Blackberry Bears of North Carolina

By Nana Blankenship Hensley

These folksy tales of the Blackberry Bears of North Carolina, will delight readers, old and young. As your imagination takes you from the mountains, through the piedmont, to the coast of the state, you will travel with the bears on their adventures. From their jinx of high-flying in a hot air balloon, to swimming in the ocean, these mountain bears will make you laugh, will remind you of dilemmas you have been in, and will help you to look at time-honored values with your children and grandchildren. Home, family, a strong sense of morals, and personal responsibility are taught in these tales. The reader is limited only by his/her own imagination as the author exposes hers in the tales of Tukker, Pops, Momma, Baby, Bubba, Aunt Beck, and all the other bears. Travel these adventures and get to know Nana through the stories of the Blackberry Bears.

Additional stories of the Blackberry Bears adventures will be out soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491821114

Nana Blankenship Hensley

Nana and her husband, Tim, live on a hobby farm in Marion, North Carolina. They grow much of their own food. Nana has almost sixty years experience in picking blackberries. They are the parents of two sons. They have two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren.

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© 2013 Nana Blankenship Hensley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/15/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2110-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2111-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917262

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

DEDICATION

BEARS AT THE BEACH

HOBO TUKKER

THE HILLBILLY BEAR HOOPLA

BULLY BEAR

BILTMORE HOUSE

AUNT BECK

TRAPPED TUKKER

STAR GAZING

POPS AND BUBBA

POLITE BEHAVIOR

TUKKER AND GLORIA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my grandchildren, Luke and Emma, for encouraging me to tell me a story, Gram.

Thanks to my husband, Tim, for saying, That’s a good story.

Thanks to my friend, Gen Cook, for giving me many good suggestions that I’ve used in this book.

Thanks to my brother, Donald Blankenship, for pushing me and helping me to complete this project.

FOREWORD

The child is the father of the man, wrote the poet William Wordsworth. In this case the child is the mother of the woman.

Nana grew up picking blackberries with her doting father in the beloved mountains of Western North Carolina. She was his P-durl, a contraction of pretty girl, as they searched out blackberry patches so that they could fill their buckets with the luscious fruit each July. The bucket must be crowned, not level, across the top before they would leave the patch.

She loved his stories and made-up words; he had a word (different than the English language word) for so many things: slop-tickle for popsicle; nog-toppin,’ for head; road-side-jumper, for car pulling out in front of you. Those words were woven into the stories he would tell. The family has even written a glossary of their vocabulary.

Her mother read to the children at night before bedtime (ten children in her family). As a result Nana loved stories. Her imagination ran rampant with the childhood stories of Lazy Jack, The Rich Man’s Horse, The Little Red Hen."

It was a natural, then, for her to speak this made-up language and to tell made-up stories to her grandchildren as they spent time with her. And, so, the groundwork of a book of stories called The Blackberry Bears of North Carolina was being conceived in her, both in her childhood and in her telling of stories to her children and grandchildren.

A lady with strong sense