Mindset: Vacation / Work / Both?

     Today, June 21^st, marks the 2013 Summer Solstice; that’s a fancy way of saying the start of summertime.  With this longest day of the year, comes the beginning of the school break, lazy backyard afternoons, pool parties, sunburn, baseball, mosquitoes, and of course, vacations.

      I took a college course one time on “urban planning and cities

as an environment.”  No, I have no idea why; easy elective I guess.  I was living in Saint Petersburg, Florida at the time, a mere two hundred yards from the Intracoastal and the bridge to the beaches.  One topic of the class was “vacation mentality” and the difference between our regular lives and our recreation lives.  It was an interesting exercise discussing the leisured attractions that surrounded us while we were busy supporting a family, earning a living, paying bills/taxes/tuition, and fighting with the horrendous Pinellas County traffic.

     When my tolerance for the good Florida lifestyle reached its breaking point, I moved from one tourist destination to another, here in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.  I vowed that this time life would be different, and to a point it is.  I restructured my priorities and my consumptive tendencies and am finally able to live a much less stressful life, work from home, and even enjoy the smell of roses once in a while (actually, I just planted them this spring -- so, no blooms to smell yet).

     Even with fewer stressors to battle each day, I still can feel the difference between vacation and work.  Last week I was in the bathroom preparing to get in the shower, I looked at the Jacuzzi tub and thought, “We’ve been in this house for nine months, I ought to try that thing sometime.”  I didn’t, I needed to get washed, dressed and start my workday.  It brought to mind some friends of ours (NOTE: ours is a reference to BOTH me and my wife -- there Shirle, I mentioned you in the blog again) and how after they had followed us here from the Humid Peninsula of Palmetto Bugs, they built a log cabin high on a mountain top.  It was purposefully designed with a two seat Jacuzzi in their master suite because whenever they came to the mountains on vacation, they always took baths together.  From what I understand, in the six years they’ve lived here, a double occupancy has yet to be tried.  By the way, they are retired and financially comfortable, so work is not the obstacle; it’s the mindset.

      There really should be some way to meet in the middle; to live and vacation simultaneously.  Shirle (two mentions!) has been bugging me about taking some long weekends and getting away for some leisure time.  People from all over the world come HERE to do that, and she wants to get away.  Mindset!

     I don’t have the answer, so I’m open for suggestions if you have any.  In the meantime, have a happy, safe, relaxed summer and take a vacation! 

     Now to get back to work…

It died, I didn't kill it, honestly.

     Back in the waning days of this year's The-Winter-That-Would-Not-Quit, I mentioned in a post that I touched and killed the central CPU of my network and was forced to replace it with a new Dell.  Well, my Midas Touch has worked its magic again.
     The new (3 month old) server had streamlined some of my operations, all the software had been transferred and with very few exceptions, without the need to purchase new licenses, and over 70 hours of music had been ripped so that every workstation could share my eclectic playlists.  The faster, more powerful machine was a welcomed addition to my technology dependant business and life.
      I swear to you, I never opened the case.  It wasn't my fault.  Okay, maybe it was my fault, but I never opened the case.
      The hard drive crashed.  Someone once said, "Life is good."  I'd like to meet that person, follow him around, observe and take notes.  I am obviously doing something wrong, or I have a complete misunderstanding of the word GOOD.
      The inanimate brains behind my organization was/is under warranty.  The company sent a Fed Ex hearse out to collect the remains for interment.   The flatlander driver was too paranoid to attempt the drive up the mountain, so I had to throw the dead carcass in my truck and drive down to meet him at the end of the public road.
      In five to seven business days, I will receive a new replacement, sans software, music, and approximately 20 hours of network configuration.  Oh goody!  I get to do that all over again.  
      In the meantime  the printer and scanner are idle.  I could, I guess, do a temp install on one of the laptops, but that's probably not worth the effort.  The barcode reader, external drives, and the other varied and sundry devices are portable enough to be moved to a different location, leaving my office as a nice storage room, with a 24" HD monitor waiting patiently to be mated with some new unnamed stud.  And I am relegated to working from one of my alternate work stations (did I mention without music?!?) 
      I love technology, I have since my first pager in 1980, my first

PC (an AT&T Unix machine that cost over $10,000 because I had to upgrade to a 40 meg hard drive!), and even my first cellphone-in-a-bag.  
     While writing that last paragraph, an ancient memory popped into my head.  Shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, I had doubled up on trigonometry and calculus trying to squeeze all eight available highschool math courses into three years, prepping for an early graduation.  One of the teachers informed us that we could, if we desired, buy one of those calculating devices to use in class.  I paid $88.00 for a 5x9" machine that required 4 C batteries, only

added, subtracted, multiplied and divided, with no memory, no printing, and no other functions.  It was the best that money could buy and not a tenth as powerful as those credit card sized things that insurance companies always give you when you renew your policy.
     Anyway, in the modern days of smart phones with more computing power than the technology that took man to the moon,  life may be good, but only if you boot up successfully each morning, and so do your computers.

Mountainside Gardening

      When you decide to live perched on an excavated shelf, high on a mountain in the middle of what is essentially a forest, you face a few challenges.  I’ve written before about the rarity of “wired” utilities; obviously when it snows, you don’t go anywhere; and it is constantly an issue convincing delivery men that their vehicles really can make it up my driveway.  But the one challenge I was determined to conquer on the mountain was having my very necessary fresh vegetable garden.

    I have gardened all of my life and I am not about to give up on the taste of newly picked flora nutritio.  When I informed my wife that I was going to put in a garden on the only tiny section of flat space that is not occupied by the house foundation, well, she told me to “stick where the sun does shine.”

     My wife, Shirle, says I don’t mention her enough in my posts, so there, she’s mentioned.  I’d include a picture of her also, but from what I understand, after she killed me and destroyed my camera, she would have to hunt down each one of you, too.  It has something to do with Jimmy Hoffa and witness protection.  I don’t fully understand; I try to not pay attention to her family’s business, it's healthier that way.

     

     Anyway, there is a small level area between the rock face of the mountain and my driveway that actually gets sun most of the day.  I took Shirle’s advice and stuck it…there.

