got none.

Well, Mad Hatter…I’ve no biscuits and no King Syrup. All I have are the memories of a small kitchen and the narrow dining area that went with it. The warm biscuits on a chipped china plate with freshly churned butter. and the red labeled tin waiting at the ready.

My heart is thankful for the memories and much “heart” healthier because the memories are all I have…until I get myself to a grocery store.

For further trips down a rabbit hole, Don Miller’s author’s page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Bookmarks From My Book of Life

August 17, 2019August 16, 2022 / cigarman501 / 12 Comments

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
― Bob Marley

I’ve sung, played, and danced badly all my life. Some of my earliest memories include the old upright in my grandmother’s hallway, my uncle’s mandolin, and the whiny bluegrass he sang…” Blue moon of Kentucky….” Singing, first in the youth choir at church, then in the adult choir, the high school chorus and playing in the concert band, the college band and a brief stint as a discordant sax playing rock star.

Participating in a men’s quartet singing “Just Have a Little Talk with Jesus,” my thin baritone joining in at the Fifth Sunday Night Sing. My Uncle James making a not so joyful noise unto the Lord, my cousins and I trapped in the cab of the old flatbed truck as we moved hay bales or corn to the songs he sang. I’ll say this, he sang praise tunes with great gusto and vigor, but if notes were water molecules, he couldn’t have found one while standing in the ocean. It didn’t stop him from trying.

I guess what I’m trying to say, on this fiftieth-third anniversary of Woodstock and the third anniversary of the death of Easy Rider’s Peter Fonda, music has played prominently in my life…if not a backdrop for my life, a bookmark. “Don Miller, A Rock Opera.”

Dancing in the privacy of my room to the songs played on WLS, Chicago. Beach Music at The Cellar as a young adult. A cute redhead, and Eddie Floyd singing “Knock on Wood” as I danced badly with her at a rural jook joint outside Newberry. We danced badly around the divorce later. Not all bookmarks lead to soothing anodynes. Some are like sleeping in a patch of prickly pear cactus.

Doing the horizontal rumba for the first time in the backseat of an old Ford while Lou Christy sang “Rhapsody in the Rain”. Humm. That earlier relationship didn’t end well either, but I don’t believe it had anything to do with the music.

The movie Easy Rider was a revelation and for me heralded a change…although it might have taken forty years for the change to occur. I’ve only recently embraced my hippie self. I was a rhythm and blues, beach music, soul music kind of guy…still am but sitting at a drive-in with the cute redhead who became ex-wife number one, I became mesmerized, not by the film but by the soundtrack. Later, I would add the complete Woodstock to my album collection…wonder what happened to those bookmarks, the albums not the ex-wife.

I walked today as I do every day, my playlist playing in my earbuds, just like every day. Today there was a little dance step to my walk as I thought about Peter Fonda. I decided to dial up my Easy Rider playlist that includes three different versions of “The Weight”. One can never get too much of a good song.

I think I scared a local woman smoking an early morning cigarette on her front porch as I belted out “Born to be Wild”. I flushed a pair of mourning doves, mourning my off keyed version of “A Little Help from My Friends” while doing my best Joe Cocker impersonation on the double lane. “Don’t Bogart that joint my friend….” Fun memories bookmarked in my mind.

Some of the bookmarks haunt me but even those trigger warm memories. Ghost stories of friends who are now gone. My coconspirators in crime the summers of ’68 and ’69 are both gone to the great cosmic rock concert that is the afterlife. I miss them as much as my lost youth of the same period.

I wrote about a haunted pink iPod in an earlier blog from a couple of years ago. A former love now dead gave me the Crosby, Stills and Nash album that featured the song “Southern Cross.” It’s a song about a long boat trip taken by a man trying to heal his wounds after a bad divorce…what is a good divorce?

We were both wounded, and the song spoke to us as we tried to console each other in ways men and women have been consoling each other for all recorded time, I guess. After she died, I put the song on my playlist and for some reason, no matter how many times I changed the playlists, the lament was always there…haunting me along with her.

“When you see the Southern Cross for the first time

You understand now why you came this way

‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small

But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day”

We were never truly in love, more like friends with benefits, but she is still one of the bookmarks that haunts me. The old iPod is long since been retired but she is a bookmark, like Easy Rider soundtrack or an old Gospel tune that triggers warm memories in my book of life.

“So I’m sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin’

And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain

I have my ship and all her flags are a-flyin’

She is all I have left and music is her name”

Music is her name and I call it often. For the complete song…

Quotes and video are from the song “Southern Cross” and the album Daylight Again by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

Don Miller writes badly about many subjects, both fictional and only somewhat embellished. For more, go to his author’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The featured image is of Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper. It is from a movie review https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/easy-rider-review-movie-1969-1221117

Dark Tempest

August 14, 2019 / cigarman501 / Leave a comment

Excerpt from alter ego Lena Christenson’s new romantic thriller, Dark Tempest. All tempests are not storms.

