How does one acquire it? Is honor a cloak that you can put on and take off at will?
I would say that honor is something that you build in your character over time beginning in childhood, much like putting on layers of clothes in the winter to stay warm. As the layers build upon your shoulders, you find yourself warm and comfortable and ready to face all the world throws at you.
Like the finely cut pattern of a patchwork quilt created with the love passed from generation to generation through the mountains of Northeast Georgia, the music of the Watkins Family is a culmination of many threads sown together note by note, song by song, and scripture by scripture, shared from mother to daughter and father to son.
Can you remember your first love? How your heart raced? How excited you were to see the other person?
I remember mine like it was yesterday. I fell off the monkey bars, which were actually the steel handrails that went along the steps outside the school. She came over and helped me up. After I brushed myself off, she pushed me back down again. It was love right then and there.
If you grew up sitting in Saturday matinees watching the cowboys riding across the screen to save the day, then you probably remember one of the most prolific of the female leads of western film.
Years ago I sat at a light table designing the album cover for an upcoming record release for two friends Josh and Wayne Crowe. Designing album covers was just another one of my many career facets that allowed me to come to know a lot of great performers by freelancing for their record companies.
What happens when you take 43 years singing and music experience and mix 20 of the most notable hymns of the church and some new material – you get the Marksmen Quartet’s latest CD “Blue Ridge Mountain Memories” from Rural Rhythm.
All the kinfolk are gatherin’ around the icicle-strewn Douglas fir tree shaking and rattlin’ trying to guess what is in the presents they are soon to open. I remember waking to the smell of bacon frying Christmas morning. As I rushed into the living room, the tree would sparkle with what seemed like a thousand stars. I just knew that I caught a glimpse of Santa as the jolly old elf was moving about the house the night before.
When one thinks of Broadway, no matter your age, there is one name that shines in the lights – Carol Channing.
The Lifetime Achievement Tony Award winner came to the Broadway stage in 1948 and made her mark with several roles including the one she played for 30 years – “Dolly Levi” in Jerry Herman’s “Hello, Dolly.”
Life is something that we should cherish with every passing breath. Often times we do not appreciate the simplest things like the feel of cool breeze on a hot summer day; the taste of a fresh glass of homemade lemonade so cold that the outside of the glass drips; the deep red color of a vine-ripened tomato as its thinly sliced for a tomato sandwich slightly smeared with JFG mayonnaise.
