Editor’s note: As part of Xpress‘ annual Kids Issue series we invited readers to submit past stories from their childhood in WNC. This is one of several entries.
In 1974, my family moved from Dallas, Texas, to a farm in Marshall when I was 9. Our new home was an old cabin populated by wild critters, including a blacksnake that once shed its skin on my chest while I slept.
My sisters and I spent that first summer helping our father reclaim kudzu-choked land and digging a pond. The pond was fed by a spring from which I often drank handfuls of crisp water, thinking, “This is life!”…