Fred First

Fred First is the author of “Slow Road Home: a Blue Ridge Book of Days” (2006) and “What We Hold in Our Hands -- a Slow Road Reader” (2009). He has contributed more than 30 essays to Roanoke's NPR station. His written and photographic works are published in various places including Blue Ridge Country Magazine, Petlife, Greenprints, Birmingham Arts Journal, Smith Mountain Laker, Nantahala Review and Richard Louv's Children and Nature Network.

Finding Water

Water. All my life it came out of a tap every time I turned the knobs on the kitchen sink or wanted a hot shower. It always worked that way, always would. I was an otherwise science-and-planet-aware, touchy-feely tree-hugger type, but took water for granted for thirty years. I confess this. I swam in pools full of the stuff whose existence in this world began the second it left the nozzle of the garden hose or kitchen faucet. This was true until I found water 1981.

Creative Nonfiction

Fred First

Fred First is the author of “Slow Road Home: a Blue Ridge Book of Days” (2006) and “What We Hold in Our Hands -- a Slow Road Reader” (2009). He has contributed more than 30 essays to Roanoke's NPR station. His written and photographic works are published in various places including Blue Ridge Country Magazine, Petlife, Greenprints, Birmingham Arts Journal, Smith Mountain Laker, Nantahala Review and Richard Louv's Children and Nature Network.

Finding Water

Water. All my life it came out of a tap every time I turned the knobs on the kitchen sink or wanted a hot shower. It always worked that way, always would. I was an otherwise science-and-planet-aware, touchy-feely tree-hugger type, but took water for granted for thirty years. I confess this. I swam in pools full of the stuff whose existence in this world began the second it left the nozzle of the garden hose or kitchen faucet. This was true until I found water 1981.

Creative Nonfiction

Back to Author Index