(05-25-2023, 09:21 AM)Bally002 Wrote: This was great. I'll certainly look into more of Horton's vids and check out his books. Never heard of the man but then I'm downunder.
Kind regards,
Bally)
His dad and my mom went to high school together. His family settled on Horton's Ridge, which is the ridge directly west on my house - when I step outside and look west, I'm staring directly at the broad side of Horton's Ridge. My family cemetery is on the crest of that ridge, about 1100 meters from where I sit right now, and my ma was raised in a house about 2/3 of the way up a holler in the ridge, the mouth of which opens right here at my current house, just across the road.
When I moved back home, his dad was the first person I went to see. He was an instructor at a local community college at the time, and dabbled in local politics, so he had a good finger on the pulse of the area such that I could get good advice and pointers from him on which way to proceed after all the changes that a 30 year absence engendered.
Franklin was also a student at Virginia Intermont College during the time I got kicked out of that stalwart institution. There was a lot of drinking and brainstorming that went on in his dorm room prior to that expulsion. We worked together at a local radio station as announcers (WLRV) many moons ago, in the early 1980's.
It's not surprising that you've never heard of him before, being half way around the world and all. His story is a story of a "local boy who did good", and I can't quite wrap my head around it myself - he's always been, and will likely always be, Franklin to me, rather than Horton the Author.
But man alive, can that gent ever weave a tale!
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