Have you ever read The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien? No? I’ll wait here while you go do that.

Back already? My, you are a fast reader. OK, so now you know about the Ents. If you cheated and didn’t go do the reading, I’ll fill you in. Tolkien created beings called Ents as a part of his vast, sprawling universe. The Ents were essentially walking, talking, fully sentient trees. They were huge, lumbering, wise, and wholly terrifying. They made for powerful allies and dreaded enemies. They were good, but they were not to be messed with.

When our family first moved to Tennessee in 1982, we wanted to see and experience as much as we could in the area—the more inexpensive, the better. One place that caught our attention was Red Clay State Historic Park. Like all of Tennessee’s parks, this one has no admission.

With the leaves off the hardwood trees, plants that remain green show up more prominently and are a handsome contrast to the “dead of winter”. Two that you are likely to see in the mountains are rhododendron and mountain laurel, which look similar and are often confused.

Union County is laid out in beautiful mountains and valleys of prestigious land by nature, but in order for the land to inhibit its full potential, we the people must do our part to keep it clean. Dump sites and roadside litter are perceived regularly across the county and citizens and the community must work together to minimize the litter epidemic.

Until I began working for Hamilton County Schools at Birchwood Elementary, I had not heard of the Tennessee Sandhill Crane Festival (or Birchwood TN Sandhill Crane Festival). I don’t know why not. This is a gem of an educational and fun opportunity.

Most hiring managers don’t know that people who are blind can read just as well as people who can see -- because of new technology. Screen readers allow blind or visually impaired users to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or braille display.

Although doctors of chiropractic treat more than just back pain, many patients initially visit a chiropractor looking for relief from this pervasive condition. In fact, about 31 million Americans experience low back pain at any given time. Some interesting facts:

Back pain can affect people of all ages, from adolescents to the elderly. Experts estimate that up to 80% of the population will experience back pain at some time in their lives.

Back pain is the third most common reason for visits to the doctor’s office, behind skin disorders and osteoarthritis/joint disorders.

As many of us who grew up around Luttrell would attest, the railroad holds a special place in our childhoods: walking the tracks, smashing pennies or hearing the train whistle late at night on a coal run to Middlesboro. In our county's history, the coming of the railroad, too, had an impact on lives. Today's society may take for granted the magnitude that railroad accessibility has had on the development of Union County.

Welcome to 2020! One hundred years ago, it was 1920, the start of a decade of American history known as “The Roaring Twenties”. Were we able to, as my mother once said, be a genie for a day and turn back time one hundred years. How strange it would seem.

I would not go to sleep wearing my CPAP machine, watching one of four televisions in my house as I went to sleep. I would not awake to that same television in the morning and place my CPAP into a machine that would clean it for me at a preset time during the day while I was at work.

You would think I would have learned by now not to always be in such a hurry. Apparently I haven’t.

A few days before Christmas, I was wrapping presents in the basement. I had retrieved two canisters of chocolate covered raisins to wrap up for my husband Tim. Carrying one in each hand, I ran back down the stairs. Yeah, you read it right. I was running down the stairs. And since I was carrying the presents, I couldn’t hold on to the railing.