(Editor’s Note: Amid the chaos of the recent floods from Hurricane Helene, this column wasn’t able to run in the Oct. 2 issue of The Smoky Mountain News due to space issues in the midst of crisis.)

Hello from Room 13 at the Seabirds Motel in Kure Beach, North Carolina. Saturday morning.

If there’s one word to describe singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, it would be persistent.

From humble and hardscrabble beginnings as a performer in dive bars and back rooms throughout the Midwest in the late 1970s and early 1980s to international acclaim just a decade later, Etheridge has remained a beacon of creativity and purpose throughout the decades — where now words like “legend” and “icon” tend to precede her name in the bright lights of show business. 

Question: Does Milk Cause Mucus When You Have a Cold? 

Haywood County hadn’t logged a coronavirus-related death in the better part of a year. But since Dec. 19, 2023, it has seen five.  

Most people don’t contribute to the world over a lifetime what Charlotte Joy Norris did in just two short years.   

I’ve never doubted I’m an old soul, so maybe my attachment to herbal remedies and plant-based eating is connected to another lifetime when nature and humans functioned more synergistically.

Recent cases of malaria in Texas and Florida have caused alarm about the potential for the disease to spread in warmer regions of the United States, but according to mosquito researcher Brian Byrd, a different type of mosquito-borne illness is of greater concern in Western North Carolina.

The number of positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are once again on the rise due to the delta variant, which is more contagious than the original virus. Despite mask recommendations from the CDC and state health officials, several school systems have decided to make masks optional when students return to class.

When you’ve been sick long enough, your perception of reality begins to change. A couple of days may be no worse than a slightly uncomfortable vacation at home watching the game show channel or reading old magazines or telling people how miserable you are on Facebook. You force fluids, you sleep as much as you can, you get over it. It is sort of like enduring an unpleasant visit from people you don’t much like.

Ashton Zari turns 7 on Christmas Eve, and even though he is in Columbus, Ohio, seeking medical treatment, his only birthday wish is for his community members back home in Macon County to make a donation to a great cause.