***

Belle was blind, trying to keep up with turns and the time between them by counting in her head. She feared it was a failed enterprise. It had been so easy on the television program she had seen.

They had been forced into a nondescript, white panel van before dawn broke. “Why do all abductors use white panel vans…if I were the police, I would ban them.” Hands ziplocked together in front, gagged and a cloth bag pulled over their heads, she had been unceremoniously dumped on her ass before having her feet roughly zip-tied by the gorilla named Teddy.

She felt changes in surfaces contacting the tires and tried not to think about what might await them at the end of their journey but couldn’t keep her fears at bay. “Damn I lost count.”

“Could this be my last day on earth?” Belle didn’t consider herself a religious person, a non-practicing Roman Catholic, but was spiritual, believing death was a pathway to something else. She didn’t fear death…just dying hard. Belle also knew that if things went from bad to worse, she would pray to Mother Mary to intercede on her behalf. She could never understand why a loving God would allow the evil these three animals brought with them to exist.

“If they think I’m going down without a fight….” Belle considered her options…there weren’t many. One woman with her hands tied against two armed men. Poor odds at best but they weren’t going to get better. “What about Phillipe’ and Erica?” She had little hope for their help and believed the only way to save herself was to act alone if necessary…and act decisively.

The van slowed causing her to slide on the uncovered metal floor. She noted the change in sound and heard the gravel as it was kicked up by the tires. After a jolting ten minutes, a right turn was followed by slushing sounds of wet dirt and the bouncing associated with washboard rutted dirt roads.

She was suddenly thrown forward as the van came to a sliding stop. A door opened and slammed; the side door rolled open.

“Be ready Belle. You’ll never know when a chance will present itself.”

An opening presented itself almost immediately. Violently pulled to the door, she felt her legs being released and immediately kicked out. There was a solid jolt and the sound of someone’s breath exploding from their lungs followed by a loud splash. Pulling the hood from her head she saw Teddy scrambling out of a blackwater canal. Jumping down from the van she ran. She didn’t know where she was going but there was a dirt road behind the van and that was where she was headed…until she ran headlong into the skinny man called Felix. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs giving Teddy time to recover.

Trying to untangle herself from Felix with hands tied in front of her was a fruitless effort. She felt wet fingers grabbing the back of her blouse and was pulled off the struggling man.

With swamp water cascading from his body, Teddy threw her on her back and straddled her. His eyes were sharp points and the automatic in his hand huge, “You bitch I’m going to put a bullet tween your eyes just so you can see it comin’.”

Belle screamed in his face, “Well do it before your breath kills me. Mouthwash, you freaks ever heard of it?”

Teddy slapped her hard across the mouth momentarily stunning her and bringing the coppery taste of blood. Pulling back her feet, the attempt at kicking him was batted away as if she was a gnat. Kneeling, Teddy grabbed the front of her blouse, ripping it to her waist.

Drawing back his fist to hit her again, Teddy felt a gun barrel behind his ear, “Get off her. We need her. I’m not going to tell you again. I’ll shoot you before I have to face Moïse because you got dumped in the water and killed her.”

***

Felix thought, “Just drop the hammer and end this thing. Call the cops, my boss, and set a trap for Moïse. Everyone saved and Moïse in the bag…the problem was there was no phone service,” Felix had just looked.

Removing the gun Felix said, “Get off of her and let’s get them inside.”

Pointing it at Belle he added, “No more of your tomfoolery girl. Teddy, get the other two and let’s get inside before some fool fisherman sees us.”

Teddy stood and brought his gun to bear on Felix, “If you ever point a gun at me you better pull the trigger.” Slowly he lowered the gun, “Now get them inside and this time make sure her hands are tied behind her back.”

***

Belle saw the sun was barely above the eastern horizon. “They had been on the road for an hour or so…maybe, who knew?” A warped, silver-gray boardwalk connected the landing to a stilted house twenty-five to thirty yards on an island in the channel. The house seemed to be equally ramshackle.

Pushing her between the shoulder blades Teddy snickered, “Pay attention, I’d hate for you to fall in. Gator feedin’ time ain’t till this evenin’.”

Dark Tempest may be purchased or downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07B6BDD19

Signs, Signs, Everywhere….

