In this episode of Wes and Shelly Share, Wes and Shelly take you back in time to reminisce about their favorite fall traditions and memories. From enjoying chicken soup recipes to picturesque maple trees in Manhattan, Kansas, and pumpkin patches in Floydada, Texas, they cover a range of nostalgic family customs. They also reflect on the importance of teaching history, share entertaining memories of Halloween costumes, and discuss the joy of having campfires. Tune in for a heartwarming and reflective podcast episode as they celebrate the beauty and traditions of the fall season.

• 00:00 Introduction and Setting the Scene
• 01:34 Fall Memories and Traditions
• 02:19 Childhood Memories in Manhattan, Kansas
• 04:22 Fall Activities and Family Traditions
• 06:14 Halloween and Pumpkin Patches
• 13:26 Football and Family Gatherings
• 18:55 Reflecting on Past Fall Memories
• 20:23 New Fall Traditions and Experiences
• 20:47 Fryer’s Funnel Cakes: A Sweet Tradition
• 22:27 Embracing the Beauty of North Carolina’s Fall
• 25:23 Planning Future Fall Adventures
• 25:51 Cherishing Family and Flexibility
• 34:51 Exploring Historical Brattonsville
• 39:17 Teaching and Enjoying Space and Legos
• 40:33 Concluding Thoughts and Podcast Information

Connect with us! shellyfryer.com/podcast/

Transcript

Wes: Good evening. It is September the 15th, 2024. It’s a Sunday night. Welcome to episode 29 of Wes and Shelley Share, which I think will be titled Fall Traditions and Memories, even though the temperatures have been in the high 70s today. Fall seems to be in the air. So Shelly set the scene for us.

Where are we and what are you looking at? 

Shelly: We are sitting in our backyard. It’s dark now. The lights that dad has wrapping our fence I don’t know. What are they party lights? I don’t know. Are on We have a chimney of fire. We had a evening picnic. Dad made chicken soup using Carol Curley’s recipe.

I think he posted about it, but Carol Curley was a longtime member of my church in Westminster, Presbyterian in Lubbock, Texas. I remember her as being our college sponsor for our college age group. And it was a big deal when we were all invited over to her house and she would make her famous Carol Curley’s chicken soup.

Anyway, she was a very good cook and anyway, dad has made her soup for years now, man, time has just really caught up to me so it’s cooling off It was warm today, but it’s cooling off. It’s been cloudy we had a few little sprinkles, but Nothing major. It’s just, I don’t know.

Season of fall is coming and I’m looking forward to it. What do I mean by time is catching up to me? I think of course I turned 59 this summer and I’ve been having memories that just feel just like yesterday, only they’re memories from, 25, 30 years ago. Okay, dad said 40 years This is my turn to talk.

It is not your turn to talk But anyway, it seems like time is just going by and my memories are just like they happened yesterday so Just enjoying life and reflecting back on All the fun things that we’ve done during the fall season. So what about you? What kind of fall memories do you have?

Do you want to start us off on our topic?

Wes: I mostly grew up in Manhattan, Kansas. Our family moved to Manhattan in 1981 when I was 11. And I started 6th grade there. And I have a lot of fall memories of trees. The trees in Manhattan are really beautiful. Northeast Kansas is a beautiful place. People who haven’t spent time there, just have a, maybe they think of western Kansas.

They just think flat, wheat fields and barren, nothing. But that’s not what northeast Kansas is like. Northeast Kansas is hilly, it’s wooded and the trees are beautiful. And I especially remember on Points Avenue, not far from my parents house on Leavenworth, there was a beautiful maple tree.

It was a sugar maple. I know that when we had our first house in Lubbock, Texas, I was very excited that we had a sugar maple tree or what I thought and I think it was a sugar maple in the front. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s going to be awesome. In Lubbock, sugar maples, the leaves just turn brown and they fall off.

They don’t change color because you have to have freezing temperatures and you’ve got to have the right temperature You know the right mix of climate and temperatures. I think what happens with fall leaves is that the chlorophyll that makes the leaves green, when it, Is dead and it leaves the leaf.

