A Day in Hickory

A normal day.  Nice day.  High temperature about 78°, clear  skies, soft breezes.  Oktoberfest is on one of our horizons, rising slightly.  How to spend this day before sending it off into the record of "past events"?  Well, to begin with, writing – but writing is hard to do on such a nice day as this.  Dog walking?  Oh yes, but the doggies can only walk so far.  They don't see the sky, they see the grass instead, and clumps of weeds, and fireplugs, and they walk in a trance, breathing in worlds we will never know,  pausing occasionally to read their p-mail, comment, scratch it in deeply and walk on self-righestously.

But it is a wonderful day in Hickory.  There's more to do.  We go to the Democratic Headquarters and pick up voter registration forms and then go on to the Patrick Beaver Library.  We get some wonderful coffee from the new Taste Full Books, the delicious branch of Taste Full Beans now at the library, (mine was cafe latté, (deLICious!)), and we meet some 60 people coming in and out of the library.  "Pardon me, are you registered to vote?"  Most said "Yes!", many gave us a thumbs-up.  But we also encountered five foreigners and two felons.  (Felons CAN vote in North Carolina under certain  conditions).  We also met members of the Hickory International Council who were meeting to determine actions to 

take in the coming months.

Then back home to walk the doggies again, and then back downtown again.  Not easy.  Ten minutes each way.  At least.  Maybe eleven. We spent a little bit of time looking at some of the art exhibitions currently on display in Downtown Hickory, now in one of its "Art Crawls".  Some 22 different venues have art ranging from jewelry to statuary to paintings to photography and all of this is under the aegis of music from street musicians.

But onward.  On to the Old Hickory Tap Room.  The Belfast Boys are playing tonight.  There will be singing and dancing and the night will be filled with music.  Ireland will be front and center and the place is filled with people who have Ireland not only deep inside their souls but also shining brightly on their sleeves.  Adrian Rice and Alyn Mearns, both natives of Belfast, Ireland, thrilled their congregation with mana from heaven.  Meanwhile, the Old Hickory Tap Room took care of more basic basics such as jerked chicken breast, Rueben sandwiches and great craft beer from the Old Hickory Tap Room Brewery.  We had "Oktoberfest", then "Death by Hops", and of course, "Irish Walker".

Then back home to the doggies again.  It was a great day.  Another great day in Hickory.

Click on photos for enlargement.