Unique Serving Platter

The Carter family is one of the most important groups in the history of country and old time music. It is a popular belief that bluegrass traces back as far as Bill Monroe and farther, but it actually goes all of the way back to the music of the Carter Family, and before that goes all of the way back to Ireland. Many of the most important songs found the origin of their popularity in the renditions done by this famous country family, and so for anyone who likes country, bluegrass, or old time music, this is definitely the place to start.

As a member of the Carter family tree, I am proud to be able to trace my lineage back to this awesome and talented family. It does not really seem like it is right to take their accomplishments as my own, but still, since I have discovered that I am a member of this line, it is hard not to feel something for it. It just is really an incredible feeling to know that, while other people’s grandparents were working hard in whatever their chosen trade, mine were able to make a living and become enduring legends, off of their beautiful singing and playing. There are not too many people who can really make that claim, and I am proud to be one of the proud few who can. The Carter family are really an amazing part of American culture and in my daily life, I do my best to try to carry on their legacy in what little ways that I can. It is not always too much, but I have begun singing down at the local coffee shop, trying to make something of my own little melodies. Doing what you can, as my mother always used to say, is the most important thing.

Of course, if you have never listened to Carter family recordings, they may just sound a little bit strange to you. They are, after all, some pretty old music and so you should probably take your time to get to listen to them with older ears before passing judgment. Times have changed and that can make it hard to really listen to old music with an open ear, but I think that it is always worth trying to. You should think how much you could gain from it. It might enrich your life.

It was a pretty serious blow when I found out that we couldn’t go on vacation this year. My wife and I both work very hard, but usually we are able to synchronize our vacations. That didn’t happen this summer. We have a few days of overlap, but definitely not enough time to get out of town. We knew that we would have, at most, a day or two at a time to spend with their kids. Besides that, the only real summer recreation time we had were a few half days and holiday weekends. Although we could technically take mini vacations, it just didn’t seem worth it. All of that packing and driving just to spend a day on the beach? No thanks! Instead, we decided to make our own fun right in our own backyard.

The idea of backyard fun was pretty foreign to my family up until this summer. The backyard swing set, once the center of attention, had been neglected for years. We have three kids of varying ages, so we had to find some backyard games that would work for everyone. The first thing we thought of was croquet. Although teenagers may roll their eyes and moan, croquet is still one of the best forms of backyard fun for the whole family. Everyone, from the smallest to the biggest, can play this game.

For the older kids and grownups, badminton is an excellent form of backyard fun. What’s so great about this game is that it doesn’t require anything but a net, paddles and a birdie. You don’t need a court or any specialized equipment to play it. You can buy a whole badminton set for under 50 dollars if you find it at the right place. Even my teenage daughter got into it once she realized that, every now and then, she could beat her old man.

We also had plenty of backyard water fun. Although we didn’t have a pool, we did have some squirt guns and water balloons. I thought this would be a great game, but it got a little bit too competitive pretty quickly. At first it was good clean backyard fun, but then my littlest one got hit in the head with a water balloon and started crying. That ended that game pretty quickly. We decided to break out the bocce ball set instead. That was the kind of backyard fun where no one would get hurt.