December 11, 2006
(Floyd, Virginia) Some of us long for belonging to the land, for roots in particular and special places where, for reasons usually beyond our knowing, we resonate with the landscape.
For those like Fred First who have lived other places and then been drawn to the Blue Ridge, it is almost always the mystery of mountains that brings them here. Fred describes this as a "magnetic resonance in their bones" that pulls them toward an altitude, latitude and slant of sun that simply feels right for them. For such souls as this "the mountains hold a nutrient that they can not live without."
At fifty four, the author left his profession in healthcare to explore where it was that he lived; for a time, this became what he did for a living. The daily discipline of intentional immersion in the close at hand ultimately grew to become the story of the book, a celebration of one special mountain place that seems to have been waiting all his life for Fred to find, to know and to share.
Slow Road Home ~ a Blue Ridge Book of Days was published by Goose Creek Press in April, 2006. The author's background as naturalist, teacher and photographer inform this collection of more than a hundred lyrical essays and stories originally shared with weblog readers in the author's blog, Fragments from Floyd.
The book is a 216 page perfect-bound paperback that retails for $15.95. It includes cover photography and several black and white interior photographs by the author. It is a book to be read slowly as it unfolds through the seasons. Readers have commented that having read through once, they intend to read it again. Another reader has said that Slow Road stays by her bedside where "it just makes me thankful and at peace, and I go to bed looking forward to what the next morning will bring."
Fred is a physical therapist who practices part time at a clinic near Radford, Virginia. He also has taught recently as adjunct faculty for the biology department at Radford University. He lives on the headwaters of the Roanoke River in a remote part of Floyd County, Virginia, with his wife Ann and yellow lab, Tsuga.
-- Virtual Blue Ridge
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