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fred1st — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:53:33 CST

Welcome to the Home page for Goose Creek Press.
You can return here by entering goosecreekpress.com
or slowroadhome.com in your browser location bar.

My name is Fred First, and I'm happy that you've dropped by to learn more about Slow Road Home -- a Blue Ridge Book of Days, and NOW, to read about my new book (May 2009) What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader. Find here too info about the photo-note cards and other products and productions. You can follow the links below or in the left-hand sidebar (scroll down for more choices) to other destinations on this site. Please come back often and leave comments or email me! Visit Fragments from Floyd for daily musings from Floyd County, Virginia and find out where I'll be speaking.

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While I'm working on a make-over on this site, you might have come here for information about the NEW BOOK. There's a rudimentary page set up now, with changes happening at a good clip, so come back often! Go to Fred's New Book ~ May 2009.

For upcoming event locations, see the sidebar on Fred's blog.
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LIMITED TIME ONLY : Floyd and the Blue Ridge 2010 Calendar (Wordsprint Business Clients mailing made available for Fred to offer you! Includes 13 of Fred's Images 12"x9")
* Take a look
* Download the Order Form
* Submit soon to be assured your copies!

Purchase either book (or both!) by cash, check or credit card via PayPal
More information about Fred's Second book, What We Hold In Our Hands
Fred's Photographic Note Cards from Floyd County
Excerpts from Slow Road Home
What readers have said about Slow Road
Fred's Weblog, Fragments from Floyd
Fred's Photographic Galleries

Be sure and watch the sidebar (left margin) here as new pages and links are added! Scroll down the page for more! (Click the top of this page from any other page on the site to return here.)

I hope to add to this site regularly, so check back often. I'm happy to have comments, so don't be shy!

Audio and Selections from the Book

fred1st — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:45:38 CDT

This section will grow over time, once the book moving along before and after the actual printing.

Reading selections from
What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader

Floyd County Front Porch Spring: essay from the book with color image ~ scribd.com
Strange Farmer of Erewhon: an allegory with image ~ scribd.com

Listening selections from
What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader

Hawk Ballet

Sea Change

Pennyroyal

Beautiful Insects of Summer

Resolutions

Fred's Calendar of Events

fred1st — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:24:10 CDT

May 12 Floyd Women's Club "Our Place in the World: A Visual Essay" Floyd Presbyterian Church / members only

May 15 WVTF Public Radio Roanoke ~ Artist Open House 5 - 7 pm Public invited, light hors

May 16 8:00 a.m. Radio interview Va Tech Campus Radio WUVT with Peter French

June 13 Jessie Peterman Library / Floyd ~ Fred Reads from His Books / Signs and sells 2:00 pm

June 18 Bent Mt. Elementary School Library 7:00 pm Reading from the Slow Road Reader

June 20 11:00 until...Floyd Downtown Jubilee Main Street / Floyd Virginia booth

July 23 @ 7 pm Meadowbrook Library Summer Readers program ~ Fred will read from his books, speak about the hows and whys of writing nonfiction, and sign books for readers. (Shawsville VA on Rt. 460 at Allegheny Spring Road)

About the Title

fred1st — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:20:01 CDT

A Book By Its Cover: What's in the Title?

I was asked by a reader how and why I chose the name What We Hold In Our Hands as the title for this book. I was happy for the question because it made me remember or realize the answers.

The most immediate answer is that the current book contains an earlier book that never happened and it would have had a similar name.

That earlier book concept which never passed draft stage would have been full color and targeted toward a readership of potential “nature guides”--the guides in this case not being a small field book of illustrative pictures but the parents or grandparents, teachers or guardians of children. The book was first tentatively titled “Bridging the Nature Gap” and had the picture of my grand daughter Abby crossing the icy board bridge with her arms outstretched in a balancing act. That image remains in What We Hold to illustrate the piece about allowing our children to face risks in the outdoors. It is called “Early Physics.”

The second name considered for that earlier almost-book and the title I would have used had it gone to print was “What They Hold in Their Hands.” The cover would have been a montage of four things held in my grand daughter’s hands--a box turtle, mushroom, millipede and newt. As I said, that book would have hoped to address the matter of “nature deficit disorder” including some natural history pieces as well, such as the “Ghost That Lives on Trees” piece, now in What We Hold.

So, when for various reasons I did not proceed to complete and publish the earlier book, I incorporated its subject matter and broadened its name into the current title, and I am happy to have done so. This book that was delivered to Goose Creek on May 6, 2009, contains the message about our children’s denatured plight and some thoughts about how to reverse those problems. But the reach of the book in hand is wider than that, extending to grownup matters of stewardship, belonging to place and personal ecology.

In another perspective of the language of the title, I like it because it speaks of things tactile and near, intentional and personal.