You see the actual true color of the leaf, which is amazing. So anyway, I remember just lots of beautiful leaves. Of course, we had two huge oak trees in our front yard. Sometime in middle or high school, one of them got struck by lightning. And so a huge branch came down and then eventually they cut both those down.

They were on the city side of the sidewalk. So that was I was fortunate, of course, that neither of them hit the house. But it was also really sad when those trees were gone, but that led to, a ton of leaves. And so part of our fall ritual was always, raking leaves. I remember the first time that Shelly came to visit.

Probably at Thanksgiving. She was just amazed by all of the leaves. And so anyway, camping, I was, I always went camping basically every month of the year with my scout troop from, probably 6th grade on. I was in scouts my whole middle and high school years. And so lots of, love camping trips, enjoying.

Fires, we didn’t cook on stoves at all. That was something that we only did on high adventure To like film on or canoe base or some of those summer programs. So Anyway, just lots of great memories and I think fires. I loved having fires It was my responsibility in our family to split wood we would somehow get you know a cord of wood or whatever and have it in the garage and we always had a sledgehammer and a Wedge, which actually I inherited that.

We still have the old Wedge from and so we’d have the wood would be split, but it would would not be split into, pieces that were super small. So at some point my parents got an electric, a electric, a gas fireplace, but I love fires. I love campfires. We’ve got a campfire right now and the smell of a fire.

And I know Shelly loves this pinyon smell that we have. And so anyway, Those were some memories of Manhattan. How about you in Lubbock, Texas? What was fall like for you growing up?

Shelly: Whoa, that was a good catch. Is it still going? Yep. We’re still going. Oh, let’s see. Fall in Lubbock, Texas. Of course. Dad’s just gone on and on about his beautiful trees. There were not a whole lot of trees in Lubbock, Texas All I remember is we had trees they turned brown the leaves fell down.

But I do have a lot of fall memories most of my memories of course we went trick or treating and all of the things But I remember more fall with the children. You know You Halloween and fall traditions for me, my memory really starts when our kids were little. One of our favorite thing to do was to go out to Floydada, Texas, pumpkin capital of the world.

And they had huge acres of pumpkins, all different kinds, all different sizes. We would go out and take the kids and To the pumpkin patch and there were a couple of times when they actually let us go into the pumpkin patch and pick the pumpkins. Later they didn’t let people do that, but but you could see them growing out there and there were animals and, pumpkin treats and things and that was always really fun.

Great photo op. I think I was scrapbooking then and so I was always taking pictures and scrapbooking and that was really fun. Also, one of the cool things is we had an apple orchard very close to Lubbock and I remember my early childhood PTA group. We would plan little visits out to the apple orchard.

And I can remember going out there with mother again. It was, they had like small apple trees. They were intentionally kept small or planted small. I don’t know how they do that. But you could just reach up and pick trees and you would get a big bucket that had wheels and you would wheel them out and there were all different varieties and then also they had a barn where they were selling baked goods and I think they even had a little restaurant.

It was so much fun and I can remember several times going out there both with Other stay at home moms and early child PTA and some of our little friends from play group. And that was just really wonderful. Great. Again, photo op. I’m sure I have some pictures of that as well. I can remember some of our little fall festivals.

I loved making the kids costumes. I remember one time Alexander was Peter Pan and Sarah was Tinkerbell. I can remember, I think one time, they were dressed up in cheerleader and football things. And one time Alexander had a, we found at a craft show or something, an astronaut’s uniform. And I think I made him a little space shuttle that he wore with his astronaut.

I made it out of a cardboard box anyway. Oh, I made one time a clown costume and I think the kids, I think I made it for Sarah first and Rachel might have worn it. One time we went to Halloween and did trick or treating and things at your parents house. I remember doing that and the kids, I have a picture of the kids on your mom and dad’s front porch.

