MY LITTLE BROTHER, Ken Adams, on his 9th and next-to-last birthday (Photo by Rahn Adams)
Every fall and winter I go back / to 1976 and 1977 when I was 17, / a senior in high school, / big brother to a little boy / who suffered more than he deserved.
It had been the Bicentennial, / a year of celebrating our freedom; / but summer was over, / and on the 1st of October / the march toward January 17 began.
After I hung up the telephone, / all I could think to do / was run over to our little white church, / fall down at the altar / and pray for his cancer to be cured.
‘PINEY GROVE,’ one in a series of pastel church drawings by Timberley Adams
I wanted some sign from God / that he had heard my plea / for my brother to be healed, / and that he might survive the knives / and the fire and all that poison.
I flipped open my Bible / to the longest of the Psalms; / and my unaimed finger fell on the 17th verse: / “I shall not die, but live, / and declare the works of the Lord.” Yes!
But on the 17th of January / I learned that the promise I had read / referred not to my little brother / but to me, as it traded my heaven / for the hell of wait and see.
SALEM, N.C. (Jan. 14, 2026) — Last week I got fed up with current events and fired off one of those “What a Crazy World We Live In” posts on social media. In it, I pointed out that on the one hand we’re raptly watching a reverent procession of orange-robed Buddhist monks and their well-behaved dog walk single file across the South promoting peace, while on the other hand we are terrified to witness legions of masked federal stormtroopers, like Hitler’s SS, descending upon Main Street, U.S.A., and murdering us in broad daylight. (Yes, it truly was murder — a conscious decision at worst, depraved indifference at best. However it occurred, the killing was anointed by our heads of state and blessed by the crowd that pushes for The Ten Commandments to be posted everywhere publicly, including “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” I presume.)
CAT AT PEACE Jem is a good orange boy but a bit lazy. We’re working on his mindfulness.
Talk about the yin and the yang of living in the material world now. It’s like night and day; like fire and ice; like having a white dog on one shoulder, a black dog on the other; or like claiming to be followers of Christ, but worshiping the devil instead, as many white Christian fundamentalists do. These days I can’t seem to get W.B. Yeats’s apocalyptic poem “The Second Coming” out of my head, with its talk about things falling apart and centers not holding and anarchy being loosed upon the world. (That’s where the “Rough Beast” in my headline comes from. It isn’t a reference to the monks’ yellow dog.)
Yeah, this is gonna be one of those blog columns — not a lot of laughs, because Rahn’s big-boy panties are in a wad again. (Well? Referring to oneself in the third person seems to be par for the course now, even though it was a funny bit from a 30-year-old Seinfeld episode.)
Oh, right. Rahn needs to buy himself some big-boy panties. Sorry, he gets those put-downs mixed up sometimes. It’s from having TDS or from letting that lying sack of farts with the orange spray-tan and weird comb-over live rent-free in his head. All the bald-faced lies, hatefulness, bullying and braggadocio run together after a while. (And that’s how SAD things have gotten — I mean, that the big bad wolf of 5th Avenue’s dyed-in-the-wool Sheep Are Du-u-u-ummmb.)
‘SUNFLOWERS’ (1994), a limited-edition print by Timberley Adams
At the edge of the ocean / On the cusp of sea and sky and spit / Lived the old lighthouse keeper; / Ever faithful Charlie Swan kept the Cape Fear beacon lit.
Three square little houses / In a row with unobstructed ocean views, / Like pieces on a game board, / Sheltered Captain Charlie and his beach-borne lifesaving crews.
CAPT. CHARLIE’S II on Bald Head Island, one of three historic cottages
This fearsome washboard of shoals / Has always sent swabbies to their knees / On the decks of sailing ships / Seeking safe harbor from dark or stormy seas.
That blessed beacon in its day / Was more than hope and saving grace; / It was a confident beam, / A blinding pinpoint of trust in that barren, windswept place.
But the captain and his light are gone; / God only knows where his crewmen now abide. / Left are their vacant dwellings / With sand and sunflowers on every side.
