afterword

In the closing days of November 2016, I was adding the finishing pages to Ephemeral by Nature, the afterword. And I learned yet another meaning of being short lived.

On Monday evening, November 28, a modest wildfire in the national park was whipped to a frenzy by unusually high winds and blew downslope into my hometown of Gatlinburg. Within an hour or so, perhaps only a matter of minutes or even seconds a fury of flames was swept from ridge to ridge and down into the Baskins Creek watershed. The childhood home of my sister Darlene and I plus all of the houses and homes we knew as kids playing in the street and creek burned to the ground.  

Our home was built by my father and grandfather in the late 1940s. My parents spent their entire 60 year marriage there. We celebrated roughly 50 Christmases in front of the fireplace, the only thing left standing in the days that followed was the chimney. Even the grass burned away. 

All gone. Ephemeral all. 

The little family-shared cabin on Baskins Creek where I did the final edits to my second UT Press: Ghost Birds. 


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