Posts tagged ‘growing up’

Dec 12

Between the Bricks and the Sticks

by Beth Newberry

It’s 1982.

I am five years old.

I stand with my dad and a neighbor, both their faces beyond my sight line, their words floating down in the barely-cool air of dusk. My dad tells our neighbor that we are going soon on a trip to Virginia to visit family. My father describes the small, mountain towns he and my mother are from, and the neighbor looks at me and says, “Oh, but you’re a city girl.” Read more

Dec 11

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You Can’t Go Home Again

By L.S. McKee

On many levels, Kingsport, Tennessee is home. I grew up here, my parents were born down the road in Bristol, and generations before lived in the hills of Southwest Virginia. On other levels—the willful, self-inscribed ones—it isn’t. I’ve always bragged on its beauty, its music, its people, and in the same breath swore it was a place where I would never live again. What it could give, I assumed, had already been given. Read more