In the mid-1960s, when Bill Allsbrook was a med school student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he decided to pick up the banjo. 

A newly released book from the Great Smoky Mountains Association compiles written accounts from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s archives spanning more than 230 years. 

International hiker and writer Jen Seymour will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 8, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin.

As days lengthen and temperatures rise, black bears begin to move around in the woods searching for insects, nuts and berries. They also look for food in the gateway communities outside Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The 1900s were just a few years along when a young man named Masahara Iizuka stepped on American soil for the first time. Around 26 years old, he’d arrived in California to pursue a career in engineering, having studied the subject at Meiji University back in Tokyo.

Maggie Wallem Rowe will be reading from her newest book, "Life is Sweet, Y'all: Wit and Wisdom with a Side of Sass," from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 28. The book is a humorous collection of inspirational life lessons with tips, quips and vintage recipes representing the best in Southern cooking. Drop by to meet Maggie, enjoy the discussion and have some homemade treats. 

An oral history project documenting African American history in the far western reaches of North Carolina is now a book, thanks to Waynesville’s Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center.

“I guess the motivation was because Haywood County just doesn’t have very much documented history of African Americans,” said Lyn Forney, the director of the Pigeon Center.

The books have once again piled up in stacks up to three feet high in many corners of the house. It’s time to get organized. Easier said than done. Un-shelving and reorganizing and re-shelving books is tricky business, with multiple options that can be endlessly fascinating and frustrating. But it’s an innocent species of self-therapy that I look to — for the most part.

Those who read this column regularly are aware of my interest in the early descriptive literature of Western North Carolina. Whenever possible, I like to collect copies — first editions or reprints — of these often rare books. And I like to share some of the descriptions via this column from time to time.

The Fourth of July, 1976, was just around the corner when George and Elizabeth Ellison embarked on a hike that would change their lives forever. The two were walking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when their wandering brought them to the park’s edge, a remote and beautiful cove with a bubbling stream flowing through it.

SEE ALSO: Ellison releases new title