And I think that was when, oh, Sarah was Little Red Riding Hood and Alexander was a Jedi and I made their capes. Anyway, I, I used to sew. I used to have fun sewing and making their costumes and that was really fun. When we moved to Edmond the church always had some kind of fall Festival, I think it was a fundraiser for the preschool there And we would dress up in costumes and things and then I also remember trick or treating inviting people over Oh pumpkin carving parties.

We did that in lubbock also and invite, you know Our probably our sunday school class over and had a pumpkin Carving evening and everybody carved pumpkins. I remember doing that and that was fun. So I just I love all of the fall memories. Having fires and making chili and What do you remember? Do you remember some different things?

Wes: So my favorite costume That alexander had and it’s weird how like photos are make such an impression on You remember when he had the vacuum cleaner as the? 

Shelly: He was, yeah, the 

Wes: girls were witches, they were good witches. Oh, but the girls made faces. Remember some of those pictures?

We should get some of those and link them up because there’s like making these like grimacing faces. But yeah, he was men in black. So he had on a black sport coat and a black tie, I think. And then he had The Dyson vacuum cleaner was like his, alien machine, alien gun or whatever.

Oh my gosh. Those were like magical times. We’ve talked about this. That your relationship with Kristen Lierd and, Rachel and Maddie. Our family’s relationship to the Lierds. Okay. No one has ever had as many drinks in their refrigerator as the Lierds. And I think Kristen may listen to this show.

We’ll have to give her a shout out. Like sodas. Sodas, yeah. No. I’m talking sodas. Like every kind of beverage. Like it was a wonderland of amazing. Sodas and probably fruit drinks and everything, but. Man, you know what? We should never underestimate the value and power of having people over to our house, and going over to our house.

Here we are, married, we’re in our 50s, what, we’ve been, what is it, 28 years, 29 years, something like that this year? We should know. I should know. 28 years, this is this last year. But honestly, we can almost count on one hand, certainly two hands, probably, the number of people who’ve had us over to their house for dinner.

And there’s some. There was some in Lubbock. There was some. There are. There are some. But it just Wow. That was such a magical time. You were So happy, I think, in your role at the church. There’s always ups and downs to politics in churches and schools and organizations, but good grief. It was, the dynamics of your group were really wonderful.

Those were some golden times in our kids growing up together. I gotta talk about chili cook offs, and it’s just chili, having chili and also stack supper, for me, you got to have the white rice, you got to have the Fritos, and then you layer on the chili, and then you got to have the cheese, and that’s there was one year at our First Presbyterian Church in Edmond.

I guess they didn’t do really great maybe calendar coordination, but it was awesome There were three different chili cook off events and chili, chili feeds and that’s where I’m trying to remember his name Dan tub have the green chili hatch green chili from New Mexico.

That’s where I’m a, my mother had prepared Cincinnati chili, but somebody else did Cincinnati chili, which we’ve done. We should do that again. We’re like lower carb eaters and cookers now. So some of this is not as like standard, but yeah, Eunice did a Kenyan chili with really exotic African flavors.

And everyone could vote and that was really fun. That was later when it was just later at at First Prez, but ah, so many good memories. And then there was something else that was related. Oh, football! Goodness gracious. So many fall memories of football games. We would basically, like a religious pilgrimage, go to Manhattan for Labor Day to all be together with Trudy and Max’s family, my sister and family, and they, lived in Manhattan at one point, moved to Kansas City and to Liberty, but that was just the real kind of rallying time.

And oh gosh, there were some hot games, good grief, I remember, being miserable. At some point, my mom decided She didn’t want to tailgate anymore. And so she would go. In fact, we would just do the tailgate of the house, which wasn’t a tailgate, but we did all kinds of things. And they were always into that.

Early on, mom and dad were partnered up with some friends and they shared a parking spot in the parking lot of the stadium and one of them had a motor home and but they would all have a theme and so everyone would have different dishes and you know that is actually my favorite part of sports and college athletics specifically is just like tailgating and coming together as a family and the traditions with that my mother was very much into cooking and themes and they had gourmet groups and on all this kind of stuff, but I just, I love that.

