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There was a time during Donald Davis's college freshman year when he wasn't really sure he wanted to claim his hometown of Sulpher Springs, North Carolina. But a boy by the name of Stanley Easter changed Davis's mind.

Growing up in North Carolina, Donald Davis heard stories that came to America through Scots-Irish immigrants about a fellow named Jack who was so real that young Davis thought he was a distant relative or otherside-of-the-mountain neighbor. Now Davis knows that Jack is a universal legendary figure who, by various names, is found in nearly every culture.

Sibling rivalry. Sometimes, a kid just isn't ready for some little squirt to come along and invade his space, his own room. So what if there's an extra bed in the room; isn't that where the stuffed animals are supposed to sleep? How could a couple of otherwise sensible parents just bring a new kid home without even consulting their very own son? Still, a younger sibling can be in need of a big brother's guidance.

Donald Davis was born into a southern Appalachian mountain world rich in stories. He grew up listening to his father and his Uncle Frank tell stories of their boyhood, all the while taking in the details of his own childhood experience.

Storyteller Donald Davis had a very sensible mother. She had a pretty good idea of what boys would do, so she was always on the lookout. As Davis later learned, always being on the lookout is what mamas do. His vigilant but gentle mother gave her son multiple gifts in life and, as we learn in the end, gifts that do not end with her passing.

Joe Davis was in his mid-40s when he became a father, and the experience he was able to apply in raising his sons lent creativity to his parenting. The five stories here recall the wisdom of fathers with humor and rich detail: a visit to the Smithsonian inspires father's memory; father "cures" a boy's impulse to try cigarettes; Santa Claus learns an important lesson; and someone plays a trick on a visiting preacher.

The warmth of the Christmas season is condensed into this single collection that will rekindle your Christmas memories. Who doesn't remember Christmas at Grandma's? The living room aglow with family and friends, the kitchen like a factory of sweet aromas, the relatives everywhere! Donald Davis captures the spirit of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a child in these stories: "Christmas in Sulpher Springs", "The Children's Christmas Party", "The Year My Brother Almost Died", and "The Red Scooters."

Braces hurt. Braces look funny. Braces are downright embarrassing. And just about the time you think they're going to feel normal, it's time to tighten them up again. Worst of all, most of us get braces just at that time of life when the last thing we want to do is to look conspicuous, to call attention to ourselves in any way. This new coming-of-age story employs storyteller Donald Davis' trademark descriptions and humor to address the question: is this worth all the pain and embarrassment?

We all know someone like them: women whose lives revolve around their cats. Here Donald Davis paints verbal portraits of two very different women in his life who shared a fiercely unshakable sense of priorities. It was simply understood that the cats came first, and once you accepted that, everything else made perfect sense. Employing his trademark Carolina drawl, droll wit, and sharp observations, Davis is in top form here as he pays homage to these two remarkable women and their devotion to their feline families.

The best friend of our youth has no replacement, ever. Though we may start out as "two peas in a pod", we often lose touch with one another. In this affecting tale of two adults who reclaim their childhood bond after 30 years apart, the comforts of friendship are affirmed with humor and wit.

If you have never ridden a mule along a 48-inch wide trail whose ledge drops off, in places, 700 feet to the Colorado River, straight down, you may have difficulty picturing the temporary insanity that leads otherwise responsible adults to sign away the remainder of their natural life expectancy just for the chance to see the Grand Canyon's natural beauty close-up.

Traditional values abound in these hilarious stories from Appalachia: friendship, family, orderliness, humor, and delight in an especially inventive practical joke. In "Rainy Weather", a hound dog with more heart than sense wins everyone's admiration. "Uncle Frank Learns to Speak Polish" finds Davis' famous Uncle Frank making the most of a little foreign language. And, in "Uncle Frank Clean Up the Post Office", cleanliness is next to godliness, and it's also next to hilarity.

In "The Time Machine", Davis offers us both the story of the reunion and the collectively remembered story of his classmates' senior year. In 1962, Waynesville, North Carolina, was that small town where the school principal also served as a teacher, the football coach, and the Sunday-school superintendent. One classmate spends his time in the bar wishing for a time machine, so he can go back to his teenage years with his accumulated experience.

Meet an earnest first-grader, intent upon convincing his hill-country parents that other children are treated to a party each year on their birthday, that they invite friends, eat cake - and receive presents. Meet also his equally intent mother, who is determined not to open this can of worms, not with the 128 cousins who might start doing the same thing. Both of them step out of this luminous story that turns the concept of "good neighbors" upside down.

For 16 years, Donald Davis has performed during the Christmas season at Fearrington Village, a unique destination community near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hundreds of people fill the seats in this historic barn, now converted for use as an events venue. Recorded live at Davis's December 15, 2007, performance, this audio captures the familiar and special relationship between a skilled and beloved storyteller and the audience that has sustained him year after year.

There was a time during Donald Davis's college freshman year when he wasn't really sure if he wanted to claim his hometown of Sulpher Springs, North Carolina. But a boy by the name of Stanley Easter changed his mind. "The year after that," he recalls, "I did go home from college for Thanksgiving. In fact, I had now become so proud of where I was from that I could hardly wait to get home. I no longer had to lie about where I was from. The world of childhood was quickly becoming a dear place to visit."

In the hills of Appalachia, humor and wisdom are mixed up forever in funny, wise stories that seem to grow more lustrous with each telling. Here are two of the best: "Uncle Frank Invents the Electron Microphone", Appalachian folk wisdom rolled into one of Davis' funniest stories; "Uncle Frank and the Crown Feed Boys", Davis' legendary Uncle Frank teaches a couple of traveling salesmen the lesson of their lives.

Old Man Hawkins was a larger-than-life character among deer hunters, or, more precisely, among tellers and hearers of tall tales. His self-proclaimed method of hunting deer by holding a mirror in one hand and his rifle in the other, pointing backward over a shoulder, was, he said, "to be fair to the deer". It was a story, Davis tells us, that would occupy his father on the drive to Grandma's house.

Grandma's house was a magical place, and in this vivid memoir, Donald Davis makes it possible for each of us to go back to our own grandma's kitchen, clutter room, living room, and to that immeasurable bed that seemed to swallow us whole. This selection also contains a traditional story Davis learned from his grandmother, one handed down through his family from generations who once lived in Scotland before coming to the Appalachian mountains, about the time that fortune-seeker named Jack made the king mad.

When the Southern Bells brought the telephone to rural North Carolina, it looked like a "big black daffodil". What the telephone company had not counted on in conceiving its eight-party line service was a pair of "past-middle-age, unmarried sisters", the chatty Misses Lucy and Lena Leatherwood. Once the Leatherwood sisters were connected by the Southern Bells, nobody else on that line had a chance!