Pandora's Other Box

Ensconced at the northwest corner of North Carolina and much like an overexposed backbone, there lays the Blue Ridge Mountains … There are quasi mystical stories which have been handed down many generations in these(those?) parts. They are all about the people and the harsh but beautiful environment in which they lived and the way this lifestyle has shaped untold generations of hardy mountain men and women. Beautiful Blue...   On the one side there is the Tennessee land… the land of music and good ol’ Tennessee Bourbon Whiskey… Mr. J. Daniels’ legacy, I believe… On this side is North Carolina with the city of Asheville sitting at the junction corner, much like a guardian of the ways into this general domain… Then, to the north(East) of this corner, lays the sprawl which is West Virginia. This particular area is one of the last bastions, in many ways, of what life was for the mountain families of yore. Full of simplicity and hard work… all wrapped in a heavy shawl of s...

Sometimes having a dream is a good thing.  Sometimes, it becomes a nightmare.   There is one saying that is constantly heard from the very first time one arrives of the shores of this grand country.  And that is that we “all come here to live our dream”. I, along with many thousands of others, had a dream; I had a dream in which I saw my family together, in which those people with whom I had spent the first growing years of my life would all be able to see each other as always we did, to hold each other, to nurture each other, to be there in time of need. When we come to a new country, we are all affected by the drastic changes to our lives. From those who come here via first air class ticket to those who cross the Rio Grande inside the bed of a truck, or those desperate folk who cross the straits floating on an inner tube or even trying to accomplish the impossible feat of swimming it, we all hope to be able to look to the future and the possibility that perh...