The first time I went to visit the sister and brother in-law at their home outside
Asheville, I drove alone, as my wife who as already there. It was a long arduous drive through mountain roads, in the dark as I had lost the race with the sinking sun. I felt like I was in the back of beyond, far far away from a civilized place when I finally drove up through the bushes to their cabin in
Celo:
Even by the light of day their hand built home has a Hansel and Gretel air to it, perched on a knob in the middle of the North Carolina mountains and woods.
I remember stumbling in, out of the cool autumnal night and being greeted by a wood paneled room, a fireplace, a stove and a massive old fashioned kitchen all apparently pumping out heat simultaneously. They took my bags and then an unaccustomed sound rang out, like a clarion call. "You have a phone out
here?" I asked incredulously as I struggled to acknowledge where I actually was. That I had called them at the phone many times previously did not occur to me till everyone had stopped laughing. "And we have wine too," my brother in law the connoisseur, reminded me as he poured.
Celebrating Hanukkah there this month seemed particularly appropriate in light of the exceptional cold hitting much of the nation, and not sparing western North Carolina. We lit candles this year with especial meaning as the wind howled down the mountains and through the trees giving us the impression we were about to be run down by a truck. When we retreated to our electrically warmed room at the
Celo Inn, just off Highway 80, we could hear the wind howling and the rain pounding on the roof, making the place feel like a tent. The elements ravage this part of the world.
It's the style around here this German fairy tale architecture, all gables and wooden beams, and at this time of year dead looking deciduous trees. Another guest at the Inn admitted it was her first visit and I encouraged her to come up from Florida in the summer when it is glorious in green. "It's just another kind of beauty," the Innkeeper remarked when I talked about how alive the trees are in summer. So it is another kind of beauty, but I just like green better than dead:
The winding mountain roads around here are lined with leafless trees this time of year...
...as is the Little Toe River, which runs through the valley:
Celo (pronounced:
See-
low) is a corrupted version of the Italian or Spanish for "heaven,"
cielo, and for those that seek mountain living it is just that. For those of us pantywaists who think 70 degrees Fahrenheit (27C) is cold,
Celo is a nice place to visit, particularly during the three weeks of summer when temperatures go above 80 F and cause the locals to sweat and curse their way through a heatwave. These are people who revel in their ex-urban toughness, who love plaid and wool and mountains hemming them in:
From my in-laws front yard one can see Mount Mitchell, reported on elsewhere in this blog as the highest point in the eastern United States:
My brother-in-law and his wife are among the oldest members of
Celo Community, founded decades ago as a form of communal living in the 1960s style. It is sometimes referred to as a Quaker community but it is not. What it is, is a bunch of land owned in common and the people who ask to join are sponsored and voted in (or out) at community meetings. Home plans are also agreed to by the community by consensus votes and transfer of homes by sale or inheritance also have to garner the community's consensus. It is a laborious and cumbersome way to live, in my opinion, but it suits some people very well. My brother-in-law tells me numbers are up and as far as I can gather there are almost half a hundred families living in
Celo Community these days. They are growing vegetables and raising animals:
The style of most homes in the area are rural mountain cabins, home to artists and artisans, painters and recluses and gregarious people and tough people in shirt sleeves when it's freezing cold:
Celo is not easy to find, it's not a tourist attraction though the community does have a little gift shop and food co-op on Highway 80 close by the Little Toe River. Access to the community is across a bridge next to the Inn:
One of the two great institutions of
Celo is across the bridge:
When my sister-in-law the physician worked there it was a little wooden house and now they have built this magnificent brick structure. Back in the old days before roads, communications and cell phones (which still mostly don't work around here), the health center was a blessing to the locals who lived in Appalachian isolation, and the clinic still serves a profound community need. One road heads off in front of the clinic all paved and modern:
The other, all gravel and dirt and pot holed and wet, turns into the main body of the community, the communal land:
And off that winding "main road" that the State wants to modernize and widen and pave with all offsets and sidewalks and stuff that the residents are leery of, there are side roads and paths...
...with cryptic signs and odd sign posts:
And the road winds past open spaces backing into mountain valleys that North
Carolinians mysteriously call "coves" as though they had some long lost nautical flavor:
The main road through the community branches off past more of these little houses, whose occupants are all known to my family members. It's a bit
disconcerting when out walking to get a casual wave from a complete stranger. The fact that one is there at all, is an
indicator of belonging in some way, and if I were asked, I'd say I'm with my brother-in-law and they would nod and tell me to take greetings to him. Try that on a street corner anywhere in the USA:
This is quite the other world compared to the rushing suburban scene just forty minutes away in
Asheville to the southeast.
