I met Tom Nash at a class for musicians at Tryon Fine Arts Center shortly after I retired in 1988. I learned that Tom played the double bass and was a retired mechanical engineering professor at Duke University. When we later reported a visit with Tom and Muriel to our daughter Sharon, she remarked that we “didn’t have a thing to talk about, did you?”

Subsequent visits never changed that… we talked of steam engines and locomotives, riverboat cruises, piano tuning theory and practice and all manner of other things. Muriel kept the snacks coming and the ladies participated equally in the wide-ranging conversations. Muriel had played flute when she was younger, but neither flute nor bass made an appearance during our visits.
Muriel used to arrive for her stint as a docent at the Polk County Historical Association (PCHA) with scrapbook and newspapers in hand. She clipped any articles with historic content and added them to the scrapbook until it was full. She would bring a brand-new book she had bought next time, and I would print out new title pages for her. I was pleased that she considered my columns worthy of inclusion.
I met Tom Moore during our high school years and always enjoy “another bout” with him. We never know what the other will say, so we are always alert for the next quip. I am always happy when a friend finds a new life companion when they have the misfortune to outlive a spouse. It did not take me long to have the same appreciation for Sylvia that I have for Tom. She always gave as good as she got, and seemed always to be happy. I believe that both of them would be classified by their many friends as bona fide “characters.”
I wrote at some length about friend Arthur Hale during our brief but productive association. He researched and wrote papers about local roadways and I helped prepare them for publication by PCHA. He got a historical marker set up at a Howard Gap Road intersection in Henderson County. During these endeavors Fran and I met his wife Ethyl, for whom he carved a beautiful pie crust table as a wedding present.