BOONE, N.C. (Jan. 7, 2026) – So, how did you spend Old Christmas yesterday? Did you have a big feast or give someone special a gift? Did you take down your Christmas decorations and stow them away until next Halloween? You should have done that at least.
ANIMALS ARE SMART. My girl Scout likes to read the newspaper with me every morning after I’ve fed her.
No? Well, then, did you stay up past midnight on Tuesday to see if your pets would kneel and pray? That’s an Appalachian tradition—staying up late on Old Christmas Eve to hear animals talk. I mean, Balaam’s ass actually speaks in the Bible (Numbers 22:28-30). The mule doesn’t exactly pray, but he does ask why his master is mistreating him. Animals can talk, and they do pray.
OUR BIG BOY Jem is the calmest and sweetest natured cat we’ve ever had.
We need no proof at our house, because Scout, our little Type-A Manx cat, has a word of prayer with me every blessed morning. She tells me—not Timberley, mind you—in no uncertain terms when it’s time to get up and feed her. Her laid-back brother Jem, an orange tabby, knows to keep his mouth shut—until I open the can of cat food. Then it’s smack, smack, munch, munch.
When Scout says, “Muh-wow,” we know she’s asking for water, and we let her jump up on the bathroom counter for a drink. When she’s perturbed with me for wanting to stay in bed a minute longer, she says, “Raw-run, Raw-run,” and I’m not quite sure if that’s my name or what I need to do to keep her from jumping up on me. But she does—with all four feet—if I don’t rise and shine.
THE LAST TIME that Timberley and I went out with friends on New Year’s Eve was in 2019, and, just our luck, a hockey game broke out.
You’re probably asking yourself, what in the H-E-double hockey sticks is a watchnight service? Well, it’s kinda like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, but without the late Dick Clark’s ageless charisma (because he’s still dead), without real rock ‘n’ roll, just fake rock called contemporary Christian music or praise hymns, and without the boyish charm of Ryan Seacrest.
But it does take place on New Year’s Eve, though in a church or cathedral with lots of singing and praying. It sometimes follows a light communal meal called a lovefeast, usually only coffee or tea and cookies—more of a love-snack, if you ask me.
What will attendees be watching for tonight? According to Wikipedia, the watchnight service “provides the opportunity for Christians to review the year that has passed and make confession, and then prepare for the year ahead by praying and resolving.” Make confession? Hmm. That could take a while.
And what was that last thing, after praying? Resolving? No, no, I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions anymore. At my age, I figure it’s too late to change my ways. This old dog ain’t learning any new tricks.
MORGANTON, N.C. (Dec. 24, 2025) – No, I’m not going to criticize my wife Timberley here on Christmas Eve, not until after we open our presents, anyway.
Jan Karon’s 15th Mitford novel was published in October. We finally took the time to read it this week.
This is a brief review of Lenoir native Jan Karon’s latest Mitford novel, My Beloved, which I just finished reading aloud to Timberley as one of my gifts to her this holiday season. As I discovered in reading the heartwarming story, my gesture was like a common thread running through the book.
Actually, this is the second present my beloved wife and best friend has gotten early this year. The other one was The Chicken Encyclopedia for her to use with the children’s book she has started working on. Yeah, I know. I’m so romantic, huh?
But back to My Beloved. Over the past four decades, Ms. Karon, 88, has written 25 bestselling books, 15 of which are novels set in the fictional mountain village of Mitford. Her faithful readers—like Timberley—know that Mitford is really Blowing Rock, N.C., the Watauga County town where Ms. Karon lived for 10 years.
She moved to Virginia around the time that Timberley and I took teaching jobs at Watauga High School after our own 10-year sojourn, but on the N.C. coast. To my knowledge, our paths never crossed in Blowing Rock or Boone.
Or in Lenoir, where both Ms. Karon and I were products of the Caldwell County public school system—her, in and around the town of Hudson; me, at Happy Valley Elementary and Hibriten High. She credits her first-grade teacher, Nan Downs, with encouraging her love of reading and writing.
