A Day In North Carolina

An oil change in Burnsville at brother-in-law Bob’s favorite mechanic. 

We walked 45 minutes across town to a brew pub for a hamburger lunch. Good beer too. Rusty drank his water and slept. 

I wanted ice cream for dessert. I’m not sure why but I hadn’t had any for a while. 

Strawberry and praline in a waffle cone. Hit the spot. 

Perhaps Layne being away with her sister had something to do with the splurge. 

Bob has lived here half a century so it was not surprising  he met an acquaintance. What surprised me was the shouted conversation across the street! Rusty ignored them and the Coca Cola invitation and put his nose in the gutter. 

Naturally Bob knows the artist who painted the mural and he had done entertaining stories of the mountain woman’s eccentricities. If you move here you are either eccentric or rich. A bit like Key West. 

House prices are high and going up as the rich incomers get irritated at having to live with eccentrics who were charming when they came on vacation.  A bit like Key West! 

Yancey County used to be dry but even the eccentrics got behind the vote to liberate the demon alcohol from imprisonment by the Baptists. Bob says that vote opened up Burnsville to a spate of tourism not seen before. 

Of course success breeds…rising prices. Trying to figure this stuff out will give you a glorious headache. 

Bob said he was in the small engine shop the morning of 9-11, and he and the owner watched the second airplane hit the tower. That prompted the shop owner to suggest this meant war. I asked Bob if he got his lawnmower running and he thought about it for a bit and said he couldn’t actually remember why he was in the shop. 

As we meandered across Burnsville Bob looked lustfully at twisted pieces of wood. He grumbled about the high prices. Well I said you’ve got lots of wood around your house, try a trade. He didn’t bite. 

We picked up GANNET2 with clean engine oil and a filter -$72 to do the work- and drove the half hour back to Bob’s rural community at Celo. Happily the speed limit on Highway 80 has been reduced from 55 to 45 mph. This is the only road in North America that had a speed limit I could not keep up with. Now I feel less inadequate though with GANNET2, 45 is a bit of a stretch. 

Before we harvested some vegetables we checked the poem of the week posted in front of the community vegetable patch. I’d never thought of a dead car battery as sleeping beauty before so I learned a new metaphor. 

It was a lovely sunny afternoon to wander the communal vegetable patch. 

The great thing about Rusty is he can look after himself. A stranger to me, not to Bob, came walking down the road and Rusty looked at her. She crossed the road as she chatted with Bob and petted Rusty. “I have to pet a dog that won’t run into the street even for a pet.”  Good boy. 

Bob takes the chilis and puts them on the gas burner and chars them and as odd as it sounds they are delicious. And not spicy. He collects them in an old fashioned wicker basket in keeping with his 19th century aesthetic. 

They are planning on buying a used Chevy Bolt like the one their son has. I looked askance at the suggestion. Bob said I was underestimating him when I suggested neither he or his wife would keep it together to keep the car charged properly so absentminded are they. I have no doubt they will strand themselves all over Western North Carolina in the years to come. No doubt knowing their luck it will be in front of homes of friends they haven’t seen for years…much conviviality will ensue. 

An unarmed survivalist prowling the bounty of North Carolina. Unarmed only in the broadest sense, that basket has some pretty lethal edges. 

The pepper harvest: 

Bob’s little helper hard at it as usual: 

Psst! Wanna a winter squash? Jeez Bob I said, thanks for the offer but I’d displace half my wardrobe to store that in the van. I see squash on the menu in the next night or two. 

Some really pretty details punctuate the deer fence.  

Dinner was pasta with sauce made from home grown vegetables, including squash, red wine from France and conversation. 

Damn he said. I wanted to read and now you’ve poured me more wine. Easy fix I said and decanted his glass into mine. 

We went heavy on the sauce, I washed the pan while Bob loaded the dishwasher. Survival never looked so comfortable. 

Bob the academic built the house with some community  help. Their eldest son was born in the kitchen. Geeta his doctor wife worked at the health clinic bringing medical care to an unserved corner of Appalachia. When my wife came to visit from California she brought Mexican food to drop some diversity into their food shopping. Things have changed over time obviously but the old timers haven’t. 

Layne came home later after a long day in Asheville with her sister. Asheville has ethnic food in abundance of course. We’ve plugged in to a power cord and our space heater is worth its weight in gold. 50 degree damp nights do that. I was listening to Rusty snore as I read in my driving seat reversed to face my desk, the recliner I always craved in a house.   

At the end of the week we move on and leave the transplanted mountain folk to their gentle, hilltop soap opera. As Celo turns.