Celo Community has been struggling with self sufficiency in the diet, and my brother in law is excited by the numbers of people seeking refuge in this organic world especially as farming is coming back to
Celo as the outside economy offers less income. However so are the deer increasing in numbers and they enjoy snacking on people's vegetable gardens. And because this a consensus driven community they have been debating for four months whether or not to allow hunters to cull deer that are all over the mountains and after an entire hunting season of debate they reached no conclusions. People outside the community mark their turf with these bald signs:
Along the line where my Quaker brother-in-laws' garden backs up against the outside world he made up these signs:
He was brought up to be polite. I took the dog for a walk, that and updating my blog were easy ways to get away from the pressure cooker of the organizational chaos of ten more or less related people celebrating a holiday. Mason who lives in
Asheville with Nephew #1, likes the woods obviously:
The centerpiece of
Celo Community is the school, which when I think about it gives this whole farming, mountain, alternative living enterprise, a rather domestic flavor. However the back to the land movement here, which seems suddenly less eccentric and more needed as our national economy continues to fail in spectacular fashion, is in fact devoted to the proper raising of children. My wife a woman not driven by a desire to have kids, turned down the opportunity to homestead here decades ago, but for couples seeking those much touted anti- urban values
Celo offers land, security in a physical sense (no gates needed) and most importantly the sort of school where ending a sentence with "please" is an instilled value:
You have a school with youngsters being taught not just to read and write but how to get along in these unremarkable school buildings, the focus of much attention at community meetings:
That spirit of easy going tolerance is exemplified by the Volkswagen bus parked under a shelter nearby. It's not running and hasn't been running for years, as long as I remember. It just sits there. My brother in law said he spoke to the owner recently who, with some embarrassment explained it was a restoration project (the perfect non conformist symbol of course!) and he hadn't quite "got around to it."
Procrastination drives me nuts, especially when I see it in myself, and that alone is a good explanation for why I would never do well in
Celo. In
Celo though, procrastination is just another way of saying that the wheel of life goes around and when it's the right time it will get done, and until then there are lots of other things to occupy our minds and bodies.
Celo's way of doing things may one day have to be mass marketed to the unemployed, the foreclosed and the aimless in our new world order, where the discredited free market gives way to shared living. I wonder how we will take to it
en masse, the concept of living mindfully?
It used to be, back in the 1960s that the Triumph Bonneville, a 650cc parallel twin motorcycle was one of the most desirable machines any red blooded young man (man!) could own. It held the unofficial world speed record at the Utah salt flats and was made famous in film as the motorcycle that rebels loved to own and ride. It was totally cool, like this 1969 T-120 whose gorgeous image I found on the British vintage bike website. 
However the Bonnevilles from that era vibrated like hell, they tended to leak oil and their electrical systems failed with dismal regularity. The Lucas electrics were known as "Lucas, Prince of darkness" owing to their propensity for failure leaving riders in the lurch....They were a beautiful design originating in the 1930s from the board of Edward Turner, assembled with too little care, poor engineering detail and not enough capital investment. Later models that got more precisely milled cranks suffered from far less vibration and owners who took the time to smooth the edges of the vertical crankcases suffered minimal oil leaks, they say. I never owned an original Bonnie because even in those days I wanted, yes a cool bike, but I wanted one that was at least minimally reliable for my sole means of transport. I rode Italian twins, Morini, MV Agusta, Benelli and eventually when I overcame my disdain for Japanese niceness I rode a Yamaha 500 single, cool possibly because even in 1980 the SR 500 still eschewed an electric start and I learned firsthand how to start a big single. I was an old school rider, a nerd, but even I found Bonnevilles too much trouble to own. Until now:
Even for a commuter bike I wanted something small, simple and reliable in the Florida Keys for my 25 mile commute and occasional forays further afield. I wanted something old school and I thought a Vespa 250 might work, so I rode the red one pictured in the banner at the top of the blog for 10,000 miles over the course of ten months. After it's horrid, unreliable modern electrics, too old school for me, crapped out for the last time I decided it had to go in favor of a more reliable machine. I expect to put 18,000 miles a year on a motorcycle as two wheels are my main means of transport. I drive the car if I need to haul a lot of stuff or its cold or I'm not feeling well. Otherwise it's the Bonneville every single day. 
This particular model of Bonneville is no longer made, modern needs require fuel injection and modern tastes have scrapped the wire wheels and "peashooter" exhausts, though the engine now used in the 2009 series remains the same 865cc mill. If you want the classic look you can only get it with the heavily chromed "upgraded" (ie: more costly!) T100 version. The basic Bonneville these days comes with alloy wheels (nice because they are tubeless) and modern cone exhausts, shown in this picture from hell for leather magazine. It's not so different but....different enough! 
I've found the Bonneville to be about perfect for my daily use, it's been vice free and easy to enjoy. The maintenance intervals are set at 12,000 miles which boils down to once a year more or less and in between the motorcycle only needs oil changes, every six thousand miles at which point it takes four quarts (liters) of synthetic and a clean filter. The tires last 8,000 and 12,000 miles respectively rear and front and the final drive chain has been remarkably easy to take care of. I hadn't wanted to go back to a final drive chain motorcycle but I bought a $35 gadget from England that drips oil on the chain as I ride. My friend Bruce calls it an oil flinging tool but my chain is doing great with it.