I will never forget from physical therapy anatomy dissection how it was the hand, of all the features of the human body we worked on, that gave me shudders. THAT hand and wrist, that thumb, those fingertips had once been this deceased person’s most intimate contact with the world--not only an organ of perception but one of possession and control, of affection and force, of creative energy and interaction with thousands of other hands over a lifetime.

To hold is not a verb to be taken lightly. We of all the world’s creatures are specialized to grasp and manipulate with the dexterity it takes to play the violin, cut a diamond, pluck a wildflower--abilities that we owe to the anatomical miracle of the human hand.

Our grasp can be an aggressive and selfish holding fast or the gentlest and most generous affection and protection. Our grip has built civilizations. Too, there are things we chose to hold briefly and release when we realize they might do us or our children harm. What we hold is the antithesis of those things we have or should have let go of.

The holding spoken of in the title of this book is by and large of those good and true things within our own homes, just beyond our doors, out in our communities and in our global neighborhood that are dear and precious and often missed. In that sense, this book is a field guide, a most familiar and cherished form of teaching with which I am comfortable.

Photographic Note Cards

fred1st — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:21:35 CDT

QUESTION: IF there were a 5th set, what kind of image (landscape, seasons, old barns, nature, specific places in SW VA, etc)... would you like them to focus on? My thots: to create a new set from the images in What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader.

There are now FOUR SETS available: Blue Ridge Back Roads, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blue Ridge Autumn and added October 2008, Glimpses of Floyd Volume One. See a short graphic display of all sets (but featuring the new set) at this link.

Cards are 4.25 x 6.5 inches, with image edge to edge on the front, a brief description of the image and contact information on the back. They are blank inside the fold for your greetings and messages to those with whom you want to share the landscapes of the southern mountains. Each set includes five envelopes.

You can order by check or cash (sorry, no PayPal for these cards yet) by downloading and printing the form on this page to send with your order.

Fred's New Book May 2009

fred1st — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:14:57 CDT

I'm very pleased to tell you that a second book is joining Slow Road Home in May of 2009. What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader extends the hyperlocal folk-writing from the last part of the first book. The new book, also a "reader" consisting of almost 100 short pieces, moves from the local and personal to the regional and global and back again in ten "chapters." The second book also has more than 50 black and white images.

Order books and pay by PayPal (credit card) cash or check
What's the new book about?
Press Release for the New Book
Front Cover of the Book
Table of contents with brief descriptor of each piece. New!
Back Cover Text and Author's Note from the Book
Preface from What We Hold in Our Hands
SmugMug Gallery of Images from the Book(s)
Audio and Selections from the Book
Words About the Book: Reader's Reviews &tc
Calendar of book-related events

Please order directly from me using the first link above. Sales initially will be direct until I reach break-even. Later, I'll get the book into a form where it can be purchased via Amazon. Miles to go...

Locally find my books and note cards at The Floyd Country Store and Bells Gallery, both near the light in downtown Floyd, VA.

How to Order Slow Road Home

fred1st — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:53:04 CDT

You can order a single book and pay by PayPal or print the order form and pay with check or cash. Click here.

I'll send your book to you by USPS media mail within 48 hours of receiving your order. PayPal orders come to me as soon as you make the purchase. I'll ship orders by mail with cash or check payment within 48 hours of receipt.

Current orders filled with the second edition of Slow Road Home which has a Table of Contents to the 100+ vignettes, stories and celebrations of country living.
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You can purchase a book off the shelf:

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: Chateau Morrisette Winery; Poor Farmer's Country Store (Meadows of Dan); and at Mabry Mill, Doughton Park and Crabtree Meadows on the Blue Ridge Parkway (both books!)

FLOYD: * Bell's Studio; * Floyd Country Store; Jacksonville Center; Cafe del Sol; Slaughters Grocery; Notebooks Note Cards also available at these locations

ROANOKE:

BLACKSBURG:

PULASKI: CoffeeBuyTheBook

Author's Note and Back Cover Blurb

fred1st — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:57:03 CDT

Back Cover Text

In this bigger, faster, throw-away world, Fred First focuses his writer’s lens on the smaller, slower, more permanent riches that are attainable and of which we so much need reminding in our lifetimes on the far side of the Hurry Decades.

From his vantage point in the rural Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, the author elevates the simple, ordinary and local in a way that will bring a smile, a raised eyebrow, or nod of afﬁrmation.

With the heart and eye of a reverential naturalist and the voice of a lover of landscape and language, the author gently and with good humor directs our vision back for a closer look at the where and when of our lives.

By sharing his story, he guides us to celebrate in our own stories the many small blessings
we hold in our hands.

