Little Journeys
Knowing What’s Wrong
July 3, 2021It was an overcast, soon to be rainy morning, perfect for backing our car and truck out of the garage to make room for a fresh woodworking project. At the top of my long list was a low bench that would serve as both a coffee table and a …
Read More...Having a Drink with Scott
June 27, 2021Several years ago I published a column entitled “Having a Drink with Gus,” written after I had spent a few hours in a Manhattan bar which had once been the Craftsman Building, a grand showroom for Gustav Stickley’s Arts and Crafts businesses. Today I am sitting …
Read More...Close Encounters of the Deer Kind
June 19, 2021Like many of you, here in Western North Carolina we have had to learn to share our backyards and gardens with whitetail deer. More recently, as our urban sprawl has invaded their natural habitat, we have also experienced a growing number of encounters with black bears, especially the night …
Read More...Rules of Disengagement
June 12, 2021We’ve all known since high school that drinking and driving don’t mix, but now we need to add antiques to that formula. A few weeks ago, an inebriated guest at the Omni Grove Park Inn swerved off course and collided with one of the Roycroft dining chairs on …
Read More...Second Endings
June 6, 2021Sometimes things just don’t turn out the way we had planned. At least not the first time. Last year one of my stay-at-home Covid projects was building a three-foot tall concrete block wall separating Leigh Ann’s west garden from the steep hillside below it. Gravity had gradually …
Read More...Memories of Memorial Days
May 30, 2021This article is a republication and has been edited to include archived images of the author’s father and family. Original date of publication: May 27th, 2012. There will be hundreds of columns written this week on the meaning of Memorial Day, the least insightful of which will be this …
Read More...To Build a Fence
May 23, 2021Trust me, I never intended to build it myself. A sudden spring flood had deposited three inches of sandy silt on our three existing pastures, effectively choking out the young grass Leigh Ann’s horses depend on during the summer months. While the reasons could be debated, the fact …
Read More...Arts and Crafts Church Camp
May 16, 2021It has been called a cruise ship lodged atop a mountain. Make that an Arts and Crafts cruise ship…. When the Grove Park Inn opened on July 12, 1913, guests did not come simply for one night, nor did they come with expectations of leaving the ship, …
Read More...Looking For a Little Common Sense
April 30, 2021Those of us who did not grow up with computers freely admit and marvel over how computers have changed our lives. While still a classroom teacher, I wrote my first book, a study guide for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped for Monarch Notes, a rival of Cliff Notes, on a …
Read More...Lumber Shock
April 24, 2021If you are planning a summer building project of any size, brace yourself for a shock. First, the lumber aisles at Lowes and Home Depot are looking like the toilet paper aisle during the panic days of the pandemic. Second, any wood you do find is (a.) picked …
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Bruce Johnson
Author, Columnist and Director of the National Arts & Crafts Conference at The Grove Park Inn since 1988
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