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By Rose Hooper
The popular Summer Evenings in Webster have been extended to include
a special Winter Evening in Webster featuring "A John Parris
Christmas" this Sunday, Dec. 21.
John Parris
The 3 p.m. program at historic Webster United Methodist
Church will focus on Parris' stories, accompanied by music.
The legendary Sylva author, who died in 1999, wrote stories about
Western North Carolina mountains and the people who lived in them.
He cherished mountain traditions and chronicled as many as he
could in his writings.
Historic Webster United Methodist Church, shown here in a watercolor
by Melba Simpson, will be the site of a Sunday program that will
honor the memory of legendary Sylva author John Parris. Area residents
will read a selection of Parris' stories, and local musicians
will perform seasonal favorites on guitar, fiddle and piano.
"Christmas was always a special time for John. He and his
wife, Dorothy, liked to spend it on their farm where they'd decorate
the living room with a big tree; John would fix the turkey dinner
himself," said Joe Rhinehart, who coordinated Sunday's event
in memory of Parris.
John and Dorothy Parris, who died in 1995, were known locally
for extending the holiday celebration through Jan. 6, referred
to by many in the mountains as "Old Christmas."
Area residents, including Louise Bedford of Webster, will read
excerpts from several of Parris' Christmas stories. Bedford's
selection is Oranges Mean Christmas to Old Timers.
Rose Hooper of Locust Creek will read The Christmas Bush, Howard
Allman of Webster will read The Babe in the Manger, Robert Hall
of Asheville will read Of Chimes and the Gift of Life and Tony
Kiss of Asheville will read A Christmas Long Ago.
"During his long, colorful career, legendary newsman John
Parris hung out with Hemingway, sipped whiskey with Churchill
and played poker with Ike.
He dodged Hitler's bombs in London while covering the darkest
days of World War II. And he spent 42 years recording everyday
mountain life in a popular column for the Asheville Citizen-Times,"
Kiss wrote in a column about Parris the year before the author
died at age 84.
"John simply put down on paper so much that had never been
recorded about the mountains," his close, longtime friend
Doug Reed of Cullowhee, said in the article.
"Unlike a lot of newspaper people who get office bound, John
was free to actually get out and do the simple roving of the region.
John would literally drive into some remote part of our mountain
area and get out and go into a little country store or sometimes
just a home. And they knew him. He might have visited with them
before.
"John was capturing something that had been slipping away,"
Reed said.
"And that's exactly what we want to preserve," said
Rhinehart about Sunday's program that is sponsored by the Webster
Historical Society.
Charlie Shuler of Caney Fork will play "Go, Tell It on the
Mountain" on guitar and Elizabeth Butler of Webster will
play the English carol "The Holly Bears the Berry" on
her fiddle. Throughout the program Linda Stewart of Webster will
entertain with Christmas carols on the piano.
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