Author's Note

You will find a few moments of pleasant reading in this book, I trust. More than this, it is my hope that as you look out with me at my world through my eyes, you will come to know the "Ah, Aha, and Haha" realities in your own life (read on!) and that this kind of knowing will enhance the understanding, feeling and caring for your own environment.

It's a risky business exposing one's thoughts, fears, memories and hopes to strangers. But I'm convinced that from this kind of unselfconscious hyper-local personal story-telling, you'll discover that you and I are not all that different. In the end, there's no them and us; there's only us. We can and must grow together in our families and communities, building upon each other's humor and courage, wisdom and strength of character--now more than ever before.

Preface to What We Hold

fred1st — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:53:28 CDT

Preface to What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader

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The 4 a.m. excursion that has brought home ninety-plus personal essays (and other such writings) is an habitual armchair scavenger hunt, an archeological dig or American cultural anthropology field trip powered by curiosity.

It may seem an odd passion to set out daily and so early, even on weekends. But it is my writer’s way of sampling the currents of the times, mine and ours.

Sorting these pieces, finding a pattern in the apparent randomness and chaos of everyday living has become a centering exercise that moves me a little closer to an understanding of what it is that you and I together hold in our hands.

These stories and essays range as widely as do daily experience and the winds of my whimsy, worry and wonder. The collection is richly hyper-local, with accounts of living the rural life in the near habitat of home, a small dot on the map that is a microcosm of the Blue Ridge and the southern Appalachian realms.

There are personal stories here, even some from and about our children, and this time around, including more than a few on the action verb, aging, that I am coming to know better in the three years since the first book.

Here too, I share concerns as naturalist for the survival challenges faced by the smallest of our fellow companions that are important harbingers of our planet’s health.

We hold in our hands our unique stories past and present, our values and beliefs, our hopes from common culture and experience and out of the same soil, water and air. We hold the fate of our children’s world and future.

This book of personal essays is a single grain of sand from a low, green mountain of human experience. It is a peculiar narrative of particular moments and dramas in one life, one family and one pleasantly-rural county and home place.

Throughout this eclectic assortment resonates a joy for living. These pages hold the subliminal hope that all of us will revisit with gratitude the shared blessings in our grasp--our here, our now, our known riches of the senses, of memory, of duty and relationship together in a common human family and story.

About the Writing and the Writer

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This collection has been growing for a couple of years in my archives, one blog post, one slow-walk AHA moment (you’ll hear more about this), one news column or radio essay at a time, cell by organ by limb, migrating finally to a comfortable place in the whole of it all.

You’ll find some family resemblance between this book and the first, Slow Road Home. Both are compilations of “folk writing” as a blog reader long ago described my style and subject matter. The topic material of both is wide-ranging, even more so in this volume.

Slow Road Reader is a sampler of very different flavors and textures, but the sum of them is also united by a sense of life-long curiosity and humor or sometimes concern, often about very local matters but with wider and more global truths embedded.

You can open this book anywhere, read a passage at random, and have a story without feeling an urgent need to read further to get to the conclusion or resolution. At the same time, you’ll find some continuity and theme throughout and between the books. The siblings have the same father, and so share a common ancestry, traits and voice because he has these particular field markings as follows.

Father and grandfather: Find here not a few stories that feature our granddaughter Abby. There’s a Father’s Day poem from our son, Nate, and one I wrote to his big sister Holli just before she brought Abby into our lives. And of course there are more than a few that bring in the spousal unit, the hero of Bonny and Clyde and the Killing Fields of Goose Creek. But I’m still paying for Solomon’s Sheets in Slow Road Home, so I’ve tried to be good this time.

Naturalist and teacher: This book, like the first, has nature as its most common theme across all eight categories (read on for that explanation)--a given considering my forty-year history as a biology-watcher and classroom teacher. One way or another, you the reader will be challenged to become an active participant in your particular landscape and to act on the living planet’s behalf. There are facts and factoids embedded here and there throughout, and you just might discover some useful (or useless) truth that you didn’t know about a common plant or animal in your own back yard.

Believer: ... in the power of humor and personal vision and voice to tell a story best. If you squint your eyes just a little, you’ll find me peeking out of every one of these pieces. If you were a fly on the wall watching as I wrote them, you’d see the energy and joy of a story well told (at least as well as I am able to do it) and perhaps become infected with a sense of the thrill of discovery that permeates my morning writing. You may also detect a certain Gary Larsenesque quirkiness to the way I understand the natural world, taking enormous delight in the small beauties and ironies of the ordinary. As an older writer this time around, the topic of aging and the passing of time finds its way here, especially in those passages that deal with the physical demands of rural living.