     In spite of the “winter that refused to quit” and the tiniest of sunlit spaces, my garden is coming along quite nicely.  Pictured is garlic, three varieties of tomatoes, two different types of cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, both hot and sweet banana peppers, red bell and yellow bell peppers, and five varieties of salad greens, Great Lakes, Butter, Green Leaf, Romaine, and Swiss Chard.

     

     I haven’t been bothered by critters too much, but I did sublet a small cave to one of our local gnomes, and he eats chipmunks, so that seems to keep the other animals away.

     So far we have been enjoying some fresh salads, but most of my harvest won’t be ready for about another month.  Until then, it’s the Wednesday and Saturday Farmers’ Market.

In Waynesville we have a better class of homeless

     Living in Waynesville has some much envied advantages; the sense of community, charity and fellowship, not to mention a simpler lifestyle, reduced incidences of crime and the literal and figurative elbow room.  Don’t get me wrong, we have our share of druggies, winos, sex offenders and petty thieves.  After all this is the town where they arrested three men for operating a sadomasochistic castration dungeon, where a Baptist minister evicted nine congregants for not supporting President Bush, and of course, the animal control officer who felt compelled to shotgun Tom Gobbles, the town turkey, in front of a restaurant packed with patrons.  It’s just that most of our horrendous news events wouldn't even make the back pages of some big city newspapers.

     It is easy to get complacent here where they regularly close off Main Street for community street dances, where dining out is a social event to meet and greet your friends and neighbors, and where the serine beauty of the Smoky Mountains almost obscures of the dirty underbelly of human nature.  That’s why it is refreshing when someone scratches the surface and lifts up evidence of the omnipresent societal slough for all to see.

     A few weeks ago I shared a story on the social sites published by The Smoky Mountain News.  It was a compassionate, even inspiring story of one of this town’s street dwellers and his dog.  But the echoes of the story (in my head) are not the unfortunate circumstances that led to his homelessness, not about the help he receives from Meridian Behavior Health Services, or his own charity that he practices with the minimal Social Security income he receives, what echoes is the passage, “waiting for a cup of coffee at City Bakery in Waynesville, the 65-year-old stands patiently alongside tourists, retirees and locals. His clothes, shoes and beard are well kempt. He holds his head up high and there’s a smile on his face. These don’t seem to be your typical characteristics of someone homeless.” 

     It is almost like the writer was attempting to excuse the presence of the misfortunate in our picturesque Norman Rockwell setting.  Are we to assume that we have a better class of homeless?

From the Burr Studio & Gallery 136 North Main Street, Waynesville, NC 28786 

     This blog post was inspired by a recent trip to Bi-Lo for a cucumber, a gallon of distilled water and a six-pack of beer (aren't Express Lines great fodder for the imagination).  I elected to use one of the Self-Pay kiosks rather than wait in line while people tried to guess the correlation of my sundry items.  I was looking up the produce code for cucumbers when the animated voice of the kiosk to my left politely asked, “Do you have anything under your cart?  Do you have any coupons?”  The seemingly benign lady who had just finished her purchase started yelling, “No.  No.  No!  And I don’t want you to talk to me!”

     I wasn't sure if it was a joke meant to amuse her fellow shoppers or a minor psychological detachment, but I knew I had to bookmark the event to use as a muse.  Even in Waynesville…

A Smellable Memory

     Have you ever smelled a memory?  The other morning as I started my day returning emails and organizing my tasks at 4 in the morning (a normal time for me), a front moved through the mountains with a gentle rain shower.  A cold wet breath of air was inhaled by my house through an open window behind the desk.  Suddenly, I was fourteen again, awake in the predawn darkness of a lonely cabin in a Poconos summer camp for rich Jewish kids from New York City.  Rising earlier than most other life forms in the forest, my duties as the assistant camp cook required that I get the kitchen open and the coffee on before the steward and the cook arrived and awakened the other staff.  I could even feel the cold damp wood floor as I swept my feet in an unseen arc trying to find the flip-flops I needed to wear for the walk down the hill in the fog draped darkness.

     All of that from a cool, rain-washed, mountain breeze.

     The spontaneity of the thought brought to mind how the first chilly morning of autumn always reincarnates my morning walks to the Gertrude C. Folwell Elementary School in Mount Holly.  The mind is such a curious organ.  One smell from a chemical plant, and I am in the back of a Chevy Nova station wagon crossing the Delaware near the Roman Haas plant to fetch my Grandmother to her new apartment in Lumberton.  A subtle soft breeze on a cloudless summer day, and I can hear the parents cheering from the bleachers at the Little League field.  The slightest wisp of a wood fire, and I am once again at the Boy Scout Jamboree in the Bass River State Forest.  There are dozens of scent triggered memories that could easily be catalogued with very little work, but in retrospect, they all seem to share one particular similarity: a genesis in a simpler, more innocent time.

     Why is it, that as adults, we don’t generate these same indelible imprints of joy in our minds?  Granted that all of my smellable remembrances originate before the emancipated complexities of work, marriage, family, money, taxes and household maintenance, but should that be a chiseled-in-stone requisite for implanting a triggered memory?  Sure, I could list the memorable times I have experienced as an adult; there have been many, but none that manifest in unintentional mental flashes.  I cherish my involuntary reflections of the once-was-me, but I worry about the cerebral pollution responsible for my psychological-climate change.  It seems that my mind has entered into a new ice age and threatens the extinction of that rare species of memory. 

Chipmunks can fly?

     It has always been my good fortune to rescue the quirkiest dogs.  Our newest four legged child, Sebastian, is no exception.

     The first few weeks proved difficult, but finally he humbly agreed to assimilate into our family and immediately elected himself emperor.  Besides his all too frequent escapes, our biggest problem with him is his ADHD (attention deficient, hyperactive dog).  With each request to go potty, the imagined possibility of seeing/smelling another of the neighborhood dogs, frequently distracts him to the point he forgets the reason he asked to go out.

     All winter long, we dealt with his wishful quest for friends, and thankfully occasionally some of the neighbors’ kids would come to visit.  Angel is a regular; Chance, the boxer who lives above us, comes by to say hello, but our friend White Dog has been inexplicably corralled by his humans.  (I heard rumors of fights and murdered chickens, but I don’t know.)  Sebastian, thanks to his escape talents, has also met a number of other doggies up and down the mountainside.  He is always expecting that someone will be in the yard visiting.

