Our Third Anniversary Issue

By Susan M. Thigpen © 1986

Issue: March, 1986

Dear Readers,

Heffingers Mill, Mayberry, Virginia. Circa 1915.Yep, it's been three years this month since the first issue of The Mountain Laurel. Three years that we feel has been a "marriage" between readers and writers. So many of you have been so generous in sharing your wonderful stories with us all. To all of you who have contributed in every way, we say thank you.

Our goal was to preserve some of the good old time stories of the Blue Ridge and share its "bigger-than-life" way of life and beauty with others. Readers have responded from all over the country proving that when you share the Blue Ridge, that love doesn't diminish by giving it away, it grows.

In this issue, we want to give you readers a present. We have had so many requests for copies of our first issue. We regret that we do not have any issues left to send. Those of you who have copies of that first issue from March of 1983 number few among our present number of subscribers. As our present to you, we are printing a few stories in this issue that appeared in that first issue. We hope you enjoy them.

[Update: The stories we reprinted were

Mountain Memories - Matt Burnett

Pretenses

Spring Tonic - Good for What Ails You]

When we look back over the stories The Mountain Laurel has printed over the past three years if they had been told by an old time storyteller, he would just now be getting wound up good.

Everyday life here was an endless source of amazing stories. The surface hasn't even been scratched yet.

Many things have changed over these past three years, but then again, not really that much. We are still printing stories from the Heart of the Blue Ridge and hope that you think as we do, that they are getting better and better.