While I’m sitting and looking out the window of the local laundromat here in West Waynesville, I notice how dirty my rusty, musty, trusty pickup truck has become since I last washed it, which, I think, may have been last winter or so. One year’s worth of dirt along endless miles of unforgiving roads, both geographically and spiritually. 

In the midst of eating my third hard-boiled egg of the morning, I overheard the young couple at the next breakfast table mention to their server that they’d gotten married this past Saturday. 

Taking a sip of my second cup of coffee, my gaze went from the newlyweds to the nearby roaring fireplace, then out the big glass windows onto the picturesque pond on the side lawn of the majestic property. 

By the time this newspaper hits the streets on Nov. 12, it will have been 70 years to the day since Marty McFly was accidentally sent back to the future (1955) in a time machine created by Doctor Emmitt Brown in Hill Valley, California. The film was “Back to the Future,” which just celebrated its 40th anniversary. 

Today was pretty surreal. I spoke to students for “High School Media Day” at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Folks from around the region. Mine was simply titled: “Music Journalism, Garret Woodward, Rolling Stone & Magazine Writer.” 

With the late afternoon sunshine piercing through the tree canopy above the road leading into the Tsali Recreation Area on the Graham/Swain County line, the sounds of “One Alone Together” by F.J. McMahon echoed out of the truck speakers, windows rolled down with a cool fall breeze swirling around me.  

Last week, I received an email one morning from a reader of this here column. He said he enjoyed the words spilling out over this one particular page every week, then asked if I had thought about putting out a book. It had been awhile since that notion floated through my mind. And, truth be told, it dusted off some aspirations I’ve been keeping in the closet of my mind for too long.  

The title of this week’s column is a lyric from a song by rising singer-songwriter Angela Autumn. The melody, “Electric Lizard,” is an incredibly haunting number, especially the solo rendition (just her and guitar) on the EP under the verbiage “Live from NYC.”  

It’s Wednesday, Oct. 1. Midday. I was awakened, once again, by the incessant construction just outside my window on nearby Walnut Street in downtown Waynesville. But, thankfully, the abrupt disruption of my slumber was calmed by the early fall sunshine cascading into my bedroom window.  

Hello from Room 304 at the Delta Hotel in Bristol, Virginia. Sitting here at the desk, I can hear the hustle and bustle of nearby Interstate 81. Right outside my window, the howling of tractor-trailers zooming by into the unknown night, either heading south over border into Tennessee or the depths of the Shenandoah Valley going north. 

I’ll never get that smell out of my memory. The stench of mud and rotting debris. Most of you reading this will immediately know what I’m referring to — the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024. And yet, that stench was already in my stored subconscious, seeing as I first encountered it with the aftermath of Tropical Storm Fred in 2021.