August 11, 2019 / cigarman501 / 12 Comments

I see signs, not those signs. I see and hear true believers espousing the nearness of the apocalypse; wars, and rumors of wars, national disasters, the anti-Christ, prayers for the rapture. Those are not the signs of which I speak…mainly because doomsayers have been warning us since the book of Revelations was written, I guess. The doomsaying is probably warranted but I have hope and believe humanity will come to its senses before we self-destruct. Regardless, the Earth will continue to make its trips around the Sun whether we are around to enjoy the change in seasons or not.

No, not those signs but signs of changes none-the-less. Here in the South, it is hotter than forty hells even in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Not the pressure cooker heat of the lower Southern states but plenty hot for me. The heat will continue for the foreseeable future if the weather gurus are to be believed.

Still, the signs of fall are upon me. Years ago, I promised I would never protest the heat due to a particularly cold baseball season and my depression which intensifies as the days shorten. This summer is taxing my promise, but I realized yesterday, the signs are everywhere. The days are shortening, and dark days of winter will be too soon be upon me.

First, there will be Autumn, maybe a whole two hours of it…but there will be Autumn.

Many years ago, I noted the change when football practice and school began. Since my retirement, I monitor the changes in more subtle ways. The writing spiders spinning their webs, vees of geese flying south, a pair of wood ducks I haven’t seen since spring, bees and butterflies working the remaining blooms as if their very lives depend on it…or upcoming generations lives. Damn the yellow jackets, the little bastards are working too.

My wild birds have returned to the feeders from the mid-summer break as they fed their young juicy bugs and worms instead of my sunflower seeds. New birds, small and quick, are flitting hither and yon. There seems to be a bumper crop of gold and purple finches. A new generation to enjoy our symbiotic relationship…my viewing enjoyment for their food. Despite the cost of sunflower seed, it seems to be a fair trade.

The turkeys are on the move too. Hens followed by Jakes and Jennies and even smaller poults are passing through my backyard. I didn’t see a Tom but there must be one somewhere…although I didn’t get much of a chance to see. Despite Mr. Carlson thoughts on WKRP, “Turkeys can fly”…at least wild ones.

I stepped outside last night to partake of one last puff on my cigar…the one I have been nursing all day. The air was filled with the smell of citronella from the torches I burn to keep the mosquitoes at bay. I watched the smoke dissipate into the freshening breeze…a breeze that seemed different than the humidity filled breezes from earlier in the day. There was a hint of fall in it, just an underlying current of cool. The best sign of all despite my wish not to wish my life away. Pumpkin pie and ripening persimmons are just around the corner.

If interested, more of Don Miller’s wanderings can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The image of geese at sunset is from https://blog.theclymb.com/tips/signs-autumn-northwest-enjoy/

All photographs were legally lifted from Pexels.com.

DONALD TRUMP RACIST? STILL NOT THE PROBLEM

August 6, 2019 / cigarman501 / 3 Comments

Normally I don’t reblog…maybe, but with the recent events if the past two weeks, I find myself reblogging it again.

Ravings of a Mad Southerner

I wrote this piece eight months ago, well before the events of yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia. I did update the post and believe my words rang true eight months ago and ring true today.

Countless people are pointing a finger, no not that finger…ok, maybe that finger…. Starting over, countless people are pointing out the racism seemingly enabled by President Donald Trump. Over a thousand documented examples of hate crimes have occurred since his election. Some people seem to believe somehow, this one man is responsible for it all. I also heard a similar argument regarding our previous executive, President Obama. “We are more racist now than ever” resounded through my social media accounts. Remember the old quote, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you?” I’m sure you do.

I believe both arguments are misplaced. I don’t know when the concepts of racism…

View original post 414 more words

Aging Gracelessly Redux….

August 3, 2019 / cigarman501 / 5 Comments

Oh, I’m feelin’ it this mornin’, the morning after my weekly visit with Hawk. Five miles on the Swamp Rabbit, solving all the world’s problems before enjoying an after-walk cup of coffee at the Tree House. That’s just in case it’s been a problematic week and we need more time to solve those problems. Lately, they’ve all been problematic, and no one listens to us anyway…well, they listen to us at the Tree House and that’s one of the reasons we keep going. They think we are the bee’s knees.

Yeah, I’m feelin’ it as in feeling old, very old.

I do about twenty-five miles of walking during the week hoping to put distance between myself and the ominous figure caring the old-fashioned scythe. Despite my best efforts, the distance between us is shortening. As Hawk continues to tell me, “We ain’t gettin’ out of this alive.” No, but I’m going out kicking and screaming…just like he is. I want to be a burden on my child and grandchildren for a long time.