Citizen/participant: ... of a household, neighborhood, county, region, nation and globe. Almost all of this book is hyper-local in that its parts were written in my slippers for immediate consumption of local readers and listeners. I do make references often to the town or county of Floyd in southwest Virginia and I’ve not stripped dates from all these pieces, so they are set in time, but the subjects will not become soon dated. Taken as a whole, when you finish digesting all 90-plus morsels herein, you’ll have discovered ways that my story is your story. My hopes and concerns belong in some way to all of us for all our short durations here.

Photographer: I know a lot of folks were expecting more pictures in the first book. I’d love to have color in this one, but couldn’t figure out how to do that economically. But I just had to have more pictures this time around since so often, especially on the blog, I write from an image. I trust these small black and whites add something to your experience of the story, and if you’re interested in larger-with-color versions, hop over to the Slow Road Reader gallery at SmugMug. (More images added soon!)

Finally, regarding organization: Yes, there is some. I tagged these disparate pieces into eight categories for the purpose of my own sorting-out. You can find my category “tags” below the name of each piece, and read my descriptions of them in the Appendix of the book. The ten parts of the book pass through selections from all or most of these topic categories so that there is some roughly common structure within the diversity of them each part.

Table of Contents PLUS

fred1st — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:14:43 CDT

Turns out it looks better on Scribd,
so go there to take a look.

What's the book about

fred1st — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:12:48 CDT

CLICK HERE TO ORDER BY
CASH, CHECK or PAYPAL

What Readers Say

fred1st — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:55:52 CDT

... about Slow Road Home

Reviews and Interviews

New River Valley Voice / John Leonard / Nov 2007
Amazon book page -- reviews (4 reviews, last added July 2007 and additional reviews welcomed!)
Washington Post Sunday Travel Section | Road Reads May 20, 2007

Gene Hyde reviews Slow Road Home in Winter 2007 edition of Appalachian Voice

Wilma Snyder of Wytheville reviews Slow Road in her AboutBooks radio program, January 11, 2007.

Poet Dana Wildsmith settles in at Christmas to read Slow Road Home. Read her kind words at the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative website.

Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation Online Store/ Press Release December 2006

Middlewesterner Poet and Author Tom Montag offers and appreciation of Slow Road Home, valued because Tom has followed my journey from early on, and because he has such a rich sense of his own place. November 2006

Prime Living Magazine / October 2006 Cover Photo and interview feature

Interview, June 25, 2006 (Adobe pdf download 330k)

May 2006 Bloggers on Blogging interview with Rebecca Blood, author of the Blogger's Handbook

Blue Ridge Gazette interview and bookreview ~ by Leslie Shelor online April 24, 2006

Listen to Fred's interview for Studio Virginia on WVTF, broadcast on June 15, 2006. PartOne and PartTwo

Mary Ann Johnson of Roanoke Times Book Note June 11, 2006

From Meredith Sue Willis' Books For Readers

Fred First, biologist and naturalist, has collected the best of his newspaper column and blog about his life on a small property in Floyd County, Virginia. He and his wife chose this property in this location after much thought, and his life in these southwestern Virginia mountains is a conscious, indeed ideological choice– that is to say, he is attempting to live in a way that is exemplary and instructive to others. He believes that it is a good thing to garden in the summer and a good thing to chop wood and tend the wood stove in the winter. In particular, he believes that a meditative observation of nature is a good thing, and some of his paragraphs of description are as powerful as any I’ve ever read about nature. Readmore...

Jack Higgs, editor of Appalachia Inside Out, Volumes I and II

Much in little: this is modus operandi of Fred First. Like Emily Dickinson, he notices “smallest things,” things overlooked before, finds them italicized as it were, and makes them part of his memory, his diary, and now this book, vibrant with the rich sense of living things on the pages within it. Everything he sees is connected, barely visible and maybe even invisible, but clearly a part of the web of being running trough space and time. (Read all of Jacks Review.)

Jim Minick, author of Finding a Clear Path

Socrates calls us to live an examined life and Fred First heeds this call. Through these fragments from Floyd, he mends together the bits and pieces of his days to create a wholeness of a life and a book.

Thomas Gardner / Virginia Tech Author of A Door Ajar

Fred First's Slow Road Home, like Thoreau's Walden, is an experiment in living deliberately and facing the essential facts of life. Morning after morning, First opens his eyes and remembers, using words and a naturalist's love of details to coax pattern and parable, tragedy and transcendence, out of his Floyd County meadow and creeks. His paragraphs trace the drama of the ordinary—an ordinary so rich and strange that we realize we've never been truly awake before.

Margaret Mc Ghee / Floyd, Virginia

Many folks dream of stepping off of the fast track on to a slower road. A few actually do it. The Slow Road Home, a chronicle of one person’s transition from faster to slower living, offers wonderfully written insight and honesty about the journey. As I stumble through my own transition, I find Fred’s observations to be both validating and encouraging. But there’s more! Fred is, among other things, a naturalist, a photographer, and an observer. Readers will find excerpts that make them smile, segments that are thought provoking, and observations that resonate with their own suspicions that intent is a quality to be cultivated.