     As spring sprang, the trees leafed, the songbirds filled the air, and our resident population of wasps and chipmunks appeared.  At least as far as Sebastian goes, wasps and chipmunks have a distinct similarity; both are among the best toys a dog could have.

     I have no idea where or when he learned it, but my Little Bubba has a comical technique to catch and play with wasps.  He crouches and crawls and sneaks up within striking distance of his prey and with a feline-like pounce snaps the wasp in midair.  He knows they sting, so as soon as he gets one, with a flick of the head, he throws it down on the ground.  He’ll stand over it as it collects its wits (and to be sure the stinger is not pointed in a dangerous direction), and then with another snatch and flick, he throws the wasp around until it manages to escape or just stops playing and lays there.  He does get stung quite often, but that does not deter him from playing the game.

     Chipmunks are a much more daunting challenge for him.  He sees them in the yard eating the seeds meant for our avian tenants, but he has yet to master a successful technique that would enable him to capture one of the elusive playmates. 

     We are all familiar with chipmunks, but Sebastian recently taught me something new; chipmunks can fly.

     There is a wall of stacked rocks on the side of the driveway behind where my Earthbox garden is.  The other day as he exited the garage on a requested potty run, his sudden leap was an obvious sign that something had been spotted over by the garden.

     Potty?  What potty?  We have got to find where that toy went.  After a general survey, Sebastian began a systematic, nook-by-nook search of the rocks.  He stuck his little brown nose deep into every hole and cranny searching for his would-be new best friend.  At about the twentieth fissure, long after he had lost my interest, he stuck his snout in and a chipmunk flew out.  It was a good two-and-a-half feet off the ground and the flight spanned about four feet of open space ending in some dense shrubbery.

     If Sebastian had not been off-balance, stretched tall to explore the higher hiding spots, I am sure he could have caught Alvin in mid-flight. But the chipmunk made it to safety and left my dog to ponder how much more fun these friends could be now that he knows that they, like wasps, can fly.

Puppy Love?

     It was about ten minutes before 2:00 AM when Sebastian sat up in bed, did a whole body shake, and said in his limited canine vocabulary, “Dad.  Wake up; I have to go potty.”

     I made a futile attempt to reason with him, which only resulted in him getting loud and barking at me, “I’m serious!  Get up; I need to go now!”

     I dragged myself from the soft comfort of my bed, donning my LL Bean slippers and rubbing the much needed sleep from my eyes.

     Sebastian was already off the bed and sprinting back and forth from the bedroom door to my feet in a futile attempt to make me hurry.  I lifted his sister down to take her with us since his argumentative

Betsy

retort to my innocent questioning had roused poor Betsy from her peaceful slumbers.  Betsy is a cute kid, but the dumbest quadruped child I have ever known; she has never learned any language at all.

     Illuminating the kitchen, staircase, basement, garage and finally the side yard with painful light, too bright for my over-dilated irises, the three of us made our way outside.  Vacuous Betsy, driven only by mute instincts, immediately found an appropriate spot for her business and patiently waited while Sebastian surveyed the area for the possibility of nocturnal chipmunks.  

     “Nope, none by the birdfeeders; better check the garden.”  

     He thoroughly checked behind my Earthboxes, along the as yet to be transplanted Knock Out rose bushes, along the embankment above the drive; he peered into the dense coppice on the steep grade over the house and finally, with a crouched stealth technique that is more feline than canine, sprang to the retaining wall hoping to catch some unsuspecting rodent frolicking in the woods below the house.

     To his surprise, none of the elusive prey that he desperately wants to capture and play with were awake at that early morning hour.  But to be sure, he backtracked to the garage and rechecked every spot previously known to harbor those quick and evasive toys.  Frustrated, he sat down in the middle of the driveway with the intent of a doggy-style, overnight stakeout.  Knowing what he had forgotten, the real purpose of this pre-dawn sortie, I dragged my insolent leashed brat around to all the places he normally uses to relieve himself.  He showed no interest in anything other than a vigilant chipmunk watch.

     I eventually gave up and took both kids in, darkening the passageways behind us as we climbed the stairs back to the bedroom.  I did scold him for waking me for no reason, but he doesn’t understand how chipmunk hunting could be considered no reason.

     Back in the warmth of my bed, I slowly slipped over the edge of the precipice, returning to the mental quiet of sleep.

Sebastian

     “Dad?  Dad, wake up, I forgot to go potty.”

     It is needless to say that as I roused myself for the third time this morning, this time with coffee, news and urgent business emails, my normal office companion is still sound asleep downstairs in the bedroom.

     You have got to love him.

My Fargo Philosophy doesn't involve wood chippers.

          Could you hold my coffee for a second, please?  I need to punch somebody (metaphorically speaking of course).  I have had an extremely difficult week fraught with disappointment, incompetence, frustration, and customer service at such a low level it might be termed customer abuse; all of this on top of the unending refusal of winter to cede its influence to that of spring.  Am I angry?  Yes, that’s why someone needs to be bitch slapped, and it doesn’t even matter who.

          I considered venting through this entire post, giving just enough details to avoid a libel suit, but enough to point my finger at inept culprits of my angst.  But every time I started to compose the first few paragraphs, I found myself seeing red and getting as worked up as I was yesterday afternoon.  That is not a good prompt for writing, nor is it the kind of image of myself that I want to portray.  As a completely unrelated aside, if I have ever recommended doing business with a certain credit union, please disregard that advice.

          Alright, give me my coffee back; I’m not going to hit anyone (maybe).  The weather is improving with the cessation of the rains and the relative approach of somewhat seasonal temperatures.  I might don a sweater or two, and attempt to do some work out on the deck this afternoon; maybe even catch a glimpse of that nearby star they call “sun.”  The unwarranted crisis of irritating idiocy resolved itself yesterday at exactly one minute before five (and one minute before I would have erupted into a volcanic demon bent on devouring a few very select souls).  So maybe, just maybe, this is going to be a good day.

          My puppy is peacefully sleeping on my lap, there are song birds singing outside my window, my workload is manageable today, I am desperately trying to ignore the mental recap of the last few days that is playing in the back of my mind, the skies are a vague resemblance of blue, I believe there is actually some sun shining on a pasture across the valley and this coffee tastes pretty good.

          Y’all know I’m a sucker for a good quote, well, remember Marg Gunderson from Fargo in the ending sequence? 

         “And for what?  For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know.  Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.”

