It was 1980, nearly Christmas. I went to visit my friend Paula who roomed with Connie in Mars Hill. Fell hard for the mountains and got a job in Spruce Pine, editing The Tri-County News and writing feature stories about older mountain people who at the end of the interview would often ask if I wanted to spend “of the night”. I rented a postage stamp of an apartment and lived off Swiss cheese and white bread sandwiches slathered in Duke’s mayonnaise and washed down with gallons of hot tea. I rented from a kind woman who taught English at Mitchell Community College. On Friday nights I’d meet Connie at Micaville Elementary to contradance. I’d either go back with her to Mars Hill or she’d come to my apartment. Midweek when the paper came out, I’d reward myself by buying a record from the little record store on Lower Street. One week I bought Emmylou Harris’s Christmas album. I’d turn out the lights, lay back on my little bed and look out at the night sky and listen to Emmylou sing “Light of the Stable”. I’d get up half a dozen more times to move the needle back to hear it again. Tonight, I’m listening to that very same album, scratches and all.