Anne Downing / Baker, Louisiana

Taking the slow road home can bring a peace that settles our minds, will lift our spirits, morph our attitude into one of joy unspeakable, and prepare us for the comforting nest of home. Let the cares and busyness and uproar of the world drift away, as you experience this author's SLOW ROAD HOME. Journey with him as he pauses to observe, celebrate, and ruminate on the simplicity as well as the complexity of life in nature's backyard.

Jan P / London, UK

Both down-to-earth and heartwarming, the Slow Road Home is just one of those books that enrich your experience as a reader. Each entry is a walk out into the countryside with the author, sometimes accompanied by his wife, Ann, and their dog. He's a good companion, using his knowledge as a naturalist, his eye for a picture, and his decidedly poetic voice to point out all the small things one might otherwise miss, while spinning a yarn that captivates the imagination. But this isn't just a book of confectioner's treats: Fred doesn't spare us the harsher realities of Nature and paints a broad and honest canvas with the darker hues of life, but uses them with great effect to highlight life's wonderful moments, leaving the reader satisfied, a little wiser, and with the realization that—although it's never easy--our goals are worth striving for and that one day, too, we could find ourselves content just 'coming home'.

Leslie Shelor, editor, Blue Ridge Gazette

"I'm a person that devours books, reading cover to cover in a rush to absorb words and meaning and experience. But this lovely book stopped me cold sentence after sentence. It's a book to pick up and savor, then put down to think about the phrases and meanings. I'll be reading this memoir for years. It speaks of a man's personal journey, and it speaks to my personal journey. I am in awe."

Weblogs or Websites Featuring Slow Road Home

Robert at RobertPaterson'sWeblog

Gary at NorthCarolinaMountainDreams

Dave at Here,ThereandBack

Lisa at GroggyFroggy

David at Ripples

Doug at BlueRidgeMuse

Lorianne at HoardedOrdinaries

Reno Bailey's Book Page at Remembering Cliffside

Chas at Dustbury

Fletch at NoDirectionHome

Clarence at CanYouHearMeNow?**

Author's page at BookWebWarehouse

Go back to the Front Page

Floyd Press Invite Vendors

fred1st — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:20:20 CST

Please take a look at this draft of a Floyd Press announcement that needs to go to press NEXT THURSDAY, deadline first thing Monday morning at the lastest. Please join this website or email me at fred1st at gmail with suggested changes. -- Fred

Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has been an annual opportunity for civic and church groups, schools and universities, municipalities and national organizations to take a fresh look at how we might work more effectively towards a healthier planet.

Come celebrate our place in the world with a focus on the topic: Water and Life in Floyd County.

The April 19 event will be free and open to the public. (Official Earth Day is always April 22, a date the original founders mistook for John Muir's birthday--on April 21, actually.)

Speakers, panelists, vendors of water and nature-care-related products as well as water, soils and geology professionals be present. They will meet with interested county residents who want to learn how to help maintain both adequate quantity and quality of water in the county.

Beginning at 10:00 a.m., four morning presentations in the auditorium will offer perspectives on water, sustainability and earth-care issues in Floyd County and the region.

Ongoing demonstrations and displays will be offered by Floyd County high school students as well as by area agencies, organizations and enterprises. Food and snacks will be available provided by local vendors.

A panel discussion in the early afternoon will look at ways to "take home" better water and soil management practices and apply them locally now--the best way to start having a long-term earth-impact for the years ahead.

Details of event times, locations and topics will be made known in coming weeks in the Floyd Press.

Your participation is invited. Plenty of space is available at the high school for vendors of water and earth-care products and services, earth-related arts and crafts, food services and relevant stewardship and conservation information. Help is always welcomed in any way you might volunteer for the day.

If you are interested in being involved in this effort sponsored by the Partnership for Floyd, please contact ??? (Jack?) as soon as possible. And put April 19 on your calendar today!

...back to Floyd Earth Day page

Slow Road Audio Clips

fred1st — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:30:57 CST

Pardon my dust. This page was initially cobbled together in a rush. I'll come back and tidy up soon.

Here are a couple of essays, songsand stories from yours truly--for what it's worth.

Hush My Babe / A Christmas Song...sung by Fred

These readings from the book are "as is" from the studio recordings at WVTF, Roanoke's NPR station. These were recorded for the Radio Readers program for the visually impaired, and the files kindly shared with me by the studio staff.

I'm in the process of parsing the seven larger mp3 files into roughly 10 minute segments, and below are the first several installments. I'm considering editing in some musical bullets to fade in and fade out each vignette, and possibly to add some ambient sounds from Goose Creek.