         It is going to be a beautiful day, and if you disagree, you’re going to get hit.

Lobster tails, crab cakes, mussels, trout and catfish.

     Living up here on the side of a mountain in an isolated, rural community does have a few disadvantages.  The mail is never quite as reliable as it might be in an urban center, plus my mailbox is a half mile away and about 700 feet below the old homestead.  UPS does a pretty good job except I am never sure whether my packages are going to come out of Sylva or Mills River.  We are at a mid-point, so I guess UPS isn’t sure either.  FedEx is a joke; we’re lucky when we get them out this far into the sticks, let alone on any kind of realistic schedule.  We even had one FedEx driver call from the bottom of our driveway to ask if we thought it was safe for him to come up to the house.

     The reason I started with this thought is I am planning dinner.  For those who have bothered to read the “About Me” section of the blog (and obviously for those who have known me a long time), y’all remember that I started off in life as a chef.  Although there is not enough money in the world to convince me to go back into a commercial kitchen, I still love to cook.  Most of the time, I can find the ingredients necessary to satisfy my “hunger” to prepare the fete du jour, but not always.

     A couple of weeks ago, it was my wife’s birthday.  A long-standing tradition with my family and friends is, “It’s your birthday, choose what you want, and I’ll make it.”  The diversity of birthday wishes never ceases to amuse me, and as yet, I haven’t been stumped.  This year, Shirle wanted lobster tails (a relatively easy order).  Unfortunately after checking every possible merchant in town, I was only able to procure warm water tails.  That may not be a huge thing to some of you, but to my palette, the difference between a Maine tail or one from South Africa and those spiny creatures that inhabit the waters off of Florida or India, is like night and day.  In the end, the meal was good, but not as great as I had planned.

     Our little town does have one good supplier of fresh Atlantic seafood.  Out at the Historic Waynesville Farmer’s Market (Wednesday and Saturday mornings) a fishmonger from the outer banks brings in an assortment of whatever is being harvested 700 miles away.  The nice part is, he takes pre-orders, and will reserve your catch from the rabid walkup buyers that always strip his coolers clean before noon.

     With that small exception, seafood here in the mountains is going to be trout, catfish, farm raised or frozen.  Not an epicurean fantasy.  Tonight I am going to make fresh J crab cakes out of a can of refrigerated blue claw meat I bought at Bi-Lo.  I’ve used it before for my Crab Imperial, but like warm water lobster, it’s okay, just not great.  Tonight it is going to crab cakes because the one day a week where Ingle’s gets fresh mussels in from Maine, I was busy and missed the boat (so-to-speak). 

     Thank goodness we are coming into the farming season (if the freaking weather ever breaks).  Fresh veggies we have in abundance. 

     What would be your birthday meal?

There is a lesson to be learned.

    The events of last week in Boston and near Waco brought out the best and the worst in people.  I have been musing almost continuously about how, or even if, I could write about it.  I started this several times, but found myself getting angry, and that is not what I want to convey.  There is a lesson to be learned.

    Most of us were moved by the almost universal compassion exhibited by so many distant people.  We expect that the victims as well as those related to the victims to exhibit unfathomable anguish.  We have also come to expect that those who were left uninjured to jump into action rendering aid and comfort, but it is the genuine compassion that spews forth from all over the planet that never ceases to amaze me.  The social sites of Facebook, Google+ and Twitter came alive with messages of support, concern, charity and love as well as a global source of unfiltered news and communication. 

    Unfortunately, the cyber community was not entirely in concert.  I do understand the international aspect of these sites, and I know catastrophe is relative to proximity.  I also know that some people do not deal well with emotional strife.  I harbor no ill feelings for those who may not have known what was happening by the happenstance of location and continued posting in their normal fashion.  Nor was I upset by those who acknowledged what was happening and continued posting with the announced purpose of self-distraction in lieu of emotional tumult.  

    It is the other example of disconnection that raised my ire.  There was the local art gallery who unfortuitously scheduled a major meet-and-greet for the evening of the bombing but felt obligated to clog the public news-feed with endless pictures of their soirée.  There was a character from the Southwest who decided that while people were being killed and maimed, it was the ideal time to share his new joke about the Pope.  There were numerous postings promoting blogs, e-books, webinars and the like.  I attempted to interact with a number of these people to let them know what was transpiring and why people’s attention was turned elsewhere at that time.   The feedback was unconscionable.  I heard everything from “There’s only three dead,” to “Yes, I know what’s happening, do you want to buy my book, I just lowered the price,” to “People die every day, why should we care about them?”  I could go on, but I think you understand my angst.  There are cretins among us; perhaps they are that missing link that evolutionists are always searching for, neither Neanderthal nor Modern Man.

    There is a lesson to be learned from this:  The size of your circles, your friends list, and your followers is not nearly as important and character of the people who populate them.  Like diseased branches, I pruned the cancerous growths before they could spread their infection.  I assume, depending on how widely read and shared this post becomes, I will have to endure another round of venomous, angry comments and replies.  If so, I may have to do some additional pruning. 

    The vast majority of the readers for these somewhat regular entries on my blog are writers and bloggers themselves.  Watch the comments posted on this blog and on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, decide on your own which are of the variety you wish to graft to your trunk and which are a canker in need of surgical intervention.  The goal of every writer is to impart a modicum of insight in an entertaining manner.  The authors exemplified here possess no insight I wish to know; they do not merit further attention.  They may feel the same way about me, but I am comfortable with that.

It’s good to be out-of-town

    Living on the side of a mountain has its challenges.  When my wife and I decided on this high altitude haven, I knew there would be one major obstacle.  My business is entirely dependent on the Internet and our new rural retreat lies just outside “the grid.”

    When we first moved to North Carolina, we bought a house 14 miles outside of town.  I loved it out there, and even though I accessed a cyber-connection almost daily, my living was not technology dependent.  I had to settle for a small satellite dish mounted high on the hill above my house with uploads and downloads bounced off some distant piece of orbiting space debris.  Satellite Internet is nothing to write home about; it is barely faster than dial-up.  You can forget about streaming music, or video, or anything that requires bandwidth.

    Why satellite?  Waynesville isn't exactly a technological nexus, and once outside the town’s boundaries, getting DSL or cable service becomes an issue.  The fiber optic lines stopped about three miles down the river.  I begged and pleaded but the phone company was steadfast in their denials.  The cable company was worse, they didn't even make the turn onto our road some five miles away.  To top it off, our property sat in a deep valley and while cell service was sketchy, air cards were worthless.  I had no viable alternative.

