Sorry, been AWOL....from Rico

Sorry to some of you, for I have been AWOL for a few days and am woefully 'behind' answering some e-mails/communications as a result.

While my Pappy often liked to say "No excuses" here is mine, and it's not a bad one...but YOU decide.

[Backstory: When I 'discovered' this backwater in NC where the Snow Bird, Tusquittee, Blue Ridge, and Appalachian mountain chains intersect I half-expected to run into Opey, Andy, and Aunt Bea. What I did NOT expect to find was a homeless problem. In the course of getting to know some of the directors of the Cherokee County homeless shelter some years back, I learned it was the ONLY such shelter between Atlanta, GA and Knoxville, KY, and Chattanooga, TN and Asheville, NC. I've been an annual supporter of their effort ever since.]

Through a local friend (from Florida) I recently heard about this 'new' shelter in neighboring Clay County being run by a small group and headed by a Key West, FL 'refugee' a.k.a. a fellow-Floridian. It specializes in homeless women, and women with children. Their brochure is attached.

(No jokes about the shtik Sam Kinison had about establishing "home for interesting women" guys! This is a legitimate operation.)

Take away: I have been helping their annual fund-raising effort, as I think it a very worthy cause.

In a week or two I'll have more free time, and can return to the pursuit of smoking my own babyback ribs, and maybe 'experimenting' with smoking some thick-cut bacon I had the butcher slice for me....put another way, useless idleness a.k.a. being retired.



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