The golden leaves have fallen again.

Every year around Veterans Day, the Sugar Maple tree appears to drop most of its leaves over a very short period. It seems like one day the trees are full of golden hues and then, all the sudden, the ground is covered with one of nature’s perfectly colored carpets.

As the years pass, this time of the year takes on more thought-provoking opportunities or at least that’s the way it seems to me.

The NC Society of Historians has their annual awards and honors event in the Fall each year. This year our creative team received the “Award of Excellence” for various projects and programs we have produced. I am proud of each of them.

I was honored to be named “The 2018 North Carolina Historian of the Year”. This was a big surprise because most people who receive this honor are my senior by some years, or so I thought.

As the presenter was reading a rather long list of history related broadcast segments and stories, I had written over the years, I began to realize a few things. The one that stood out the most was the fact that the years are indeed stacking up. I have seen the falling of the Sugar Maple leaves more times than I would like to admit.

The truth is, I love traveling and stepping back in history and I enjoy the company of others who do the same. It’s good to have a look at the past for what it is not what we would like for it to be. What really happened?

Sometimes we are delighted in what we discover and other times we find ourselves processing the emotions of shame. The more time we spend strolling through the streets of history the more likely we are to understand why we are the way we are today.

There are few places that I travel in the Carolinas that history is not in some way celebrated. I think of Blackbeard on the Outer Banks, the Brown Mountain Lights in Burke County and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Chesterfield, SC was the home of the legendary Dizzy Gillespie and the Wilcox Hotel in Aiken is full of entertaining history that will make you both smile and blush.

It’s a cool rainy day in the foothills of the Carolinas as I write these words. We have just celebrated Veterans Day and had the first airing of our Life In The Carolinas special “Honoring Women in Service”.

The episode was to honor the more than 1.8 million women who have served from the Spanish American War to our current military.

We had candid conversations with Denise Rohan, the first Female National Commander of the American Legion and Carol Barker, a past American Legion NC Department Commander who shared her story of service and her battle with PTSD. We visited with Patricia Harris, the first female American Legion NC Department Commander and the first African American Department Commander.

It was a true honor to produce this special and share the stories of these brave women who have served and continue to serve our nation by service to others.

I sent a picture of the Sugar Maple falling leaves to a friend because I recalled talking about them over the past few years. He asks how many times I thought they’ve fallen. I said, the ones on the ground had only fallen once, but we had known each other for 5-6 fallings.

Fall is a wonderful time of the year in the Carolinas. It’s a time for layers and if we take a moment, the Sugar Maple may take us on the trail of history.