We all have stories we remember from our youth we heard listening to the grown ups talk. Within this book I have recorded some of those stories and tales along with some life experiences others will resonate. It is by writing them down we live over again the times these were created. For the nostalgic, words and thoughts of family times sitting around a fireplace and listening to stories that sometimes made it hard to go to sleep seem so vivid.

Genealogy is a fascinating study. All of us who were born on the native soil of the United States owe a debt of gratitude to our forebears. Much information for heritage studies is available on the internet. While doing research on my family I learned so much. For some it meant leaving the familiar and a three month voyage across the Atlantic. Some came to America because they were persecuted for their religious beliefs while some came searching for the proverbial end of the rainbow. I discovered family members who were involved in the Revolutionary War. One of my wife's family members was in five battles including the Battle of Cowpens, a turning point in the war. Two other family members were also present. I wondered if they might have know one another. I also learned of my mothers family who came here from Scotland as a stone mason helping to build a notable bridge in the upstate of South Carolina. I learned much about my ancestors and now am even more proud of my heritage. I wrote this as a labor of love because I wanted my children and grand children to be able to know their family roots and to be proud of their heritage. Having compiled this book will enable them to know this information. For others, reading this book may be the impetus for a great adventure for further genealogy studies. I have also included some stories from my own journey of life. These are life experiences, stories and tales from my own life.

Family genealogy is something that recently became an interest for me. I knew very about our family roots and when I made a visit to our local genealogy society to research my Grandmother Ballard's family, Maybelle Thompson Ballard, the volunteers working were able to help me find information and steer me into other avenues of research. My findings are included in this book as are the genealogy of my wife, the Maybins. It would be a monumental task to include a complete genealogical overview in a book of this nature so I have only limited my findings to those of my immediate family. As a writer of short stories pertaining to my own life experiences I am including some of my writings.

Hi, Thanks for reading this description of my latest book. I am Robert E. Ballard from Zirconia, North Carolina and live with my wife, Jane and son Gary in the Green River community of Henderson County. Retiring in 2003 from General Electric Outdoor Lighting after almost 30 years of service I discovered that I liked to write and joined an on-line writing site called hub pages. The articles contained in Living the Good Life-Part I are all short stories which I wrote on my site and cover a broad range of topics. We all have memories created over the span of our life. In this volume I share many of those memories. I grew up in a small rural mountain community in Western North Carolina called Tuxedo, a cotton mill village.The stories in this book are written to record and to share those memories that warmed my heart, made me smile, and sometimes invoked personal reflection. My writing style is simple, down to earth with the wisdom one might expect of ordinary folk. In writing these articles it has been my goal to not only share these stories but to preserve these simple life experiences that some may have forgotten or taken for granted. ll village, my military years, inspirational thoughts, and tales told to me. Readers will experience the thoughts and emotions conveyed in a simple narrative. My stories are a collection which I have written over time and published on a writers blog where other writers read and give feedback on the subject matter and and content. The articles in this book all received high marks from my fellow writers.

Having grown up in a cotton mill community my life was impacted and influenced in a wonderful way by the people in our village. Our little village was named Tuxedo and my parents were cotton mill workers. During the mid 1950's after a Union strike our lives begin to change in many ways for the better. In this book I will share some stories of our community and my own personal stories of the people and places that remain dear to me.

Chit Chat-Stories Told Around the Hearth is a collection of 42 stories and tales of life experiences. Many I heard as a boy sitting around listening to the grown ups talk while others are simply life situations about the everyday situations we all experience.