The morning sun often slices through the trees of our back yard in the morning and spotlights one of the reasons why we chose to move to the Blue Ridge Mountains after 23 years in Washington.  I shot this picture in 2005 because I thought it captured the beauty of life right in our back yard.

Visitors who consider moving here often ask: "Can you make a living in Floyd?" I often shrug and respond that "it depends on what you want to do and what you consider to be a living."

Amy and I made a good living for most of our lives. She was an actress and later a regional sales manager for the May Company. I was a journalist, a political operative and even a business crisis communications consultant for a while before returning to journalism. When people ask what it takes to make a living in Floyd, I usually tell them that you have to work twice as long to earn half as much but always add that the effort is worth the time.

Why? Because settling here is not about making a living. It’s about making a life. I’d much rather photograph a high school basketball game than try to jostle a hundred other photographers for position to shoot another boring politician. I’d rather jump out of the way of an onrushing football player than dodge a Humvee in a war zone.

We didn’t come here to make a living. We came to make a life — one far removed from the plastic, self-imposed stressful existence in the urban jungle. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to places most people only read about and do things that were far beyond my wildest dreams when I left Floyd in 1965. I’ve got a beautiful, loving wife, family and friends throughout the county, a great home and a lifestyle that starts with walking out into my back yard to greet sunrises like the one above.

In the last few weeks, some people are tried, unsuccessfully, to take my living away from me.

They’re missing the point. Making a living here is not that important. Making a life is.

(Photo taken in June 2005. The sun’s rays were enhanced with Photoshop)

A local t-shirt maker features an image of the gaz-guzzling Hummer under the word "Bummer." That pretty much sums up how General Motors, the parent company of Hummer is feeling about the tricked up off-road monster that gets about 15 miles a gallon on the open road.

Reports The Washington Post:

Reacting to growing consumer sentiment, General Motors chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. said yesterday that the world’s biggest automaker will consider revamping or selling off some of the world’s biggest passenger vehicles — the Hummer line.

Is there any vehicle that so incites the ire, the anger, the reptile-brain rage of a group of people? Is there any other vehicle that has suffered as much defacement by eco-vandals?

Indeed, the Hummer has achieved greater success as a symbol, a cudgel and an in-your-face badge of defiance than as a statistically significant market. Hummers accounted for less than 1 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States last year.

Yesterday, Wagoner conceded what much of America has been thinking for some time: We want smaller vehicles. Gasoline at $4 per gallon (for now!) will do that to you.

Before GM’s annual meeting yesterday in Wilmington, Del., Wagoner said the automaker is "undertaking a strategic review of the Hummer brand, to determine its fit with GM’s evolving product portfolio."

High fuel costs are hurting sales of GM’s high-profit trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Wagoner said yesterday that GM will close four production plants and start making more small vehicles, which the Hummer decidedly is not.

"At this point," Wagoner said, "we are considering all options for the Hummer brand . . . everything from a complete revamp of the product lineup to partial or complete sale of the brand."

Sell it? Like, to whom?

For sale: One vilified vehicle division. Makes four-ton SUVs that get 15 miles per gallon downhill with a tail wind. Comes with dental floss to pick Miatas out of grill.

Hummer hatred goes deep. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a product other than a handgun that so clearly splits the division between what some people perceive as a right and others perceive as social destruction.

We saw an H2 Hummer on sale in a used car lot in Roanoke last week for $22,000. That’s about the price of a Jeep Wrangler. The H2 sells for about $60,000 new.

(Photo courtesy of General Motors)

On one side of the black hearse often seen around Floyd is the warning — "After Death The Judgement." On the other side?  Telling us to prepare to meet God.

Message received.

The young reporters from The Smithsonian Institution say they found varied opinions about the music culture of Floyd during their visit this past weekend to prepare a video report for the institution’s web site.

For the most part, they found many musicians who ply their craft out of love for music, willing to play anywhere, anytime and for most any reason. Few get paid for their efforts and those who do don’t make a real living at it. Many don’t care. They play because they love it.

In some cases, they found bitterness and anger over what some musicians see as exploitation of the talent in the county. I know where this comes from. I’ve talked to the same musicians and heard the same complaints. A sharp divide exists between musicians who play primarily for love of music and those who play for pay. It’s not so much that those who demand to be paid for their music don’t love their music as well. They also want to make a living wage out of that love.

But Floyd is not a town where those who do what they love can always make a living out of that love. Most artists, musicians, craftsmen, etc., have other jobs or resources to pay the bills. Those day jobs or deep pockets allow them to do what they love and let other things pay the bills.

Floyd’s longest-running and best-known music venue is The Friday Night Jamboree where musicians play pretty much for free. When Woody Crenshaw bought the Country Store he began paying bands a small stipend that is, for all practical purposes, gas money. At Oddfellas Cantina, Cafe del Sol and the Blackwater Loft, the musicians play for tips.  The Winter Sun books acts and pays for them but many of those acts are from out of town. FloydFest has different pay scales for out of town and local acts. The Oak Grove Pavilion pays for acts at its summer music series.

Should local venues pay more for musical acts? Perhaps but the real question is not so much "should" as "can" these venues afford to pay more. Most local businesses run on razor-thin margins and some lose money.  Paying more for entertainment could mean the difference between staying open and closing the doors.