I must have been a late bloomer, because the educator who turned me on to reading and writing was Shannon Russing, my 11th-grade English teacher. I hope she knows how much I still appreciate the encouragement she gave me, a shy 16-year-old struggling to find my place among more privileged and confident peers.
As I think back on that 11th-grade English class, I’m not exaggerating to say that I have only positive memories of the lessons in Ms. Russing’s classroom. If anything bad happened, I don’t remember it.
That isn’t the case, however, with my other high school English classes, where the two teachers—one an abusive man, the other an overly strict woman—managed their classrooms through fear. They started out tough to get us kids under control, and they rarely let up.
One thing I did learn in those bad classes, though, was what not to do as an English teacher myself later on.
BOONE, N.C. (Nov. 17, 2025) – Local authors Rahn and Timberley Adams have released the third book in their series of young adult novels focusing on teen living and high school sports.
Published by Gaillardia Press, this third installment is entitled Tales of the Barf Table, Book Three: Diamonds and Stone. The 365-page book deals primarily with boys’ baseball, but also with girls’ softball and year-ending school events. It also explores a mystery of life-and-death proportions that has been building throughout the series.
“Actually, the devastation of Hurricane Helene inspired this book,” said Timberley Adams. “We started on it late last year as storm recovery here was underway. We also remembered our experiences in Hugo and other hurricanes from when we lived on the N.C. coast in the 1980s and ‘90s.”
The release of Diamonds and Stone follows the January 2024 publication of From the Gridiron to the Fire, about high school football, and the November 2024 publication of Trouble Shooters, about girls’ basketball and boys’ wrestling. All three novels feature a group of misfits who sit together in the school cafeteria at what others call the Barf Table.
From the new book’s back cover: “A devastating tornado on Good Friday strikes Arbor High and forces teenagers Artie Bauer and Ty Green—both Arbor Bruins baseball stars—to take shelter in the team’s indoor batting cage. When the two friends emerge after the storm, they see that their ballpark has been severely damaged . . . but they soon learn that a rival school in the next town has been destroyed. Baseball season comes to an exciting end, prom time arrives, and graduation approaches. Through it all, [the Barf Table gang learns] the value of teamwork by helping friends and neighbors cope with the aftermath of the storm and with the unearthing of skeletons from the past.”
Rahn Adams noted, “We’re really pleased with this story. It offers positive alternatives for dealing with tough situations that many young people face. That’s what we want readers to see in all these books—good role models.”
MY NEW PEN PAL sent me this thank-you card and a “gratuity” for doing her a simple favor a few weeks ago.
By RAHN ADAMS
BOONE, N.C. (July 4, 2025) — Isn’t it great when someone — maybe even a complete stranger — does something that exceeds your expectations? That’s how I felt yesterday when I picked up the mail at the post office.
In last month’s column, I wrote about receiving someone else’s mail in error and deciding to do more than just dropping the envelope back in the outgoing mail slot. I’ve done that before and then have received the same piece of errant mail again and again.
But this appeared to be a birthday card or an invitation, and so I put it in another, larger envelope, addressed it legibly without the abbreviation that had confused the post office mail scanner, and sent it back across the state to Elizabethtown in Bladen County, not far from where Timberley and I used to live.
MAYBE MY NEW PEN PAL will get her greeting card without too much more delay, no thanks to the havoc Donald Trump has wreaked on the U.S. Post Office.
By RAHN ADAMS
MORGANTON, N.C. (June 10, 2025) — As we watch 79-year-old Donald Trump prepare to celebrate his own birthday with a taxpayer-funded, multimillion-dollar military parade in D.C. and a manufactured declaration of martial law in L.A., let’s take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Remember the old campaign question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Well, how about this: Are you better off now than you were six months ago — you know, before Trump took office again?
By any objective and reasonable measure — egg prices, inflation rates, constitutional rights and freedoms — an honest American’s answer to both questions would be Oh, hell no.