Hawkday Friday is the only day of the week I set an alarm and it throws my whole system out of whack. Aging creates creatures of habit, I guess. I am so out of sorts waiting for the Big Ben to go off. “Did I remember to wind it?” Am I the only guy who must get up two hours ahead of time to make sure all systems “are a go?” Friday mornings my “systems” always send out messages. “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

I take my wife a cup of coffee at five-thirty because she is as crazy as I am and invariably, she mutters, “I don’t know why in the “firetruck” y’all can’t walk at a decent hour.” I don’t know either except that it is easier to deal with my own disfunction than Hawk’s. “And besides, you went to high school with him and learned similar dysfunctions.” He wants to walk at six to keep away from the sun and just because. I want to walk at seven-thirty to get into the sun and just because. Opposites do attract.

So, I’m up at three-thirty and feeling like a dead man. I had trouble falling asleep. Late at one end of the day, early at the other makes for a grumbly old guy. I could blame Hawk’s goofiness but to be honest, it’s just as much mine. “How long before the alarm goes off?”

Who lays awake worrying about lying awake? I do, that’s who. When my bladder drives me out of bed in the middle of the night I worry about when the alarm is going off. “Don’t look at your watch, you’ll only worry about going back to sleep. Don’t look I said. You’re a dumbass, you looked. Jeez, I gotta get up in an hour.” I might as well get up now, all I’m going to do is worry about having to get up. Jeez, forty-five minutes, thirty minutes, etc. and finally I fall back to sleep…thirty seconds before the alarm goes off.

I feel as though I have been beaten. My aging body has become an alien thing…as alien as Ripley’s Alien Queen and just as nasty at times. An ever-changing sack of tiny aches and pains, a “thousand little paper cuts” kind of agony. Nothing major, just my sagging bag of bones letting me know what I did yesterday, maybe the day before, maybe the hit I took in a football game fifty years ago.

Once I jumped out of bed in anticipation of the day to come, now I ease-out, one toe at a time, hoping I don’t pull something before my feet hit the floor.

Sagging bag of bones…. Did you know besides your hair and nails, your nose and ears are the only body parts that continue to grow as you age? I don’t mean stretch as in sag…that’s kind of funny looking. It would be funnier if it was someone else. Damn you gravity.

I mean body parts that actually continue to increase in size. God must have a twisted sense of humor. If I live long enough, I’m gonna look like a caricature of Ross Perot…according to the mirror, I already do. A truly loving God would have given me hope in another area and a reason to get rid of my big ole four by four.

Every morning I wake up as the dark-headed, dark bearded young man of forty years ago. I walk into the bathroom and yell in my head, “Don’t look in the mirror. Don’t do it! Boo, you looked.” The vision in my head is a mirage, replaced by the image in the harsh light of the mirror. An old guy with a bigger nose and ears than last night, with less hair and more wrinkles turning into crevasses.

Still, as Hawk and I discussed, we are better off than a lot of our peers. We’re still mobile, hostile, agile…and delusional. Youth is a state of mind and we are still in diapers…or are heading back to diapers? We still have a childlike wonder about the world. We still wonder what we are going to do when we grow up.

I’m a gluten for punishment and out of habit I walk again this morning. I walk alone with my earbuds until I meet a pretty blond runner, her long ponytail bouncing, blue eyes twinkling. For a moment I remember being thirty. As I continue my walk, we pass each other three more times.

Finally, I ask, “How far are you going today?”

A big smile followed, “I’m doing eleven.”

I shook my head and returned her smile, “I remember those days, long runs on Saturdays.”

“How far are you walking?”

“Near five.” She smiled, gave me a thumbs up and shouted “Great job” before continuing on her way.

My heart melted a bit and I thought, “You know your knees feel pretty good. Maybe a little running next week. Maybe if I’m careful I can do a marathon by the time I grow up.” I don’t know, I’m sure a nap will cure those thoughts.

For the clarification of those who don’t live in the area:

The Swamp Rabbit Trail is a fitness trail that runs from above Travelers Rest, SC through Greenville, SC. It was named after and follows the route of a short spur railway once called The Swamp Rabbit.

The Tree House is the Tree House Cafe and Studio, which sits next to the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Travelers Rest. Great coffee, sandwiches, great service, and great company.

Don Miller writes on various subjects, non-fictional and fictional, and can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM.

Lena Christenson, Don Miller’s feminine pen, has released a new book, Dark Tempest, a suspenseful romance with a hint of the erotic. Lena can found at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07B6BDD19

The image, Old Man Loves Smoking Cigars, is by Greg Cartmell and may be purchased at https://gregcartmell.com/product/old-man-loves-smoking-cigars/

	doesitevenmatter3 on It’s Alright Baby
	cigarman501 on It’s Alright Baby
	doesitevenmatter3 on It’s Alright Baby
	cigarman501 on It’s Alright Baby
	doesitevenmatter3 on It’s Alright Baby