It's called a Loobman and its just a collection of rubber tubes that send droplets of oil to the sprocket and that lubricates the chain. I wash the chain every thousand miles with kerosene and a stiff brush and squeeze the Loobman bottle every time I feel like it and the chain lasts about 3,000 miles between minor adjustments. I pretty much know when the chain needs a quick tightening as the motorbike snatches in low gear around town. The five speed gearbox is light and easy to use, and I'm adding an aftermarket tachometer next month that the Hanukkah fairy just brought me. 
It takes 89 grade (US) gasoline which yields between between 43 and 48 miles to the gallon, and I hit reserve around 135 miles on the odometer:
The bike cost me exactly $8,000 out the door in October 2007, from Pure Triumph in Fort Lauderdale which included the optional center stand ($250) and the rubber tank pads ($65). I also paid for optional gaiters on the front forks as I prefer to keep the suspension out of the crud and salt air:
Old timers of all ages often sidle up and ask what year the Triumph is and embark on their own happy memories of struggling with leaky electrically unreliable Bonnevilles of decades past, and they seem unimpressed when I tell them my modern 900 is vibration free, reliable and doesn't leak a drop of oil (except for that which I spray on the final drive chain). I like the modern Triumph because it looks the part of a real motorcycle, like the machines of my youth, but it goes like a new machine which it is. I love that light clutch, and the motorcycle's ability to pull from 40 miles per hour in top gear.
Call me prejudiced but if I see a motorcycle without luggage it doesn't spell "daily rider" to me, so naturally I threw on an ugly but very functional top case that gives me locking weatherproof storage:
At $80 that was a bargain, and because it is a perfect square there's no wasted space inside with compound curves, like those fancier Italian top boxes. Another bargain was the $15 cargo net I use to keep things secured to the seat, things that don't fit in the box or the saddlebags (though I also have added a proper helmet lock visible to the right of the picture below):
The Triumph fabric panniers come with mounting hardware at $250. In some ways I'd like detachable hard bags which would be more weatherproof and secure like the top case, but the fabric bags are actually more practical in some respects:
I keep them sprayed with silicon waterproofing and when I stop to put on the waterproof clothing I carry in them I cover them with their built in plastic rain covers as well. Being fabric they yield a little and make for a little extra room, they are lightweight and easy to remove when I don't need to ride with them. To do that I have to remove the seat, and though the saddle looks just like the original Bonnevilles' it's a pain in the butt as the twin screws that hold it in place have a habit of falling out. Plus they are awkward to realign when installing the seat. As you can see in the picture below I've lost one screw and will have to get another set to watch them come undone and fall into the road...
I've found some persistent rust patches on the mirror stems and the front fender bracket:
Though my regimen of frequent fresh water washes seems to be keeping the rest of the chrome and alloy corrosion quite free. On the subject, critics of the modern Bonneville despise the exhaust system's "kink" which was added in front of the muffler to increase ground clearance:
It doesn't bother me, but then again I'm not bothered by the flange that runs around the edge of the tank (visible in the picture further up the page) which is supposed to be a "period detail" from a 1960s or 1970s bike but which drives some fusspots crazy. These would be the people who think my Parabellum windshield ($250) is just another overly practical addition to a motorcycle that many owners like to keep as a Sunday rider. They're welcome to as Triumph offers a whole book of fancy add-ons to make the Bonneville anything you want, cafe racer, custom bobber you name it they have it. For me, my Bonneville is my workhorse which makes my commute a pleasure and gives me the chance to enjoy the open road every day of the year:
I like the Triumph's simplicity, its good looks and it's all round capability. I've ridden at 80 mph sustained on the freeway very comfortably, I've taken it on the dirt and the gravel, and it's easy to ride around town though at almost 500 pounds it's heavier than it looks. With just 60 horsepower from the eight valve engine it's decidedly under stressed so I have high hopes that it will be happily turning over 100,000 miles (160,000 kms) in 2013. Here's hoping....
The big controversy in Burnsville, county seat of Yancey County just outside Asheville is whether or not the state is doing a good thing widening US Highway 19 that runs from Interstate 26 to Spruce Pine and points east. The idea would be for Burnsville commuters to be able to drive all the way to Asheville at their speed, leaving tourists and slow pokes to dawdle in the slow lane. Personally I sometimes wouldn't mind such forward thinking on Highway One through the Keys, even though the Bonneville makes tourist passing an enjoyable pastime for me most days... My brother in law (retired) is incensed about the road widening and has been fulminating about it for years, and now it's happening so the sight of the earth moving equipment just makes him morose, a bad loser. The dude who sold us some craft pottery in downtown Burnsville was quietly delighted. He commutes an hour to Asheville airport to his day job and the road widening from his crafts store/home will be a lot easier.
Even though Appalachia and the Keys are as different as possible they do have something in common. I have seen this same plaque on the corner of Peacon Lane and Caroline Street in Key West: