Stitched Together: Stories of a Kentucky Life

Stitched Together: Stories of a Kentucky Life

by Bob Thompson
Stitched Together: Stories of a Kentucky Life

Stitched Together: Stories of a Kentucky Life

by Bob Thompson

Hardcover

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Overview

When Bob Thompson asked his granny years ago why she continued to create so many of her beautiful quilts, she said it was the only way she could reach across time, touching and giving her descendants her energy. And just like his granny, Thompson's gift of storytelling provides a reverence and buoyancy all its own. This collection combines personal and family experiences to create a patchwork quilt of gripping stories with the comfort of memory.

Thompson draws on his mother's seventy years of diaries, handwritten notes, and recipe cards to reveal that every story, no matter how small, has some wisdom to impart. He describes how, as a child, he would pass his days on the front porch of his granny's country store in western Kentucky and listen to regulars swap stories and spin yarns, which cemented his passion for storytelling. His granny's methods of quilting provide an interesting perspective on life: "She never hurried; her stitches were small and even. Fascinated with numbers, I counted as many as eight hundred per square and did the math, sixteen thousand for a twin-bed-sized quilt! When I mentioned that some of Great-Grandmother Brim's quilts had stitches so large that you could get your big toe caught in them, Granny smiled and said, 'It's not the size of the stitches that count, it's the spaces between them.'"

Thompson's poignant narratives of community, friends, and family impart the significance of the quiet moments and meaningful spaces between everyday events. In doing so, they demonstrate that there is something to be gained from every human experience.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813178066
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Publication date: 10/15/2019
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 5.70(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Bob Thompson is chairman and program director for Louisville-based Corn Island Storytelling, which produces the Corn Island Storytelling Festival and the Kentucky Homefront Radio show. He is the author of Hitchhiker: Stories from the Kentucky Homefront.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Lee Pennington
Introduction
Bunk's Bull
Harp
Rocket Science
Motorsports
Balerman
Not Much Danger
The Entertainer
Threads
Beta Club
Ben
Rupp
Treachery
Spelling Bee
Cats
Boundaries
Hunter
Tree Climber
Catfish Throw
Jump
That's My Dad
Running
Flagger
Searchlight
Old Fart
The Call
Traveling Lite
Going Down
Garages
Periwinkles
The Internet of Things
Teetum
Sangria

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Bob Thompson informs, inspires, and entertains with his authentic, unique style. The "stitches" and spaces speak profoundly of universal experiences we all share." — Roberta Simpson Brown, coauthor of Haunted Holidays: Twelve Months of Kentucky Ghosts


"Thompson has stitched a lyrical quilt, the cultural fabric of the home place. His memories, harvested from his own personal timeline, are the context for wit and poignance; they lead us to a deeper awareness of those moments when eternity intersects the quotidian details of our ordinary days." — John Gage

John Gage

"Thompson has stitched a lyrical quilt, the cultural fabric of the home place. His memories, harvested from his own personal timeline, are the context for wit and poignance; they lead us to a deeper awareness of those moments when eternity intersects the quotidian details of our ordinary days."

Roberta Simpson Brown

"Bob Thompson informs, inspires, and entertains with his authentic, unique style. The "stitches" and spaces speak profoundly of universal experiences we all share."

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