Sylvia Russell remembers how crucial it was to wear the “right” clothes to school, how the “right” outfit could win the acceptance of peers.

I never realized little old ladies had such sharp elbows, or just how willing they were to use them, until my first experience with the Friends of the Library book sale at the Waynesville library several years ago.

A whirlwind of global cultures, languages, costumes, music and dance has landed in WNC this week. The annual arrival of the Folkmoot international music and dance festival is a welcome respite from the mid-summer doldrums. 

Ever since we splurged on a $2.99 plastic magician’s wand at Santa’s Land last year, my daughter has treated us to the occasional magic show in the living room. They are 90 percent theatrics, and 10 percent tricks. 

My husband is from South Carolina — the state where you don’t have to wear helmets on a motorcycle and you can detonate a backyard fireworks’ show packing enough TNT to last Wile E. Coyote for a lifetime. 

As a kid, my sister and I had an unspoken pact. If one of us heard Cyndi Lauper come on the radio, we promptly ran through the house hollering “Come quick, she’s on!” 

We have lots of bug barns in our house: from the old-fashioned Mason jar with holes punched in the lid to a new-fangled, plastic-domed “ladybug playground” with tiny slides and such.

I wager in most families bug barns are relegated to the backyard. Ours, however, take up residence on the kitchen table, with up to four bug barns simultaneously occupied by caterpillars, ants, moths, beetles and even spiders.

Count my daughter among the millions of kids whose first word was “doggy.” For a several-week stretch, “doggy” was also her only word. She used it liberally, be it a salutation for the grocery store clerk or pointing out a squirrel in the backyard.

We don’t have a dog anymore, but there’s something about dogs. Kids just love them. Mine are no exception.

The number of children in foster care in Haywood County is on the rise, a depressing sign for Department of Social Services workers whose first goal is to keep a family together.

“Growing up in foster care or growing up in an institution is no way to grow up,” said Ira Dove, director of the county’s Department of Social Services. Dove presented his case to the Haywood County Board of Commissioners Monday, requesting additional money to pay for the increasing costs of running foster care.

Some schools are thinking twice about the long standing practice of passing out fast-food coupons to children as rewards.