And Rachel got, celebrated her birthday so many different years at K State football games. I remember so well this one year that they let us on the field afterwards for fireworks. In fact, I think Maybe that was the one we sat like in the northeast corner of the stadium. And so we’d gotten to talk to Willie the wildcat who’s the, mascot of K State.

He’d been right there with us and getting pictures with him. But then we went on the field and we were laying out there and they shut off all the lights and then the fireworks and I think Rachel might have thought it was all for her, for her birthday. I was just magical, and so much family, family coming together.

Cause that was like our family reunion each year was the Labor Day football game, and I do miss that. For a number of years I got to split a season ticket with my cousin Devin Henley, who was living in Wichita. And so we would alternate, going with Dad. Mom had decided that she was done with football, and so Dad, still wanted to go.

But that was so cool that Devin and I could do that. Do you have any, good football Manhattan memories that really stand out to you? 

Shelly: Yes, all of those things I would absolutely echo. But I think it was also fun just to have Aggieville. Once we put the kids to bed and Trudy and Max and we’d all go out down to Aggieville.

Go to all the little Rusty’s last chance or some of the little bars down there. It was our way to sneak off and have some adult time and that was really fun. Yeah. Redina and have a coffee and a pastry and blue stem. There’s both. There’s both. I used to always love just going in all the little shops and picking up some fall things and yeah, a lot of great.

Manhattan’s just a great football town and, college town. And it’s changing some, with parking garages and hotels and things, it’s getting fancy a little bit, but anyway now Kim has a daughter there, Braylon’s there. And so that, the generations are still, yeah, connecting and that’s fun.

Yeah, I remember Oh, I even, that goes all the way back to Westminster. The beer rocks. I love beer rocks. I want to have beer rocks. Okay. I don’t know exactly what a beer rock is. It’s like a meat sandwich. I believe it’s German. I think some, oh quit, stop that. He’s so weird. I think some people called them Renzes.

It’s another version of it. Whatever, I am not from Nebraska and have nothing to do with Nebraska. But, my mother called them burocks. And it was hamburger and cabbage and a roll. Sarah, I’m sure she’s going to listen and she does not have fond memories of those. I think she was sick one time.

Yes. Oh, yes, that’s why we haven’t had them in forever. But, I want to have those. And It was always a fall thing. My mother would make those and it was a big deal. And so she would make them, not really, not in the grand scheme of things, it’s hot roll mix and you do the hamburger and cabbage and you cook that and then you let it rise.

Yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s really not that difficult, but you, it, it’s such a pivotal thing that. I don’t know. To me, that reminds me of the fall. And so I would like to do that. And maybe even have some friends over. Like you said, it’s really fun to start some traditions.

And I miss, the carving of the pumpkins. We don’t really have trick or treaters here. Our neighborhood’s fairly older and But oh man, trick or treating in Oklahoma, yeah. Oklahoma City where we moved where the kids grew up. That was some big time trick or treating. It was, they would block off the streets.

People would come from all over. The, it was wall to wall people. People decorated their yards. And that was always so much fun. I can remember having, that’s when mother and dad were living there. For more information, visit www. FEMA. gov At the statesman and they would come over and we just sit mother down and sometimes it was cold one time We had a fire pit and people could warm up by the fire pit.

We had a great porch where Anyway, that was that was always really fun. I enjoyed that 

Wes: well and one of the favorite those are all amazing and It was crazy to me how much money people would spend on that. It was as if, it was like, for some people I totally believe Halloween is a bigger deal than Christmas.

The number of blow up things in people’s yards. It was so sad though. We had somebody who was like, Turning the back on Kevin Durant, putting the Kevin Dur Kevin, the Kevin Durant, gravestone in their yard and stuff. But I totally remember with fondness when the French students, the French Exchange students were there at our house.

And we had a phone hooked up to a Bluetooth speaker, and we let one of the French students play, and I think maybe there was some explicit lyrics in French or something, I don’t know. Rachel can validate that. But, it was so fun, the kids enjoyed it so much, I think that was, again, a chilly dinner or maybe like stack supper chili, but do we have our front area done?

