The book is slated for publication in the summer of 2004, by Parkway Publishers.

Dubbed "Shuffletown" early in its history -- although origins of the name are widely disputed -- the rustic crossroads community was literally bulldozed out of existence in 2000 as the juggernaut of nearby Charlotte’s unquenchable demand for housing and traffic jams rolled northward to the river. In the blink of an eye, acres of rolling green Piedmont farmland were converted to streets and byways lined with upscale, cookie-cutter neo-Georgian housing, and Shuffletown Grocery, where minnows and other "live bait" had been sold for generations, was replaced by min-malls, with supermarkets, drug stores, fast food and the usual amenities of the modern sprawl-plex.

Author Judy Rozzelle’s ancestors settled in Shuffletown in the early 19th Century -- they operated the ferry across the Catawba for 80 years or so, until the bridge was built in the 1920s. Ms. Rozzelle grew up on Rozzelles Ferry Road, and moved away after college to start her career and her family, but moved back 30 years later -- just in time to witness the demise of a place she’d assumed to be indestructible and enduring.

Following the adage to "write what you know," she set out to capture the unique spirit of the community that produced the cast of characters that had been her cousins and neighbors, family and friends. In Shuffletown USA, she captured their idiosyncrasies, prejudices, passions, and peculiar behaviors in a series of essays that bring back to life a time, place and way of life that is rapidly disappearing.

Each essay is based on real people and their real adventures, misadventures and antics; those described may be recognized by their behaviors, but never by their names. "I just thought it was best to change the names with the hopes that I would not have to move out of state," Ms. Rozzelle says.

The book recalls a time when people were less sophisticated and far less self-absorbed. In an era before air conditioning, television, shopping malls and $3.00 coffee, Ms. Rozzelle recaptures the pleasure of a clinking glass of iced tea on a scalding hot August day, the gleeful chirp of children chasing June bugs by day and fireflies by night, and the mouth watering anticipation created by the crack of an ice cold watermelon being split for serving.

The stories include a festival featuring a stationary parade, a fire department whose motto was "We never lose a foundation," a television/small appliance repair shop jammed with unclaimed items the owners couldn’t bear to throw away, goats passing for reindeer, references to Abe Lincoln’s paternity, and a preacher who waited 22 years to marry a girl he baptized one fine spring day and fell in love with as a baby.

By the author’s own account, there are no good or bad people described in Shuffletown USA, no saints or sinners. "If the seven deadly sins had shown up in Shuffletown in those days wearing clown costumes, they would have been invited in to sit a spell," she says. "Folks would have just assumed they were distant relatives, bless their hearts."

In addition to editing Charlotte Magazine, Judy Rozzelle won Guideposts Magazine’s Writer’s Contest and was a longtime member of the Southeastern Outdoor Writer’s Association, as well as a partner in the advertising firm, Haley, Garland and Lahr.

Parkway Publishers, Inc., of Boone, NC, specializes in the history, literature, culture, travel and tourism of western North Carolina, featuring authors and writers of the North Carolina High Country.

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Shuffletown USA by email