The Added Bennies of Subscribing
To follow is human, to subscribe is to bring the incredible lightness of being into The Parkways Projects experience for all of us. I want to have a lot of fun delivering the stories, words, thoughts, images and sometimes, the heartbreak of how these elements can sometimes become so intertwined that they become tangled. In all things, there are opposites, dualities.
I want to try to create a sense of experiential view of mining thoughts and understandings of travelers through Time by using the various tiers and themes I’ve chosen to offer a broad-banded view of this region from 1933 to the present. If ever there were a cache of thoughts open to the migration of memories, views towards our futures, glimpses, and auguries of our collective pasts and dreams, this may be it! There will be cracks in the road jostling our tires, downed trees impeding us at times, and of course, floods, landslides, and other collective paradigms.
I’d love to interact with y’all as supporters in any mode here inside Substack. Whether to Follow, to Subscribe for free (I’ll always offer free subscriptions) or to become Paid Subscribers or Pledging Members? Well, some of you may know me and you’ll have an inkling of what I am thinking of and wanting to creatively forge into a multi-layer format. Think magazines! What I can say now is that I will be offering different levels of access and they’ll be expanding in time. But regarding the basic 11-12 tiers of ideas, thoughts, reportage, articles, stories, fictions, or historical insights? Those will always be free in their basic form. So here will be artwork in the wings as get settled in.
I have to figure this out in those regards! Substack has a lot of options in here. So for now, it will start with these optional levels: Follow, Subscribe, Paid Subscriber, and Pledging Member. Substack had this posted prominently, so: “Subscriber offers full access to the newsletter and publication archives.”
To be frank, I envisioned this originally as a Patreon project after grappling with the idea of a graphic essay/novel between 2002 and 2018. Not so much “The Watchmen” but more akin to “The Bats of the Republic.” Seriously, it’s my nature. I still do think in that vein, so yes, different levels of support from y’all will result in different levels of fun stuff flowing back out later. Like a graphic novel. A more traditional, but edgy photo-essay. Limited archival print editions from the illustrations. Another tier of limited editions of the primary artworks I’ll be creating for this series, and I am very likely to have a few shows along the way throughout the region as the Parkways Projects continues forward. Lastly, a poetry chapbook. In these rivers swim other bennies for those of you who wish to choose a higher subscriber rate later, or become a pledging member now.
In terms of the book forms, I would draw into play my background as an illustrator and graphic designer, with words and structure stemming from a spark of Post-Modernism, with a Southern Gothic feel to it. So to conclude, Following is a great way to meet, and it allows y’all time to see how this will emerge. Subscribers really offer a great interaction. Paid Subscribers of course are the backbone to any such project as this; Pledging Members are like Artists Patrons of the classic and modern ages!
I hope to offer us all something of the feel of a grand excursion, with tiers of thought, subject matter, topics, definitely themed recurring stories, as in the CCC workers who built many of the incredible structures in the National Parks. But they also were trained in many other skills. The CCC workers swept down from the mountains to fan out to the alluvial plains, and created an era of builds we will never see again. They are also the reason I decided in 2021 to cover State Parks as well, from ocean waves to mountaintops, for those classic handcrafted buildings are rare things to lay eyes and hands upon these days. I posted a short piece already, as their stories and works represent one of the finest ethics our nation ever offered its people.
Many roads merged in Time
“You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem—very tricky.” ≈ Robert Frost on ‘The Road Not Taken’
One last thing to note: The Parkways Projects has grown from both a simple, thankful idea and that promise made to my Mom and Dad one year just before the turn of the century. To write about the peculiar, at times bizarre, but always fascinating trips we took to the shore and the mountains, most especially the August Mondo Gonzo Vacations, will be a joy for me, and at times reflections in the waters of sadness. But that is Life, after all. Those were rather epic vacations, for they happened in the thick of upheaval, revolution, assassinations, the Civil Rights Movement and a war few Americans had wanted. Then, for me, there were the Hippies! My parents had portents of fear that someday, on some part of a spur Appalachian Trail, that I would disappear.
In a way, I did exactly that.
As to my promise to my parents? The vacations, the stories, instances and happenings; the ups, and the downs, are the heart and core of his project. But in 2019, when I finally returned to the East, I realized that 2019 was 50 years exactly to the beginning of August, 1969. And all things had changed, for each of the four of us in our car, as it was for our home town, our region, and our country. I left the day after having that realization in 2019, and decided to drive the entire length of both Parkways, photographing along the way, and the creative part of me, the history buff hidden within, saw there was so much more to be written, due to circumstances. And observations.
This is the result of that four weeks spent on the Parkways in 2019.
Stay up-to-date if you wish, or disable if you’d prefer to follow me without emails. But I do hope you’ll sign on!
“Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.” ≈ Substack
I’m not sure on the App’s full advantages yet, but after adding it to my phone the day before yesterday, I’m getting the sense of it. The coolest thing is, it will allow me to make drops from the field, no matter the location save for signal. I’m thinking that will be one of the bennies for paid subscribers.
I will not be signing onto Starlink by the way. Ever. I may one day grab the tail of Halley’s Comet. I’d much prefer that adventure.
I have lived up in Appalachia five times and all were short not by plan but currents. Mythic, storied but all too short.
The Southern Blue Ridge mountains are deeply and richly populated with the stories of the people who have lived there from the beginning to the present. Appalachia is a Way of Life, it is a zeitgeist of what it is to be human, to connect, to thrive through rough terrain, from craggy and worn mountain thickets of laurel to the dark and dense peaks of ancient balsam. It is in every way a truly ancient environment, with a new classification of ‘Temperate Mountain Rain Forest.’ The Smokies did not come by that part of their name somehow, they just always were that. I believe they have seen it all before.
‘The Parkways Projects’ began to form as an idea before my Father became ill in the late 1990’s, dying in 2010. Ours were the longings of visiting, camping, and wandering both sides of the Appalachians to experience as best we could then comprehend for Sandhills Flatlanders. America was in upheaval, for I’m speaking of the years 1963 through 1972. Those were the years I made a core promise to my parents, that on my return East, I’d tell our story, finagling our way through steeply graded declines into deeply encased small towns and villages. Time had seemingly abandoned them, but shadows bathed them for hours and hours of the days. The shadows never forgot the people; the people I have met from those mountains, no matter where in the country I have met them, have never forgotten the Shadows. But those years introduced great changes to the region, and because of that, the Arts, both Literary and Visual, began to metamorphose. The Zeitgeists, they were a’changin’…
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