We had it redone. I don’t think we did because it was pre COVID. So that was pre COVID, but just, fun to have the kids over. That was one thing that I’m so thankful for is that we were able to have our home open at different times. For, the kids to have friends over and We’ll, we’re not talking of New Year’s and stuff, but that became a tradition with Alexander and his friend group, and Anyway, yeah, really good fall memories.

Okay, let’s have halftime, and then we’re gonna come back and talk about some new traditions and experiences that we’ve had, and then what we hope our future fall traditions and experiences could look like, because Shelly’s always looking at pictures of mountain cabins and dreaming of the future.

So we’ll come back here after halftime. 

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Shelly: Okay, I hope you enjoyed that funnel cake and whatever I don’t even know what our halftime message is anymore all right, so Fall memories that we’re building now. So of course we’ve already talked about trees, but I just I love being out in the woods here in north carolina And of course, I enjoy them all summer and summer hiking the we really The trees haven’t started turning yet.

You have some early just twinges of red coming out but oh, I just love the season of fall when The leaves are changing and I just cannot get enough of it. One of the first things we did when we Moved here is take a little fall getaway trip to the mountains and we stayed at deep gap And and then went by blowing rock which is a beautiful overlook.

Although that was probably when it was still, yeah, so it was still green then. But Wes and I, in a few weeks, we’ll try to make a weekend getaway trip to the Blue Ridge mountains before they close the Blue Ridge highway. And And see oh so montreat was we did a fall retreat with one of the churches we were looking at I think that’s when we saw all of the beautiful color in the trees.

I mean it was spectacular Just spectacular but so making a trip to the mountains in the fall is definitely one of our new fall traditions also wes and I are now it’s been about a year. We’ve almost done it a year that we’ve done our fennel cake thing. Next weekend we’re going to go to Waxhaw and to the Museum of the Waxhaws and do our fennel cake thing.

That’s becoming a little thing that we do and that’s, fall festivals as we continue to collect fall festivals. We didn’t go to the Greek festival this year. Mainly because all I really want to do when I go there is eat baklava and all of the goodies and I was trying to be good.

But I think we did we talk about going to the cider orchard here? Oh, I found it. I think it’s going to be our wonder link, but I found a little apple orchard here. It was It’s a brand new apple orchard, so it, yeah, they made cider, and they had cider donuts, and that was really good, and you could go out and pick your own apples, yeah, oh, apple cider donuts, yeah and that was fun, it was a, Yeah, a fun little outing yeah, the dogs enjoyed it.

We like to take little adventures where the dogs can go with us because they enjoy that so last year we did do a fall chilly driveway happy hour type thing So with some neighbors and so we can try to maybe host that this year and that would be fun Oh yeah, when Sarah was living with us, we took a train trip through, the, next to the river, and yeah, in western North Carolina, and that was fun.

We’re still looking for fun fall things to do around here, to hikes, and maybe a fall camping trip. . Anyway, we’ve got some, oh, we will be going to Virginia soon and that’ll be pretty, I don’t know, it might be fall by the time we get there that’ll be gorgeous. I love Virginia.

Virginia’s really pretty too. So what about you? What fall memories are you wanting to make? 

Wes: Yeah, people ask us why we moved to North Carolina and, to give a quick answer, we’ll just say the trees and that is is true. Definitely the mountains. Everything that, that Shelly said.

I think that we’ve definitely discerned that here in the empty mist, as we find ourselves, which is what this podcast is a lot about, we are in the in between time with no grandchildren in the picture. And so we’re very independent at this point, because we do have our dogs and, we gotta take them with us or have, somebody take care of them.

But, it’s really freeing to not have the schedule of the kids. I’ve got some friends at school who are older, but they’ve got time. younger kids and, the schedules of families today can absolutely be crazy. Our schedules were crazy with, especially a lot of theater and then, and some with sports with Rachel.

