7/27 Another reason I haven't been blogging much, I didn't mention this below, is that I am in the final stages of writing a book. The writing is done, I am working on the illustrations, I have two more to do, but they are the hardest ones. I have been working on this book off an on for probably 30 years. It is a compilation of 12 short stories that I wrote about life in the rural south Georgia swamps when I worked there in the late 1960's and 70's. The Okefenokee swamp is where I recovered from my tour in Viet Nam. I worked on a 250,000 acre private forest that bordered the great swamp on the west side. It was a trip back in time. I worke dther for five years and even now call Fargo, Georgia my second home town. After this I have another project, I want to publish a volume of poetry, I have been a fairly prolific poet in the past, much of it about nature. I hope it is not a sign of old age that I am interested in memoirs.

7/27/07 I want to begin to provide ecotours to scenic places, local landmarks, etc in the north Alabama area. These would be day trips, mostly on Saturday, but not limited to that, to places like the Dismals, or Walls of Jericho, places on the Bankhead Forest, or just anyplace that may be interesting for our customers and help promote conservation and green awareness. The church I attend, Tree of Life, has offered me their 15 passenger church van to do this. I am trying to work out insurance, signs and a few other details and if there is any interest we could start this in the fall. I envision a group travelling together in the van to a location and maybe eating a picnic lunch that either we provide or travelors bring themselves and make a day out of it. Or even eat at some notable restaurant that would be agreeable to everyone. Costs would vary due to location (admission, distance, food requirements), but I want to keep them resaonable. We might could expand this concept to include music festivals, cultural evants and other things as well. Any feedback?

7/27/07 I have been pretty quite on the blog for a couple of weeks. There are two reasons. The first is that Erin has been gone to Boston for nearly three weeks and we have been shorthanded and I have been working in the kitchen preparing lunches with Gerri almost every day. In addition to that my brother Andy, from Australia, he has lived there for over 40 years, paid a surprise visit to us and stayed 10 days. Prior to that his son Jonathan and his new wife Emma stayed for almost a week. So we have been shorthanded and full of Aussie houseguests. Erin will be back next Wednesday thankfully, it will be good to see her and Josh, They were working as counsellors at a youth camp in the Boston area. My brother Andy called me one Thursday morning and told me that he was flying into Huntsville on Saturday night, that was the first I knew he was coming. We had a great visit, wish he could have stayed longer. He hung out at the coffee house and got to know may of our regulars, they have all missed him since he left. His daughter Cat will be coming in September and we are planning a family reunion with the Aussies, my sister's family, and my Mom at Bishop in December, probably over Christmas.
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7/16/07 Open mike was last night and again it was great. The variety of performances and performers was wonderful and again we had nearly a full house. I had a great surprise when Chuck Puckett showed up, Chuck is the founder, lead singer and guitar player for Bimini Road who will be performing here on Friday july 27th. He is also a playwright and actor. Had some other new performers as well Leslie Scott brought her keyboard and sang several songs, we could have listened to her all night. Another great open mike.

7/12/07 The Coffee House Gang, this time made up of Bob, John Lott, Julie and Kerry Calvert performed at the Festhalle market Platz from 3-5. We will probably be playing there at various times, averaging once a month or so. The Festhalle market Platz is our local farmers market and is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with live music on Thurs and Sat. It is a great place, I have been there many times since it opened and bought some great stuff There are many local farmers present with a wonderful variety of fresh vegetables, flowers, even ginko trees. The Coffee House Gang is scheduled to perform there again on August 2nd at 3 PM.

7/10/07 Erin, our head barrista, is leaving today for three weeks in Boston with her husband Josh. The are working at a youth camp there, Passport, where Josh is worship leader and Erin is chief gofer. So if we all look tired and grumpy, thats why, we will be trying to fill in during her absence.

7/8/07 Thursday morning at about 6:30 I got a phone call from my brother in Australia. He has been there over 40 years and I doubt we have talked on the phone more than once or twice during that whole time, so it was a great surprise. He asked what I was doing for the weekend. I told him and he said that there was something happening in Huntsville Saturday night that I needed to be aware of. When I said I don't think so, he countered with the fact that he was arriving at the airport at 9:30 and if I couldn't pick him up he could get a cab. So I made plans to pick him up and consequently had to miss most of the concert Saturday night, of course I didn't mind. He is planning to stay for 10 days, this is his first rip South. We usually meet up at family reunions in California once o year or so. His flight took 36 hours from Perth, Australia to Tokyo, to Minneapolis Minn to Memphis and finally Huntsville.

7/7/07 The Awkward silents a band made up of Shea Heatherly, Seth Richardson and Davy Hancock performed tonight. I only got to see a little bit of it since I had to pick up my brother, who was flying in from Australia where he lives, in Hunstville at 10:30. We left before nine. Shea opened with some of his originals and a cover or two and played for about 40 minutes with Davy accompanying him on bass, before Seth came up and the Awkward Silents took over. When I left the house was packed and I heard nothing but rave reviews for the music. Seth has a phenomenal voice as I have mentioned here before. If he is ever "discovered" he should go far. I heard he did a slam dunk on "Me and Bobby McGee", Wish I had been there. We will have them back in the not too far distant future if possible.

7/3/07 Another good open mike, lots of performers and a good crowd. Many of our regulars were here such as John Lott, Kerry Calvert, Carlo, Meleah and I guess I can include Susan Vaughn and Shea Heatherly in that category now. They all did their normal great jobs. Keith, Blake and Greg came for the first time although Keith Barrenger has played here before. They played some CCR songs and other 70's music, sounded good. Britteny Barrenger also sang a solo with her dad accompanying her on guitar. Tony Perdue formerly of the band The Devastators, a punkabilly band, also played. It was a very entertaining night with good music and good folks.

7/1/07 Larry Woellhart played at the coffee house last night and put on a really good show. He sang many old favorites from the 60's, 70's and later from the artists most of us grew up with such as Gordon Lightfoot, PPM, John Denver and many more. Much of what he performed were requests from the audience. There was something for everyone. I particularly enjoyed two of his Gordon Lightfoot songs, Wreck of the Edmon Fitzgerald and Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Gordon is probably my favorite singer and songwriter and Larry covers him well. He also did Mel McDanial's Louisiana Saturday Night another of my favorites and even performed the old Kingston Trio song The MTA a classic from the late 50's. The Kingston Trio was my favorite group while in high school and kindled my lifelong love of folk music. Erin liked his Pete Seeger song Little Boxes which I remember from the 1950's. The only problem with the whole evening was that we had a very small audience, it was very disappointing to me and I am sure to Larry. It is hard to keep quality music like this coming if we don't have a decent audience.