    When the economy started its backslide, we took the opportunity to sell the acreage out by the Pigeon River and move into town.  By then my little editing/proofreading business was blossoming and replaced that horror of horror, my job, boss, paycheck, stability, insurance and stress.  But with the business came an absolute need for high speed connection. We had moved into “the Country Club” in the heart of town only to be disappointed by the limited availability of DSL Lite: not the desirable up to 6mbps that is heavily advertised, nope I had a blistering 0.75mbps.  I was so happy to be in town, elbow-to-elbow with strangers, incessant traffic noise, parties, fights, stereos and televisions providing a comforting ambient noise all night, not to mention a yard with no room for my dogs to play.  No, I am no townie.

    It wasn't long before our sanity required that we get back to the peace of the rural countryside.  Hence our move to this comfortable aerie perched high above the valley that nestles the quaint town of Waynesville.

    We are not totally cut off from civilization; we do have electricity from the local co-op.  But as far as other modern wired amenities, power is about the total extent up here.  Neither the phone company nor cable come this far up, and even though I have enjoyed satellite TV for years, I was not about to attempt space as an Internet conduit again.  In my pre-move research, I discovered that the mountain just to my north held a large array of cell towers, and Verizon Wireless has a little known service called Home Fusion.  They installed an antenna on the side of the house and a router/modem inside, and presto, high-speed, dependable Internet. 

    Yes, I have cut the wires (all except electric).  My phones and Internet are cellular, my TV satellite, my water is from a well, my sewerage goes into a septic system, and even though I can see my nearest neighbors high above me, you couldn't climb your way up there and any noise they make is filtered by the dense forest canopy and the clean mountain air.

    All sarcasm aside, it’s good to be out-of-town.

Oy, and the traffic!

     Life in a small town has its advantages; store merchants, restaurateurs, the grocery store manager, even the staff at the power company know you by name.  Mountain folks are infectiously nice and everyone knows just about everyone.  In Waynesville, word-of-mouth is the most efficient method of advertising, and a leisurely trip through town is more preferred than using the “four-lane” to get somewhere twice as fast.  You take your time here, there is no such thing as rush hour.

     We do have traffic issues, probably not as bad as some of your Interstates and demolition derby roadways, but I bet you can’t imagine how frustrating it is to get caught behind a tractor doing 8 MPH or having to wait for two or three cars at stop sign!

     People refer to the relaxed pace as “mountain time.”  At first I didn’t understand, then I had a project that required some hired help.  I found out quickly that mountain time is another way of saying, “I’ll get there when I get there.”  Unless of course, it's hunting season, or fishing season, or the hay needs baling, or a neighbor needs a hand, then they might be delayed.  Oh, and don’t jump to the wrong conclusion if someone asks you to meet them at dinner time, around here dinner is that big meal you eat at noon, the lighter fare eaten at sunset is supper.

     Everything moves “a mite slower” here and with far less stress.  That’s one reason why I never go to McDonalds.  The main thoroughfare that connects Waynesville to Maggie Valley and Smoky Mountain Expressway is Russ Avenue.  This is where all of the banks, grocery stores and fast food restaurants have congregated.  A while back, CVS decided that our bustling metropolis was in need of one more pharmacy.  They bought a tract of land next to McDonalds and built a brand new, state-of-the-art, brick-faced architectural abomination with almost no parking for the few people that actually shop there.  The new construction also ruined the access to the iconic greasy-burger-and-fries merchant, so the restaurant rebuilt, expanded and worsened the situation.  I do my best to avoid that area; it seems like every other day someone turning into the tiny entrance at Micky D’s, gets rear ended.  I’ll stick with Wendy’s.

     In addition to the commercialization of Russ Avenue and a similar cancerous growth across town where Walmart built a supercenter and a suburban-esque strip mall, Waynesville still has an active, quaint, Norman Rockwell-type downtown.  Main Street is the social and literal center of our community; it is where everyone meets for whatever reason.  In addition to a variety of restaurants, taverns, boutiques, clothing stores, art galleries, the bakery, and of course, a Mast General Store, it is the location of the monthly First Friday open house, Art After Dark, various festivals, street dances and holiday parades.  Our downtown is within an easy walking distance to the post office, police station, library, the Justice Center and Court House, our community theater and farmer’s market, plus at least a dozen churches.

     If there is any disadvantage to maintaining a traditional downtown, it is parking.  There is a free parking garage at the Justice Center and several strategically placed municipal parking lots, but the most cherished spaces are the spots along both sides of the street.  With the possible exception of leaf season, when all you flat-landers come up to experience our mountain hospitality and incredible autumn views, it is never too difficult to find a convenient place to leave my truck for an evening in town.  But I, like everyone else, must first drive the length of Main Street looking for that illusive, curb-side spot.  Don’t get me wrong, there is always at least one vacant space, but it will be on the other side of the street and taken before I can get turned around.  Geez, I end up having to walk a whole block or more just to get where I’m going.

From the Burr Studio & Gallery 136 North Main Street, Waynesville, NC 28786  

     So next time you're cussing your bumper-to-bumper commute, remember that even up here in God’s country, we’ve got traffic problems, and if it isn’t a McCrash, it’s the long walk for a cold beer.  

The Spring Vernal Equinox

     Today the world hangs in balance. Not from political, fiscal, religious, or cultural ideologies, but in the equality of sunlight and darkness. With each new day in the Northern Hemisphere, the duration of light will lengthen and come to dominate our measures of time; below the equator, darkness will rise in prominence. Day and night, balanced in proportion, the hemispheres now start their slide toward the opposing solstices.
     This is the first day of spring, the symbolic beginning of new life, a time of procreation and resurrection, a celebration of the dawn, Eos, Aurora and Eostre. But in America, we observe this solemn nexus with crass indifference. Beginning today, it will be impossible to avoid the commercialization of gardens, lawns, mulch, barbecues, patio furniture and all things outdoors. But I would suggest that you delay the rush to buy your vegetable seedlings, or the need to change the oil in your lawnmower, and put off tilling that sleepy flower bed. Instead listen to the spring.

