Tim Cavender grew up in Ball Ground, Georgia, just north of Atlanta and graduated from Cherokee High School in 1976. During his high school days, he worked at the local radio station before he could even drive a car. Tim also developed an interest in magic and has performed on Atlanta television and has traveled extensively throughout the country to entertain and motivate others with his inspirational talk called The Magic Within You. For over four decades, Tim Cavender has portrayed Santa Claus for thousands of children. In 2015, Tim was inducted into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame in Albion, New York. At the time of his induction, he was only one of forty-one Santa Clauses in the world to have obtained this honor. During that same year, Tim and Pam were selected and knighted into the Order of St. Nicholas.
From the farms and pastures of the north Georgia mountains, where pine trees grow in the brick red clay, the tradition of storytelling is alive and well. As rustic as a barbed wire fence, as homey as a light in the window, In the Pines is a collection of stories and poems told in the voice of a vanishing people. Funny, poignant, and reminiscent of events and personalities familiar to us all, you will come away feeling that someone in the book reminds you of a person you know. This is not a book about the magnolia and cotillion south, but about the lives of Appalachian people who lived a hardscrabble life at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains. So, take a journey into the lives of the Appalachian people and listen to the characters tell their stories of joys and struggles, and everyday life in the mountains, in the pines.
When Alex's father takes her to their favorite beach she brings a dandelion with her to make a special wish, but upon arrival she sees another little girl who might need the wish much more than she does..