I'll be very pleased to hear your comments, suggestions and ideas for how and where these sound files might find a further life. Email me -- fred1st over on gmail.

Slow Road Home: Review, NRV Voice, Nov 07

fred1st — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:04:16 CST

Slow Road Home Fred First Goose Creek Press 2007

In his mid-fifties, Fred First decided to give up his career to fully explore the small valley in which he lives and take an honest look at himself and the natural world around him. Slow Road Home captures, in autobiographical and lyrical prose, the feel and essence of First's adjustment to life outside of the rat race and into his back-to-nature life on Goose Creek in Floyd County.

Though the book is not exactly chronologically arranged, in many of the early passages, one can feel the weight of the civilized world falling off him, and yet, at the same time, get a sense of his uncertainty of what to do with himself in the new world of "free time" and nature he has plunged into.

Once that weight falls, the book becomes primarily a celebration of the joy and beauty of simple things - the companionship of a good dog, the thrill of watching a raven ride the wind, the silent tranquility of snow, the satisfaction of a hard day's labor.

The book is not all goodness and light - life can be harsh and First does not shy away from those topics, either - but throughout the book, he consistently uses honest, evocative language to describe his landscapes, both physical and emotional, internal and external. There are also moments in which he reveals his obvious love of playing with language: he describes a surprise mid-winter warm streak as "a teaser, a complimentary packet of pretzels on the agonizingly long flight into spring" and of the working world he says, "no matter how good a job looks before you start it, there will be days when you'll need hip waders for mucking around in the barnyard bog most jobs eventually become."

Though First is a contemporary author, there's a sense in his essays of visiting a time long past - like the sepia-toned remembrances of old relatives we heard when we were children, set in a time and place when life seemed simpler. This book is a gentle reminder that life can still be like that. Like Thoreau before him, First reminds us that nature moves at a pace different than human society. He tells us we can all share in that slowed pace of life if we pay attention and take the time to look, listen, smell, feel, and drink in our natural surroundings.

The subtitle to this collection of essays is "A Blue Ridge Book of Days". First has called that subtitle "a serving suggestion." Yes, Slow Road Home is the kind of book one can be completely satisfied reading a few pages at a time, but an even better "serving suggestion" this time of year might be to put another log on the fire, give the dog a good scratch between the ears, have a seat in your favorite chair, pour yourself a cup of warm apple cider, and spend a relaxing autumn afternoon exploring the beauty and wonder of Floyd County through Fred First's words and senses.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4 Winstons

John C. Leonard became a fan of non-fiction nature writers in Blacksburg High School teacher Shirley
Maybury's English class.

About Fred, Floyd and Home

fred1st — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:01:44 CST

About Fred

Since his earliest years in Birmingham, Alabama, Fred First has called several places in the southern Appalachians home. An Auburn graduate with a MS in Zoology and an avid naturalist, he first moved to Virginia in 1975 to teach at Wytheville Community College. In a mid-life career change, he earned a masters degree in Physical Therapy and practiced in that field in North Carolina for six years before moving--permanently, he says--to Floyd County in 1997.

In 2002, his personal focus shifted from what he did for a living to where it was that he lived. He continues to explore the beauties and perplexities of his rural Blue Ridge valley in words and images, including a daily photo-journal called FragmentsFromFloyd . Much of his writing and pondering turns to sense of place and belonging, especially as it relates to the Appalachian Mountains. Read an extensive interview with Fred in Rebecca Blood's Bloggers on Blogging series from May, 2006.A more recent short bio is here.

Fred is active in his Floyd County community, as member of the Floyd Writers Circle and is a board member at the Jacksonville Center, Floyd's Arts Center and arts incubator. Recent speaking engagements include guest lecturer at Virginia Tech (Appalachian Cultures class, Sept 04) and spoken word readings given locally in Floyd, including Floyd Fest 2004. He has participated as a student at the Highlands Summer Conference in Radford and at the JC Campbell Folk School (2003) and presented his "photomemoir" at the Appalachian Studies Conference at Radford University in March, 2005.

Fred is a regular essayist on Roanoke's NPR station (WVTF). His works are published in various places including Blue Ridge Country Magazine, Petlife, Greenprints, Birmingham Arts Journal, Flow (Glassblowers trade magazine) and Nantahala Review (Feb 2005). He writes a regular column, A Road Less Traveled, in the Floyd Press. Fred's photographs have been featured in promotional materials for the New River Valley Land Trust and the Floyd County Chamber of Commerce.

Fred has recently taught biology at Radford University as adjunct faculty while he pursues his interests in writing and nature/rural landscape photography. He has also re-entered clinical work, part-time, as a physical therapist at a privately-run outpatient clinic not far from home. His book, Slow Road Home, was published by Goose Creek Press and available for readers at the end of April, 2006.