     Growing up in a subsistence family of hunters and fishermen, living in the rural farm lands of southern New Jersey, I learned from an early age that Nature plays music, an orchestral opus which evolves as her seasons change. Listen to her. Discover her majestic sounds. Her composition is much more than the trill of her songbirds, the trebled lilt of a mountain stream, the wisp in the leaves of the canopy, or the deep rhythm of a distant thundercloud. It is all of this, plus so much more.
     Most people can't hear Nature; her music is overpowered by the ambient noise of people, traffic, television, radio, iPods, and the mechanical drone of civilization, the chaos of urbanization and suburbanization. But she is still singing, if only you would listen. Take a Thoreau-esque walk in the woods, leave all of that toxic noise behind and you can't miss her symphony of sensual stimuli. She will not only delight your ears, but caress your skin, sweeten the taste of air, manifest in aromatic therapy and produce divinely colored vistas. She sings to all of your senses. It is the lure of her song that brought me to the Smoky Mountains, back to the harmonious peace of country living.
     Her music is modulating with the change of the season. Take some time, find a place and listen.

The Blues in the Blue Ridge Mountains

I wish it were easier to write when I'm in a down mood. I've been battling the blues for about a week. It is not a situational sadness; there has been no tragedy, no catalyst, just a low pervasive depression that occasionally haunts my life. Yes, I know about and partake of the pharmaceutical remedies designed to alleviate most of the profound depths, and I do have a great cognitive behavioral therapist who helps me identify the pathology of my ups and downs. The problem is that the best therapy I have so far discovered is my writing, and as another "somewhat talented" writer once put it, "Therein lies the rub."

I don't write dark stories and I would never want to pen words that might inspire someone's desire to share my maladaptive thought patterns and troublesome moods. The art and craft of my language, fiction or non-fiction, literary, technical, or fun, is meant to stimulate the audience. I want my overt and covert intentions to hesitate in your conscious and subconscious psyches longer than the split millisecond needed for your optic nerve to translate the alphabetic images into a synaptic voltage. When you are finished, I want you to be a little "more" than you were before you read my words; I want to augment your mind, not degrade it. I am not interested in finding company for the misery of my emotional state.

Work is my God-send. The continuous inflow of pages needing edits is routine, automatic and mechanical. The jobs are obligatory and obligations are far more powerful than that inertial tendency to stand still, do nothing and sink deeper. If only I could obligate myself to more of life's activities and duties, I might override the worst of depression's symptomology. But what has this to do with me and you, here and now?

I started this blog because writing the light-hearted letters that accompanied my twice-monthly billing made me feel better. At first, I only wanted to preserve the writing and share it with a wider readership, but as the blog evolved and the site visits grew exponentially, my postings began to be anticipated and expected. The posts became an obligation, and that should be the conclusion: Forget the blues, do it, write! Right?

Unlike storytelling, this blog is a compilation of my observations. I live in an ideal small town environment on the border of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park called Waynesville, North Carolina. (BTW: Don't even think about it. We're getting way too crowded, there's no more room. You can come for a visit but then go home! J) Life is good here and when I see something humorous, ironic or even iconic, I expand that muse, inject a little literary license, limit myself to around 600 words, and hopefully, circulate a smile.

This week the lowlands of my mind have kept me from seeing the majestic terrain of my mountain habitat. Sadly, I could find no rural Appalachian idiosyncratic epitome to infect me with a humorous contagion. But I had to write something, and if you are reading this, then I obviously hit the publish button. I'm not sure I will, but if I did, let me know if it was worthy. Leave a comment below, write back about your own battles, share this confession and my atonement with your friends, please visit one of the advertisers, and check back soon; the sun will surely rise and drive away this darkness. I will find you a smile; I promise.

Take 3

Take Three

    When we moved back out in the country, it was our intention to escape the hubbub of the urban/suburban rat race. It did not take long to realize that Appalachia has a sort of hubbub too, it is just pronounced with a slow rural draw. In our relaxed style of living, I am two days behind in my billing, I don't want to even speculate about the number of pages waiting in my work queue, my truck needs to be inspected and registered, and I haven't been to the gym in so long, that I am afraid they may not recognize my membership number, and that is just the beginning. 
    Yes, it has been another chaotic week. To put it in easy terms, this is my third attempt at getting this written. And this time, hell or high water (translation: snow storms or computer crashes), I am going to finish this.
    The week started with Shirle arriving back home after a two week visit in Florida. She arrived a mere 24 hours ahead of the fore-announced visit of my grandson, Josh, and his beautiful girlfriend, Thao. With guests coming, the house needed a good cleaning (I did mention Shirle was gone for two weeks, right?). The weather forecast was ominous and a trip to town to stock up on provisions was very necessary. The heavy snow was predicted to start about the same time Josh and Thao were scheduled to arrive. They live down in the Sunshine State, and have no experience with driving in winter weather or on mountain roads.
    Now if you think all of that is enough to set the stage for fun, while my wife was off socializing, I made the difficult decision to replace the central hub of my home network because it was less expensive to buy something new than attempt to upgrade the antiquated guts of the old system. I also decided to buy some additional RAM for the old machine with the intention of having backup and a working alternative while I licensed and loaded all of the software I would need for the new server.
    Fortunately, both UPS and Josh beat the onset of winter's (hopefully) last hurrah. The snow settled in overnight and we awoke to the picturesque vista of snow-capped Smoky Mountains and a pure white valley below. Knowing there was no way off the mountain, I secluded myself in the office to begin the necessary work on the computers. I carefully grounded myself, opened the case on the old machine, installed the new memory, closed it up, and booted the system. Everything went as it should right up until Windows began loading the system tray; it shut off (not down, off!). After enough resuscitation attempts that it was obvious that I needed to pronounce it dead, I realized that I had no choice but to begin the arduous task of rebuilding my network on the as yet unopened new CPU.
     Meanwhile, while I'm wearing my "computer nerd" hat, the long, warm rays of sunshine that foretell the onset of spring, melted the snow on the driveway and roads. I was unimpressed because I knew the storm was not over and we were expecting a lot more accumulation; I kept going. I had no idea that down in the kitchen, my thin-blooded relatives were hatching an ill-conceived plan to drive into Asheville for a day of fun and exploration. By the time my workday was over and I discovered them missing, the kids were on their way back, the snow had started falling heavily, and the temperature had dropped so much that my attempt to salt the driveway for their arrival was thwarted by my inability to walk on its icy surface.

