In the Lake?

No, not yet, that will be the end-of-summer celebration, when the entire crew and cast of OTL will immerse ourselves in the cool waters of Wallum to mark our approach to final cut. Beer and barbecue will follow back at Midway North...

This was Dave and me on the lake (and posing by an old truck) in Badin, North Carolina, where we spent last night and much of today as guests of our good friends Martha and Andy Kinnecom, who own the spectacular Badin Inn Golf Resort & Club. Dave will blog more soon, but trust me, this is a little piece of heaven. I will definitely be returning soon with Yolanda. We may even golf. Golf? No, that's no errant line. The Badin course is awesome.

I digress.

Dave and I came to North Carolina to interview a man now in his 60s who was a young boy at Wallum Lake in the early 1950s, one of the first to receive new drug treatments of the time that at long last cured TB patients and spelled the end of the sanatorium era. We mentioned him in an earlier blog (look for the photo of the kid-on-his-back with the bulb-nose Shriners' clown) and his story summary, by phone and email, compelled us to fly south to get him on camera. He did not disappoint. He talked for over half an hour about his time at WL, and this interview, supplemented by his still photos and film footage, just puts OTL further over the top. A great trip, all-in-all. Dave and I also came up with another idea for a project that we really love, and if it passes our new one-month rule (i.e., we still like it in a month), we'll be moving forward.

OK, midnight nears and I am back in glorious Pascoag, Rhode Island, in the same happy little town as Wallum Lake, just a few miles up the road, how weird is fate that I wound up here. It's time to sign off, from my home in the fresh air and the woods not on -- but very near -- the lake.

-- Wayne