About Floyd

Floyd County is our adopted home. We 'discovered' it in 1997, even though we had lived just two counties away for 12 years, long ago. Floyd is located in Southwest Virginia--that part of the state west of Roanoke that even Virginians frequently don't know exists.

You can't get here from there: there is no interstate access (which is both an advantage and disadvantage), and the approaches from the west and south are very steep, requiring a climb Blue Ridge Escarpment from the piedmont. There are no large employers luring workers from adjacent counties to mills or factories here, so you have to come to Floyd on your way to Floyd. Not many folks just pass through on their way to other destinations, except for those who wander into town off the Parkway.

Tourism for a wide variety of music, for the scenery and the unique ambience of the little town promises to bring more visitors here in coming years. Floyd County is bordered on its south boundary by the Blue Ridge Parkway, roughly from milepost 175 near Mabry Mill to milepost 145 toward Roanoke. The county has the highest average elevation of any county in Virginia (about 2700 feet) with the highest elevation in the county being Buffalo Mountain.

No water flows into the county from outside; and it is the biggest producer of Christmas trees in the state. The population of the county is about 14,000. There has been considerable recent influx of new residents from both north and south of us. The new and multi-generational residents generally get along rather well. There are many artistic types among us--particular, potters, painters, photographers and organic earthy types. There is more to do here than we have time to participate in--suprising for a county that has but a single traffic light.

The town of Floyd is the county seat, and a wider place in the road than the couple of other county settlements centered around post offices and a gas station. Notable for the county is that there is a single traffic light, in the middle of 'downtown'. Town population is about 400; most folks live in the elevated rolling hills, many keep cattle or horses.

Notable features in Floyd County: Buffalo Mountain; Chatteau Morrisette Winery; Mabry Mill; Schoolhouse Fabrics; Oddfellows Cantina; Blue Ridge Parkway; Rock Castle Gorge; New Mountain Merchantile; Cafe del Sol coffeeshop (with wireless internet!); Harvest Moon Healthfoods; Pine Tavern Restaurant and the Blue Ridge Cafe. The town of Floyd is about 26 miles south of Blacksburg (Virginia Tech) and 35 miles west of Roanoke. You can find links to Floyd-related info here and here.

About Goose Creek

In the northeastern end of Floyd County, the south fork of the Roanoke River is formed by the confluence of Bottom Creek and Goose Creek. We live very near the headwaters of Goose Creek, where the creek is too small to lure trout fisherpersons, but large enough to provide a constant rise and fall of burbling wet noise, all day, all night

The road we live on is honestly one of the most beautiful but most treacherous little lanes in the county, state-maintained, and the last state road that ran in a creek bed (until the early '70s). There are more than a dozen blind curves and very few places where two cars can pass one another, with a steep dropoff into the creek on some sections.

At the turn of the century, there was a thriving settlement up the valley here, but now only the empty remnants of a church and store. Today there are fewer than a dozen widely spaced occupied dwellings on our 4-mile road. We first drove down our road after an ice storm in February 1999 to see the property, and I wondered if we would ever be heard from again. Then when we finally came upon the house 'as pictured in the real estate ad', I knew we were NOT interested. My wife cast a strong dissenting vote, and well, here we are.

The purchase of the land was a no-brainer; we could have recouped our investment and made a profit in 6 months. But the house: now THAT was a gamble. Long story short: the 130-yr-old structure was worth saving, took way more $$$ than we intended, but now has indoor plumbing and electricity, new windows, new foundation, a paint job. It is a snug and comfortable home with the ambience of age and the utility and life expectancy of a new house. It is the most serene and peaceful place we have ever lived, and we are not moving from here until they move us out in a pine box.

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Fred's Bio

fred1st — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:56:17 CST

Image Gallery One

fred1st — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:17:14 CDT

I hope you enjoy the Flickr gallery here. Go visit the site without the slideshow by clicking here.

I also have lots of little galleries up at SmugMug. Go look around, won't you?

Our barn in a January ice storm	Blue Ridge Parkway traveler, Floyd County, Virginia
Pasture flowers catch first light	Distant view of Buffalo Mt.
Ink art by Ron Campbell, Dream Catcher Meadows Floyd, VA	Giles County barn
Floyd County Friday Night.	Oddfellas Cantina, Floyd

Our Place in the World: video

fred1st — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:13:39 CDT

This is a fairly low-res version of a more sophisticated and attractive Powerpoint program I'll be delivering several times in the Fall of 2007. I'll narrate live while some sixty of my digital images illustrate the three shorter pieces of text here (two of them from Slow Road Home) that have to do with our relationship to nature and the land. (Fifteen minutes)

I hope you enjoy it. Comments welcomed, and speaking engagements too!