Josh and Thao

     Josh made it within about a quarter mile. I could see his car down below but the traction was gone. He parked off to the side and he and Thao set out on foot. Thank goodness for cell phones; I watched and directed him to the easiest path and warned them to walk in the snow and stay clear of the slick pavement. Their short trek encompassed a 150 foot rise in elevation. Out-of-breath and chilled to the bone, they couldn't wait to enter warmth and shelter of my mountainside home.
     The storm is gone and so is all of the snow, the kids are back in Florida, my new server is up and running, the old one slated to be donated to a worthy cause PCs4GED (if you have old equipment consider this: http://www.haywood.edu/pcs4ged), everything is returning to abnormal. Oh yeah, don't forget to set your clocks ahead, we get to lose an hour of sleep tonight; who needs sleep anyway.

They shot the Waynesville town turkey!

     In my post a few days ago I made reference to the shooting of the Waynesville town turkey.  I received enough inquiries to dig out the story from the archives and post it.

     It should be noted that long before I started the blog, these musings of mine were used as a cover letter for the twice monthly invoicing of my regular clients.  It was at their encouragement that I began the blog. 

     This was sent on November 22, 2011, approximately one month after the execution of Tom.

Thanksgiving 2011

     It's time to once again to send out the invoices and I was considering writing a sappy heart-felt letter of gratitude for your business and to remind everyone to count their blessings every day and not just on the third Thursday of November, but instead I decided to tell one of my (hopefully) witty (but true) stories.

     I was lamenting with a friend this morning (you know who you are), about a great tragedy the recently befell my little mountain town.  A year or so ago, a rancorous tom turkey took up residence on the east side of our little burb.  He made the parking lot of the Apple Crate restaurant his headquarters, but was not adverse to wandering the nearby neighborhoods or obstinately standing in the middle of the road to stop traffic and peck at the tires of the (mostly) amused drivers.

     No local ever ventured over to that side of town without keeping a close eye out for Tom Gobbles and watching for his ever escalating antics.  It was refreshing to see an icon of Americana, a true soul of wildlife, decide that we, as a species, were not so bad that he couldn't coexist in the same habitat. 

     And then a couple of months ago, the county animal control officers decided that Old Tom was getting too tame and unafraid of humans.  It was stated in the paper that wildlife in town was dangerous and that the avian mascot of Waynesville was becoming a nuisance.  He had to go.  Our government henchmen tried unsuccessfully for several weeks to trap our beloved bird and relocate him to what they thought would be a better home.  These inane attempts were met with the ridicule and animus of the local populace and the disdain of the elusive bearded one himself. 

     Finally in frustration, our duly appointed officers cornered poor Tom in the yard of his favorite restaurant.  One of the county’s agents, our lone female warden, embarrassed by the numerous ineffective attempts to humanely deal with this overly exaggerated municipal menace, reached into her official county pickup and extracted a shotgun from it security rack.  In front of a restaurant full of patrons and a family with small children exiting their minivan, she aimed carefully and shot Old Tom dead.  (There's more news and accounts on Tom’s FaceBook page -- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Gobbles/201424043209757 )

     Now I blame our country’s famous founding father, Benjamin Franklin for this senseless assassination.  He, of course, wanted the wild turkey to be our national bird and the symbol our great nation.  If he would have spent less time flying kites and more time addressing the Continental Congress, he might have succeeded, and I'm sure our town turkey would have been protected from the aggression of our runaway government in action.

     Now, if the US icon was a turkey instead of the bald eagle, I'm not so sure we'd eat quite so many fowl dinners, and frankly, the idea of roast eagle just doesn’t sound appetizing.  It might also have led to a tradition of feasting on turkey, cornbread stuffing, and mashed potatoes as a Fourth of July celebration.  But then again, the tryptophan and over-stuffed belt-lines may have put a serious damper on the late evening fireworks.

     One last observation:  Maybe, just maybe, good ole Ben has posthumously won out in his attempt to promote a different US symbol.  I don't know about you, but whenever our Washington DC politicians start to talk, all I can think of is a bunch of turkeys.

     Gobble-gobble.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Why a blog?

     I was having an email conversation a while back with someone I consider close regardless of the distance between our homes.  I was lamenting the fact that I was two days behind in my invoicing, somewhat lacking in energetic motivation, and bereft of a writing inspiration for the blog.  Her retort was a simple, “Make it short and sweet.  It’s okay, no one will care.”  I had to explain it is really not okay, and someone will care -- me.

     I would guess that most of you have figured out that I am a writer at heart.  What you may not know is that with VERY few exceptions, it is nearly impossible to make a sustainable living writing.  So instead I ply my talents by helping other writers, researchers, stenographers and the like with editing and proofreading.  But I still desperately seek time to craft my own words on paper (well, computer media), and ease the over-pressure of creative thoughts that haunt my subconscious; hence, I blog.

     Unfortunately when writing fiction, I am one of those craftsmen that must shut down my innate persona in order to animate the characters that inhabit that other world that I write about.  Those characters are both the subject and authors of my stories.  It is their words that end up on my paper, often surprising me by taking the plots onto totally unsuspected paths.  It is a tedious and difficult process of stripping my ego to its bare id; an adventurous sojourn into what I refer to as “the hole.”

     Getting in is a conscious and intentional act; getting out is something completely different.  There is no intentional way to control the length of my stay in the hole.  I have ventured in for as little as a few hours and sometimes for as long as a week.  While there, I am not conversant, generally quiet, keeping to myself; I have been told I am not pleasant to be around, I don’t eat much, drink much, sleep much, do much of anything because I am off living a different life, the life of someone trying to get out and onto the pages of my story.  In case you’re trying to figure out the differences in my personality, I normally eat too much and drink too much; the quiet, introvert that isn’t very pleasant to be around, well, that’s just me.  So by its nature, my writing is not as easy as “stealing an hour or two” to jot down a few pages.

     So back to these posts that you all have to suffer through.  This is therapy for me, a pressure relief valve that vents just enough steam to keep me going.  I get to tell stories about me (no hole needed), and occasionally say something humorous or at least thought provoking.  I can tell when I’ve been successful, or not, by the feedback, or not.  So please indulge my ramblings, and don’t worry that this task was an unnecessary or superfluous addition to my over booked schedule.  Admittedly, sometimes it’s hard to come up with a good topic (they don’t shoot the Waynesville town turkey every week), but I like doing it.  I hope you like reading it; if you do, please share it.

