With his trombone in the attic and his music career a distant memory, it seemed very unlikely that Jerry Zink would one day find himself as the leader of a swing band in the mountains of North Carolina. But three decades after he last played and nearly a thousand miles from his Oklahoma home, Jerry Zink retrieved his trombone from his attic in Flat Rock and resolved to re-learn the instrument that had given him – and his audiences – so much pleasure in his youth.  (Caricature by Pete Adams)

My visit to the grave of noted Flat Rock historian and author, Louise Howe Bailey, was prompted by my interest in the history of the St. John in the Wilderness cemetery that sweeps around the venerable church like a solemn verdant cloak.  I was there to research the significance of the history captured on the chiseled granite monuments and inscribed marble slabs that are scattered throughout the grounds and even inside the sanctuary.