We were not a huge sports family in terms of all the kids playing varsity sport and a club sport and all of that. And I’m thankful that we had that as a choice. Of course, it. Depends on kids and what kids want to do or not to do, but I think there’s a real tendency today to over program children and to really just, find yourself every weekend and every, just to not basically have much downtime.

And so anyway, it’s really a wonderful thing to find ourselves in a place of life where. We are able to be flexible and I’m not teaching Sunday school full time. I did love to, to teach adult Sunday school, I think for maybe three years at first president Edmond before, the, A few years before we moved and that Sunday school class was wonderful.

I just, and I wouldn’t change that at all for a minute, I actually, we both taught Sunday school today. I substituted in for our adult ACE class and Shelly taught the kids during the worship service. And it’s wonderful to be able to help and contribute our community. our gifts and ideas, but it’s also great to be flexible.

So a few weeks ago, we planned the whole fall schedule and I felt a bit like my mother who was very calendar organized and would, do that sort of thing and coordinate. But it’s good because, we’ve got some priorities. Shelly said, we want to get to the mountains. We want to go up to Virginia to stay with our friends, the Conaways and get to be on the farm.

And that drive to Virginia to me is one of the highlights. One of the things that’s happened in the last year or so is for several reasons, we have just decided not to drive on the interstate very much. And so unless we, You know really need to get there quick. We take a side road and we take the road less traveled And an example of this and I guess we can talk about it we’re gonna do our wanderlink and our wonderlink.

So maybe this will segue into it we ended up going on the highway, which we have this interstate 485 That’s a big loop that goes around charlotte and then we got on Was it 77, it goes south to Columbia. Anyway, we took the interstate going to Brattonsville yesterday. And, but then when we came back, we took, it was probably at least 20 minutes, 20 or 30 minutes longer.

But just an awesome, meandering path, through the back roads. You want to talk a little bit about that? The wonderlink of Brattonsville? Or you want me to introduce that a little bit? I don’t know. Yeah. Is there? You talk 

Shelly: about. I’m good. 

Wes: You’re good with that? 

Shelly: Yeah. 

Wes: Okay. Any other one fall things that you can think about?

What does your aspirational fall look like, in the future? Like, where would you like to be in five years? And what kinds of memories you want to make with your grandchildren someday? 

Shelly: I think West. In the beginning, I always dream i’m looking at I have a facebook page it’s called this old house and there’s always properties and old houses and I would love to have a mountain cabin someday and You know be able to live.

I don’t know in the mountains So we’re not so much football people anymore. And that’s fine. But of course I would love to see my grandchildren dressed up in their Halloween costumes and taking them trick or treating and experiencing pumpkin patches and apple picking and it’d be nice to have, someplace where we could have our family and our grandchildren come and visit to, that would build strong memories.

I love decorating. I haven’t gotten my fall things out yet, but it’s about that time and I enjoy. As Wes said, nesting, he calls it and I enjoy doing that and I’ll get out my Halloween things and I’ll get out my fall things and I like that. Yeah, who knows, time is marching on quickly and I want to savor every little minute of it.

But it would be nice to be close enough to grandchildren that we could spend some holidays and have some memories like that. And I think that would be wonderful. Okay, so shall we talk about some of our wanderlings? We talked a little bit about our Windy Hill cider orchard that we found. Oh yeah A PEO sister friend of mine from Oklahoma city had stayed at a place in Manitou Springs and that sounded fun and different.

And so when we were looking for a place to stay when we went to the springs for, We stayed there. Buffalo Lodge. I guess if you follow us on Facebook, you’ll have seen a post or two about that, but it was such a cool place. It was an old motel that they had picked up. Renovated and it was like bicycle And so a lot of people that ride bicycles, stay there and there’s a lot of great biking around in the airy red rocks and everything garden of the gods but it was fun.

It had a big fireplace where and for breakfast and you could sit in there and they had concerts in the evenings and a really nice swimming pool. I think it was new. So a glamping site, some glamping tits tents that they had just put in. And so I highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun and I’m sure we will stay there again.