An ass in the mountains

     They say there’s one in every crowd, and yesterday I guess I confirmed it.

     With Shirle down in Florida visiting friends and family, my daily routine has been turned upside down.  Yes, I still get up early and work late, but with the addition of the household chores normally tended to by my loving (well, sometimes!) wife, plus the demands of two very needy dogs who require walks, food and attention, my work schedule is in constant disruption. 

     My property on the side of this mountain is not fenced in or dog friendly.  Our Betsy is well trained and not in need of a lot of attention when it’s time for her potty breaks, but Sebastian is still learning.  I have chased him up and down these steep grades twice, and I am not interested in a third attempt, so Sebastian must go out on a leash.

     Since I have yet to finish installing the garage door opener, my truck sits outside near the tiny level area that the dogs use.  Sebastian, who has recently learned of the canine version of ecstasy, a car ride, now frequently disregards his metabolism’s calling, opting instead to beg at the backdoor of my Explorer.  Partially to satisfy his insatiable desire, and partially because I don’t want the hassle of catching him and forcing him into his kennel, Sebastian and Betsy have been going on my daily trips down the mountain to the mailbox.

     Yesterday as I forged the tiny creek that crosses the entrance to our private road up the mountain, the dogs started going crazy.  I knew it wasn’t the herd of cows in the adjacent pasture, those bovines are old news; and it didn’t appear as though they were answering the Rottweiler who always greets us from his yard high above the mailbox station; the watchdog was uncharacteristically quiet.  It wasn’t until I got out of the truck that I caught sight of the reason for the seemingly vicious attack dog’s stunned silence as well as the chaotic yammering of my own pseudo ferocious companions.

     Yes, even here in the Bible belt, even in the rural backwoods of the Smoky Mountains, even amongst the friendliest people in the world (not counting the ones from Deliverance), you never know when you’re going to run into a big ass (no, not Ned Beatty).  Now, in case you suspect I misidentified this stranger, I have to say I have lived around these animals all my life.  Believe me; I know the difference between most things and a true jackass.  This was, unquestionably, not a horse or a mule, it was a very, very large donkey.

He (my gender assumption) apparently escaped the farm hidden behind the trees from which I enjoy the relaxed sounds of farm life.  From my aerie’s front deck, I often hear the roosters, turkeys, cows, horses, and yes, the occasional bray of this misbehaving Equus asinus. 

     Perplexed with how to handle a six-foot tall donkey, without a bridle to lead him, with two noisy dogs in the back seat, and with no idea where exactly he was supposed to be corralled, the long-eared truant took pity on me and began a slow amble up a rutted trail in the direction of the hillside farm.  Moments later to my relief, I saw the green F-150 that is also garaged somewhere up that lane, approach with the distraught owner searching for his missing Jack.

     I love my rural mountain life, even though I still occasionally run into a true jackass.

Double-duty chores

    It’s been a fun few days here in the Smokies.  I’m acting as sole caregiver and puppy-sitter while Shirle visits with her daughters and grandchildren down in the Sunshine State.

    In the years we’ve been living in the mountains, I’ve grown quite used to these periods of solitude and double-duty chores.  I still wince a little at each hint of a need for her “babies,” but it’s futile to fight the inevitable; I just have to muster the extra time and my seldom used talents to run the household without the all-essential spousal assistance.

Bubba a/k/a Baxter

     Unfortunately, this is my first solo since Baxter, our beloved Cavalier, passed away.  The void he left has been partially filled by a new puppy, Sebastian, and although the little guy is trying real hard, he hasn’t yet replaced my “Bubba.”

Sebastian

    Sebastian is a mixed breed terror (oops, I mean terrier), who was not house-broken when we rescued him.  He did catch on quickly by Shirle and me acting as his biological time clock.  We “broke” him by timed, routine escorts outside and rewarding each success with treats and jubilant atta-boys.  

    These potty excursions are often interrupted with visits from White Dog and Angel, a male shepherd and a female whippet that live in the neighborhood.  Sebastian reacts to these overly friendly dogs with equal parts of excitement, jealous anger and Napoleonic challenges.  Working with gentle leash tugs, verbal commands and the occasional finger spank on the nose, he is learning his social skills and is now anxious (in a good way) for his “friends” to come visit.  (I have to tell you that while I was writing that paragraph, there was a noise at the backdoor; it was Angel wanting to come in and play.)

    Sebastian is experimenting with signals; he's got a bunch of them.  Typical of his breed, he tends to be very vocal and try as we will to understand, he keeps changing which sound means which need.  He has the typical pathetic whine (which originally meant, “I don’t want to get spanked again, so you better take me out”),  but he also uses a whimpering cry, a musical growl, a sassy yap, a snort at the door, and the totally-adorable River Dance, where he kicks his hind feet like an Irish dancer.

    The problem is his needs range from “pee-pee,” to “poo-poo,” to I want to go see if my friends are outside, to I want to sit in the sunshine, to I want to go outside for no apparent reason, to can you play with me daddy, and to “I’m bored watching you work, so I am going to drive you insane.”  He knows how to get our attention, but he has yet to settle on a definitive “this” means “that.”  There’s no way I can risk ignoring him, remember, he is only recently house-broken, so I spend half my day bookmarking my work, putting on a coat, getting him on a leash (I can’t trust him not to run away), and taking him downstairs and outside.  Unfortunately, I never know if it’s for “business” or pleasure. 

    Lately, on his hourly sojourns, he’s been sniffing around the running boards of my truck and standing on his hind feet attempting look inside.  He remembers that his mommy comes and goes in that truck, and he not sure she’s not in there waiting to get out and kiss him.

    To convince him that I really haven’t hidden Mommy’s body under the back seat…                     Sorry, I lost my train of thought. 

    

    Oh yeah, to satisfy his curiosity, I have been taking him on my daily trip down the mountain to the mailbox and bank.  He’s no dummy, I am sure he’s adding, “Can we go for a ride?” to his rotating list of signals.

Betsy

19-year-old Hannah

    But life goes on in the mountains, and Sebastian, and Betsy, and Hannah, and me will survive this mommy-less interlude; I just can’t predict how much work will get done.