New Beginnings

     I know that we have to forgive and move on, but some things still hurt.  I am not one to dwell on the past, but when those pictures were given to me on today. Some of it was painful. It was good to see all of the stuff that we had done as a radio station back in the 1980's and 1990's  and then you wonder what do you do with all of that history. You can't live in the past you just keep moving ahead to the future. The future, the unknown...      In those pictures was an article called "25 years lived one day at a time". I wrote it for the Register Herald suppliment  " Divine "  It was published on my birthday January 31, 2003.  I remember the day it came out my mom called me at work. It was a Friday, and my mom and dad listened to the radio in the mornings and she called, he came to pick me up from work and they talked about what a special article that was.  The article is laid out too large for scanning so here ...

     In 1994 Kevin Spencer sang a song called "Picture This". It was about looking through pictures in an old shoebox and the memories that it brought back. Well, there were some pictures uploaded from a cousin that brought back many memories. Some were good memories and some were difficult to think about.  Let's take a stroll down memory lane.      The first one was all of us kids standing by a car. I don't remember the picture, I had to be about 4 or 5. I was surrounded by my relatives. My family is from Mabscott. The Thorntons moved there in 1947, The Traynhams moved there long before then. The town Mabscott is a coal camp named for Mabel Scott.  It is divided into several sections.  As in most coal towns the black people lived in the hill portion and the white people lived in the lower lying section.  I am familar with both parts, because I have been to both parts, especially as an adult.  I remember us walking to Fr...

     Things have changed in Beckley and it is hard to believe that a bookstore that was so much a part of my life has closed. that is By His Grace Bookstore. It started off as Grace Bookstore back in theearly 1980's in the back of Meltons Mortuary. When I first started doing the skating parties I would borrow music from them. I would go and get the latest releases and play them. I discovered Carman and some of the other artist that were popular back then. I would look there for Christian books and my mom would look for art work, plaques or some times a funny mug.  The bookstore grew and they moved over close to K-mart and they had more room and more stuff, I still went to get cards plaques or what ever. A friend and I used to go there during lunch and look at things. Eventually the folks at Grace would give me posters. As I grew in the Lord I would go there for Bibles ect.      I remember one particuarlly bad day. My mom took me there and w...

     I mentioned a few days back that we were putting carpet in one of the upstairs rooms. We had been talking about it for a while trying to figure out if we should paint and put the hardwood floors in here. This is technically a bedroom, but I turned it into an office, where I study and do homework. It is away from everything and I can close the door if I need to.  The idea of putting carpet in is that it will make it warmer in this room, sound proof it a little more and make things better, but as in anything there is a process you go through, removing old junk and throwing things away that you either don't need or haven't used in a while. This process can be painful as I found out today...           As I looked through old tax returns and seeing how we did financially in years past comared to today. It was enlightening. First there was more money, but when you make more you tend to spend more on stuff that is really n...