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.