And, Buffalo Lodge, it just reminded me, Buffalo Bicycle Lodge Resort. Anyway, it was fun, I highly recommend it, and we had a great time. And I hope that Rachel maybe will go there and they do things with kids. And, they’re open 365 days a year, and they decorate for holidays and have fun things going on year round.

So anyway, that was really fun. And I enjoyed that. 

Wes: Manatee Springs is one of my favorite parts of Colorado Springs. I just love old Colorado city and that area. And so it was neat to stay down there to get to introduce Rachel to some of that area, we didn’t actually get to spend a lot of time in old Colorado city, but we did go to the The art festival that they had in the park down there and we got to go, a little bit into the garden of the gods.

I really liked that Mexican restaurant that we went back to. Rachel was not able to be with us. That was acceptance day weekend the first time. She was locked up at the Academy. But we had, the whole family there last year because it coincided with several things. It was Rachel’s acceptance day parade.

It was my dad’s, I think maybe 60th Academy reunion. And then it was also dad’s scheduled for us to have the memorial service and the internment of mom’s ashes at the cemetery at the Air Force Academy. And all of those things and having our family together, but it was fun to be able to go back We went back for lunch and Anyway, that was great.

That was great. So we had a very wonderful experience on Parents Weekend. And, today I was looking at find my iPhone and just, how many miles away Sarah is in Oklahoma City and my dad in Manhattan, Kansas and Sarah and I can’t see Alex and Grace because they’re not on our iCloud account anymore.

They’re a long way away. as well. And so yeah, that’s part of what I want to do is be in a flexible situation where we can travel, we can see our kids, we can spend time with them and their families. And Shelly said, hopefully we’ll have a place where the kids will want to gather and I’d love to make good memories together.

I’m so thankful that, even though I moved away from Manhattan, Kansas at the young age of 17 to go off to the Air Force Academy. Manhattan and our home at 1515 Leavenworth was really a home base and it was such a, it was wonderful the years that we lived in Lubbock and then in Oklahoma we were half as close.

It’s a 12 hour drive from Lubbock to Manhattan, but it’s a 6 hour drive from, or maybe a little bit even shorter, depends on who’s driving and the route you take. But it’s, That’s just great. And so thankful for those good memories. Lastly, let’s do our wonder link. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what you’re wondering with space.

You can talk about your, if you, do you want to talk about your space camp with your kids? Your Lego stuff? I’ll talk about Brattonsville. We’ve mentioned this before. This is a super, super unique place. It is a former plantation that is in York County, which is only about 45 to 60 minutes away from where we are here in Charlotte.

We’re in South Central North Carolina in what’s called the Piedmont. And were lots and lots of plantations and lots of slaves in this area in the Antebellum South. And Brattonsville is very unique because the physical buildings of the plantation to include slave houses, there were 10 homes of the formerly enslaved that served in the home around this central house.

This has just been remodeled and reopened. This was the first time we were able to go into that main house, but we went to an event called by the sweat of our brows and it is run by the descendants of the Brattons and the Bratton family was very wealthy and they had, they owned hundreds of slaves and the descendants of the Brattons are black and they’re white and they’re Of mixed race and it’s starting to rain a little more honey I think we’re gonna have to go in because this is a serious rain Let’s go in we were trying earlier to wait and not go inside And I can hear rain coming and so we’re gonna Have to move in Because this is serious Got it.

Got it. Okay. Come on dogs All right, here we go. This is exciting. Yeah, boom, it’s coming down. We need the rain. We were supposed to incidentally get some rain from this tropical storm and hurricane and that did not materialize, but boy do we ever need it. Okay this event, Run by the Descendants of the Brattans, was all about really racial reconciliation confronting the past, being honest about our history, the importance of, bringing those conversations into school.

And, not whitewashing the past, but talking about what was done. We met a man who is the great, I think, grandson of the Bratton who founded the Ku Klux Klan, the KKK in South Carolina. It came from Tennessee to York County. York County was a county considered to be in insurrection during the post Civil War reconstruction years until some just, this history of reconstruction is just terrible.

