Fred First

Within Our Grasp – Learning To Live With What We Have

We are coming to the end of many familiar and comfortable ways of life in the next few months, and the beginnings of the new we cannot fully know....

FRED FIRST: Country Mouse, City Life / Growing New Roots without Transplant Shock

As soon as we made the decision in November to move to Columbia, calculating the...

FRED FIRST: Landing on One’s Feet

. . .  and To be a Placed Person When You Get There In Floyd County—or...

Leaving Home to Find It … Where Does This Road Go?

“When we are young, we live where we’re born. For some of us, the place...

FRED FIRST: Go West, Old Man!

We decided this fall that our wonderful, comfortable, convenient and convivial existence here in Southwest...

FRED FIRST: To Age Well, Start Young

"There is no cure for the common birthday . . . "   - John Glenn I remember it clearly. I was 12 when I first...

FRED FIRST: Things Are Looking Up . . .

Where the Sidewalk Ends (November 29th post) began a topic that loomed like a new chapter just ahead of me (and you, the reader). But Covid...

FRED FIRST: Doodling Really Does Help Me Think!

I Want an Apology From All My Teachers . . . …who confiscated my etchings, mazes and caricatures during class. Unfortunately, the latter were good enough...

FRED FIRST: The Glue of Community Does Not Age So Well

Living in place does not insure a lasting connection, as friends our age drop out of the picture. Will we experience new friendships close...

FRED FIRST: Where the Sidewalk Ends

Are There Future Fragments From Beyond the Pavement? I thought of this 150 yr old farmhouse and the land around it as my story for...

FRED FIRST: A New Look at Virginia’s Old Trees

Herein lies a serendipitous reprise of an article I stumbled across this morning—exactly three years from its publication on Sustain Floyd’s website (from which...