Jack Higgs Review of Slow Road

fred1st — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:58:38 CDT

Much in Little on Goose and Nameless Creeks

“Where does this road go” asks the title of the introduction to Slow Road Home. It is also, of course, the legendary question often asked of country people by lost travelers from urban centers. The favorite reply by bemused farmers over the years is probably this: “Well no matter where you’re headed you can’t get there from here.” Fred First, posing this question in this utterly remarkable book of travel, offers a different response. “It goes nowhere and everywhere.”

Traveling of some sort seems essential to cultivating a sense of place. Fred First has traveled a lot along the banks of Nameless and Goose Creeks on his farm in Floyd County, Virginia, taking note of the endless miracles in the natural world. From the beginning, the move by Fred and wife Ann from Birmingham, Alabama to the Ridges of Appalachia is a journey of pilgrims seeking knowledge and meaning rather than a mission of true believers of one kind or another who already have all the answers.

With open minds and hearts, before the immensity of nature and a willingness to change, what they learn and experience in life close to and directly off of the earth constitutes nothing less than a book of wonders. It is a picture of the natural world that is not only stranger than we think but stranger than we can imagine.

The purpose of all art is to make us see, but Fred does more than that: he also makes us listen and hear, scent and smell, touch and feel, and taste while eating. Here is more proof, if any were ever needed, that all good writing begins with the senses before exciting feelings of awe, mystery and reverence of powers unspeakable all around us.

Much in little: this is modus operandi of Fred First. Like Emily Dickinson, he notices “smallest things,” things overlooked before, finds them italicized as it were, and makes them part of his memory, his diary, and now this book, vibrant with the rich sense of living things on the pages within it. Everything he sees is connected, barely visible and maybe even invisible, but clearly a part of the web of being running trough space and time.

Tens of millions of years ago, according to Nigel Calder in Restless Earth, dinosaurs walked from Poland to Alabama by way of Ireland and New York. In Slow Road Home: a blue ridge book of days, Fred First reverses part of that journey, heading north from Birmingham and stopping in Floyd County, discovering the composition of organic life, the rhythms of seasons, and a kinship with everything that is, has been, or will be.

I have never read a book quite like it.

In River of Earth by James Still the mountain preacher opens the Bible and places his finger at random upon the pages, locating a passage which says that the hills of ancient days go hopping and a skipping like sheep. If one were to place a finger in Slow Road Home, it would more than likely land on a memorable metaphor linking in mystery and awe the visible world to the great spirit that animates it.

by Robert "Jack" Higgs, Professor Emeritus, East Tennessee State University, editor of Appalachia Inside Out, Volumes I and II

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Slow Road Home Portal - Recently Updated Pages

Home

While I'm working on a make-over on this site, you might have come here for information about the NEW BOOK. There's a rudimentary page set up now, with changes happening at a good clip, so come back often! Go to Fred's New Book ~ May 2009.

I hope to add to this site regularly, so check back often. I'm happy to have comments, so don't be shy!

Audio and Selections from the Book

This section will grow over time, once the book moving along before and after the actual printing.

Fred's Calendar of Events

About the Title

A Book By Its Cover: What's in the Title?

Photographic Note Cards

Fred's New Book May 2009

How to Order Slow Road Home

You can order a single book and pay by PayPal or print the order form and pay with check or cash. Click here.

You can purchase a book off the shelf:

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: Chateau Morrisette Winery; Poor Farmer's Country Store (Meadows of Dan); and at Mabry Mill, Doughton Park and Crabtree Meadows on the Blue Ridge Parkway (both books!)

FLOYD: * Bell's Studio; * Floyd Country Store; *Jacksonville Center; Cafe del Sol; Slaughters Grocery; Notebooks * Note Cards also available at these locations

ROANOKE:

BLACKSBURG:

PULASKI: CoffeeBuyTheBook

Author's Note and Back Cover Blurb

Back Cover Text

Preface to What We Hold

Preface to What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader

_______________________________

About the Writing and the Writer

_______________________________

Table of Contents PLUS

What's the book about

What Readers Say

... about Slow Road Home

Reviews and Interviews

Weblogs or Websites Featuring Slow Road Home

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Floyd Press Invite Vendors

Slow Road Audio Clips

Slow Road Home: Review, NRV Voice, Nov 07

About Fred, Floyd and Home

About Fred

About Floyd

About Goose Creek

Fred's Bio

Image Gallery One

Our Place in the World: video

Jack Higgs Review of Slow Road

Much in Little on Goose and Nameless Creeks

FLOYD: * Bell's Studio; * Floyd Country Store; Jacksonville Center; Cafe del Sol; Slaughters Grocery; Notebooks Note Cards also available at these locations