What, the way in which basically the South was just given back to the, the same white plantation owners and elites that had rebelled in the Civil War. But anyway, it is a, it’s a place that not only has buildings and physical structures, but it has the records of the people who live there, including the slaves and the people who were enslaved, we should say.

And so with DNA evidence and DNA analysis this very eclectic group of people know that they’re related and they’re relatives. I just took away from it such encouragement to, confront the past, study the past, not whitewash the past, and find ways that we can have respectful conversations about.

Our history and the ways in which we want to do better as a society and a culture and it’s so timely because, the KKK was a terrorist organization and it terrorized generations of African Americans and whites and just, it was living in terror. And so unfortunately we have.

Some we have some difficult things happening in our country today with respect to the elections. I don’t think it’s anything at that scale like we had, during and following the Civil War, but it’s timely and I’m thankful for the chance that we have to be able to be in a place, in a space where we can.

Intersect with people having these kinds of conversations and learning about these kinds of things. You want to comment at all on your experiences there or we can talk about the bass club or something else. 

Shelly: Yeah, we need to start winding this up. But one thing that I have really enjoyed this semester is starting my little space club.

So we have an extended day program at our school. And I’m teaching an extended day class called Legos in Space. And so I have six days. 17 first graders and four second graders and last week we learned about rockets and this week we’re going to learn about spacecraft and I am really excited.

Enjoying, that was an airplane, a very loud airplane going over. Doing that, I mean it’s really fun. I think this is the first year in a long time that I feel settled. After moving and just not, this is the first in two school years now. Where I’ve known where I was going to teach. I’ve known what I was going to teach.

I didn’t have to start over. I’m excited about knowing students and knowing students names and enjoy the people that I’m working with and so this has been a really positive start of the school year for me. I’m getting to do some things that I love and I’m just, I’ve had a really good start to the school year and I’m really enjoying working with kids especially when it comes to space and Legos, it’s awesome.

Wes: All right. Awesome. If you’ve stayed with us, we appreciate it. This is Wes and Shelly Share. We are now on a schedule where we’re doing one of these a month. Maybe we’ll do some more often, but we have good encouragement from our children from time to do episodes. And so it’s good to reflect on where we are.

And these, just like going back, we’re looking at all kinds of old pictures all the time because we have, Slideshows that, work with Apple TV and with the Chromecast and all this. And it’s great to see these pictures and memories. And I know that, already I’ve gone back and listened to some of these.

It’s good. It’s good to reflect. So we would love to hear from you. If you are listening you can let us know by reaching out. We have a Facebook page for Wes and Shelley Share, which may be the way that you have found this, but you can subscribe in whatever, platform you use to listen to podcasts.

We still have the website ShellyFryer.com/podcast, where you can find links to our podcast episodes and be able to get that wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can also reach out to us for me, you can just go to westfryer. com slash after, and I have a ton of links. Facebook is probably the easiest way, but there’s some other ways as well.

And Shelly’s on Facebook and you can reach out to her there. So we got to say our theme, which we say so rarely now it’s going to be hard. So go outside be curious and keep exploring. 

Shelly: Yeah, there you go. That sounds good. 

Wes: That’s it. All right. 

Shelly: All right. Have a great fall season and find fun things to do.

Have adventures.

Sarah: Weston Shelley Share is a weekly podcast recorded and published on Sundays by Wesley and Shelley Fryer of Matthews, North Carolina. Learn more and find links to connect on social media to Weston Shelley by visiting shelleyfryer. com slash podcast. Content on this podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution only 3.

0 license. The Weston Shelley Share podcast is recorded and published with Anchor and distributed on all platforms. All major podcast channels including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocketcasts, and more. Please share our show on social media and tell others about us. Let us know on Facebook or via other means what you like about the show, that you’re listening, and if you have any suggestions for future episodes.

Stay curious, go outside, and keep exploring!

(Podcast editing and AI transcription via Descript.com.)