CURRENT MISSION

Our business name and our personal mission is Talking Across the Lines. The only exception is singing across the lines. We love to sing duets, playing two guitars, or singing old unaccompanied West Virginia songs.

ABOUT ME

We love old country songs and kitchen talk. We're allergic to scents such as body products, deodorizers and scented candles, even essential oils. We aren't able to stay in a house with them or to have them in our home.

We enjoy being out in nature and live in a beautiful area, with the Monongahela National Forest 10 miles away. We love to walk and to swim in wild rivers, watch birds. We try to grow a little food in our backyard and enjoy cooking mostly simple vegetarian fare.

We're always looking for time to make a little homemade music. We enjoy hosting friends in our woody, Michael-built kitchen.

As folklorists we sometimes work away from home to document life and culture in other communities. Then we return home to work, writing and producing CDs of audio histories and folk music we've collected.

PHILOSOPHY

We believe in building community based on fun, respect and pitching in to make living work for everybody. Music and laughter help a lot. It all seems to be working in this hilltop Allegheny Mountain neighborhood.

We believe in the power of listening to bring a change of heart, personally and globally. Our life's work is to record and share oral testimonials and to train others to do this.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We have met incredible people as hosts and and as surfers. We find generosity, creativity and caring among the Couch Surfing community. We love this free, giving international hospitality network.

Interests

Michael's great at backing up old-time fiddlers. We LOVE to sing and pick guitars together. We like to go out for a walk in the dark before bed. We generally like other people's cats and dogs and critters our of doors, though we don't keep any in the house and don't host them.

• cats
• dogs
• birds
• culture
• writing
• singing
• dining
• cooking
• vegetarian
• music
• folk music
• surfing
• swimming
• business
• rivers

Music, Movies, and Books

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith, a novel written through letters tracing the life a Virginia mountain person from girlhood to old age. This turns out to also be a play with 24 songs written for it.

Our favorite music makers and songwriters include
Si Kahn

Hazel Dickens

Kate Wolf

David Norris

Michael's a fan of the best old-time fiddlers too.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spruce Knob, the highest, coldest, place in West Virginia with mountain meadows and forests brimming with biodiversity is an amazing place we cherish.

Teach, Learn, Share

We enjoy learning about different ways of cooking, food preservation and living by hand.

We teach old West Virginia songs, although maybe not in one night. We also teach people to do a good recording of a friend, a loved one or a stranger, allowing people their time in the sun to speak without a barrage of questions hurled in their direction. Come sit in our kitchen, visit, and watch the birds around the feeder, or the English bulldogs next door.

Countries I’ve Visited

Germany, Guatemala, Italy

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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