Bill and Alice Hart know each other’s stories by heart, have been known to finish each other’s sentences and share an obvious trait — the calm satisfaction of having led purpose-filled lives. 

The seeds of that satisfaction began the old-fashioned way — through courtship. William “Bill” Hart, of rural Buncombe County, met Alice Huff, of Sylva, 67 years ago at Western Carolina Teachers College.

On Independence Day 2026, the United States will have reached 250 years of sovereign nationhood, marked by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

America250 was spearheaded by a Congressional caucus and supporting nonprofit as “a bipartisan initiative working to engage every American in the 250th anniversary of the United States.” 

Events culminate July 4, inviting the public to “pause and reflect on our nation’s past, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look ahead toward the future we want to create.” 

“Attention must be paid.”

Linda Loman, wife of Willy Loman, delivers that well-known line in Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman.” Willy is crash-diving into catastrophe, suffering from exhaustion, failure and delusions, and Linda wants her sons to step up and pity and support their father: “He put his whole life into you and you’ve turned your back on him.” she tells them, “So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.” 

Growing up in Swain County, Nathan Dee Greene ate a lot of apples. The family had several trees of their own, but every fall, they bought bushels from the nearby orchard on Laurel Branch, across the Tuckasegee River from Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

In what will amount to an early Christmas present for bluegrass pickers and music lovers across Western North Carolina and beyond, there’s a brand-new album from the late Carroll Best. 

“What he did with the banjo was above and beyond,” said French Kirkpatrick, a Haywood County musician, who was part of The White Oak String Band with Best. “He was, probably without a doubt, the most creative banjo player I was ever in a room with.” 

On Oct. 1, Republican-controlled Congress shut down the federal government, bringing a renewed round of confusion, finger-pointing and uncertainty to tourism-reliant Southern Appalachia — a region still paying the price for generational poverty, and still struggling with recovery from Hurricane Helene more than one year ago.  

Of all the chapters that I read and reviewed in my most recent review of the book “Letters From the Smokies” in Smoky Mountain Living (June-July 2025), the story of the Walker Sisters was the one story that got my attention probably more than any of the others.

At this point, I would like to tell you about my great-great grandfather, Bryant Carden, who joined the Confederacy. Bryant was known for writing wonderful letters in calligraphy, and the illustration below, of a bird in flight, is an example. 

As part of the multi-year America 250 NC effort, Haywood County’s Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution and the Haywood County America 250 NC team will host a historical presentation by George Washington’s favorite general — sort of. 

One of the best things about the mountains of Western North Carolina is that even in places we’ve seen a hundred times, we can always find something new and intriguing. This is a lesson Nancy East, an avid hiker and seasoned search-and-rescue operator, learned over and over again as she wrote her second book, “Historic Hikes in Western North Carolina.”