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Here, amid the high tops and deep hollows of the Great Smoky Mountains, we, in our wicker chairs and willow rockers, can watch traffic on the Appalachian Trail, on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and on the mighty four-lane superhighways. On the Trail, the hikers and day-strollers meander, influenced only by the sinuosities of the clearings through the thickets. The pace is akin to that of long-gone days. On the Parkway, mechanical conveyances amplify the pace, but retained are the circuitous windings dictated by the interplay of the ridges and valleys. On the highways, technology ensures that neither is preserved. The routes are cut to allow for the mind-numbing pace of contemporary life.
We at Mountain Voice Publishers must, by necessity, frequent the highways and parkways, but our wishes and intent lie along the trails. While we have no qualms about availing ourselves of the obvious advantages of a high-tech system to deliver our product, our deliverance is devoid of the deleterious denigration of the right-most on the spectrum.
We are accused of promoting nostalgia. So be it. We are presenting stories, folk tales, legends, tall tales, and memoirs – chronicles of a people and a way of life that bear the same relationship to the people and lifestyles of today that the trails do to the highways: they came first.
As you read our stories, you may be moved to smiles, to sadness, to laughter perhaps, or to a futile anger over the dying throes of a life and time present now only in the memories of our aging. As you read, some of these memories will be preserved.
Browse our web pages. Wander the memory-trails blazed in the bits and pieces of stories from our books. If you are inspired to comment, do so. Our pace and trail choices allow us to respond.
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