..........Grassy Creek Vineyard.

I saw a piece of my childhood on an ETV show North Carolina Weekly last night. It was a story on the Grassy Creek Vineyard in Elkin, NC. In 1963, we moved to Elkin on my fourth birthday. At the time, my dad was a middle level executive with Centel Telephone Company. As a result of his work with the company, we were moved every ten years as the company reorganized. Moving to Elkin was great for me. Elkin is a great small town in the NC Piedmont region that is nestled right along the Yadkin River. Elkin had so many great things to offer a kid - small city school system, YMCA, a great public park, and it was close to Winston-Salem. We moved to a new housing development on the north side of town called Grassy Creek Drive. At the time, not many houses were in the subdivision; but it was growing. There were several kids my age on the street, and I had a great childhood there. Bordering our property and right in our backyard was the Klondike Dairy. As young boys, we would cross a big field to the dairy office and buy a one-pint chocolate milk for five cents. The then manager, Frank Miller, let us boys play on the property as we pleased. When the cows were not in the field behind our house, he would let us ride our motorcycles and go-carts there, and play "army". He also used to let us fish in a pond on the property and gave us permission to explore the old dumping ground there at the dairy. There were great discarded items that we salvaged to make things that boys would make just to have fun. I remember once that we found about thirty or forty three-legged milking stools in the dump area. We couldn't believe that someone would have thrown away all these stools in such good condition. I realize now that this represented a move from hand milking to machine milking. The Klondike Dairy delivered our milk right to our doorstep every other day. We would order a quart of milk for each delivery, and a pint of half and half once per week. Getting milk delivered right to your doorstep is a great piece of Americana. Many of my best memories are from the times that I spent playing, fishing, and exploring the area around Grassy Creek. During the summertime, I practically lived in the wooded areas around my house. My dad taught me to make sourwood whistles right there along the bank of Grassy Creek. This show brought back some great memories of a great childhood. The dairy closed many years ago and has since been bought and turned into Grassy Creek Vineyard. There are several vineyards being established in the area between Surry and Forsyth counties right now. There are cabins for rent there at the vineyard, along with tours and wine tastings. I look forward to visiting there sometime in the near future. Here's a website that you can visit to get more information: www.grassycreekvineyard.com.