Thursday of last week I visited Lucille Southerlin and Paige Blanton in their home in Abingdon.  They cooked a delightful lunch of home grown vegetables, etc.  After Lucy’s husband, Sloan, died last year Paige and her husband, Gale, moved into Lucille’s basement apartment.  They are now building a house on nearby farm land that his family owns.  Paige recently became a grandmother for the first time when her daughter Bethany had a baby girl.  Their son, Adam, works in Roanoke and is planning a beach wedding this fall in Charleston, South Carolina.

From there, I went over to the Clintwood area to work on Mom’s house.  It needs a lot of work.  I am buying Harriette’s half of the house and am keeping it for now.  I’ll need to stop calling it Mom’s house, so I’ll just call it “The Ridge.”  The last time I was there, I cut back the big lilac bushes (really trees) that were above the roofline in front of the house.  This time I spent the afternoon chopping overgrown bushes by the road.  They were smothering each other.  I finished carrying the piles of limbs out of the yard just before a sudden hard rain came.  The next day, I was too tired to do anything but a few easy jobs inside.  Next time, I hope to tackle the wild jungle of forsythia bushes in that area.  See photo below.

On Friday I enjoyed lunch with Ramona Clay at the White Star Café in Clintwood. Don stayed home with a couple of their grandchildren who were visiting.  Yes, the White Star Café is still there.  I hadn’t been in there for years and was delighted that not much has changed from years ago.  It is under new management and has been cleaned up a bit and they have opened a banquet room downstairs.  Otherwise, it’s the same.

Later, I visited with John Stanley in his home.  He seems to be doing well and is busy with M&M Moving Company that he runs from his home.