What a perfect weekend for TV watching since the weather outside is frightful - ice and snow on the ground, 12 degrees below I've-never-been-this-cold-before with a wind chill that could make a big pair of Dumbo ears like mine freeze and break off. To add insult to injury, the miserably cold weather has been the same for 4 days in a row - unheard of in these parts.  ..

....but in regular clothes, I'm a nobody." Dean Martin ..

Driving to Raleigh on Tuesday, Rocky Mount yesterday, and to Elm City today, I couldn't help but notice all the cotton that is in full bloom and making a handsome, feather-like halo of the fields surrounding Wilson. So what's a guy supposed to do but take a quick picture and do what all the young people do? Yep- make it a selfie.  ..

Recently, Susan and I were invited to a Porch Party at the beach. Friends had purchased their cousin's interest in their family cottage ensuring the ownership would pass on to the third generation and it would be saved from the wrecking ball, a fate these days for many older cottages when they slip out of the original family's hands. Just after closing the deal, they had installed a fantastic new front porch for the cottage built by their grandparents in the 1960s. I had spent many days at the house when I was young because our mothers were college friends and they would sit on the front porch and gossip while all their kids played in the garage. Through the years our generation became friends too. The party was to celebrate the new generation owning the family place and of course the new porch. I'm always glad when an old Atlantic Beach cottage passes forward to a younger generation-and younger is a relative term since this generation of friends are 50 and 60ish. Yep-that's still young by my estimation and if you don't agree, take a long walk down a short pier. That's beach speak for don't talk smack about age with someone who's almost 60 and a little sensitive about it.  ..

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The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current about 40 miles off-shore from Morehead City, NC where fishing has been great for as long as I can remember, and I'm sure as long as people have been able to get boats out to it. In the summer of 1970, when I was 13 years old, my friend Doug and I decided to go the Gulf Stream to go fishing aboard the Captain Stacy. Docked in the downtown Morehead City waterfront, it was a "Head Boat" which we thought was a funny name, but it was called that term because it charged a fixed fee per person, or per head, for regularly scheduled trips. I still think it's a funny name.  ..

OK, I do look like Winston Churchill as a baby. Damn. So maybe it's time to eat a little crow. I'm sorry, Mother, you were right. Now, do you feel better because I sure as hell don't. Note to self: It's probably best not to leave any photographic evidence behind if your baby is a little homely. There's a chance he could grow out of it. PS-If this is the best picture they had what did the bad ones look like?! ..

Johnny (far right), Lou and me (far left) with our Bridgers grandparents in 1975. The picture has nothing to do with this post, I just bumped into it as I was looking for a picture to go with it and I thought it'd be fun for everyone to see. Newsflash-we don't look like this anymore (I don't at least).  ..

A long time ago, in a world far, far away (OK, at Atlantic Beach, a few weeks ago) Susan and I had the pleasure of hosting one of the star guests for Anna Wooten Gauss and Randall Loggin's wedding. When I first saw her, I was stunned by her classic beauty and her timeless style. She was a member of Randall's family and a star of the wedding party and she was familiar to me (and you're thinking oh my God here we go again) but no one else in the wedding party knew her. In fact she was from South Georgia but she was familiar in a different, non-familial way.  ..

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