A quick survey of the forearms reveals red lashes, scars, and pine tar stains. The lumberjack life is a welcome departure from Somerville's chemical sunrise. Liberation is a single healing breath of the damp saturated air rising from the depths of Davidson mountain spring. I’m gloriously returned to Western North Carolina country roots, christened by sweat – ordained upon the fierce briar thicket churning in the shade of old growth white pines
Arrived by plane a week ago. Mounted a puddle jumper from
When they told me my baggage was lost, I was relieved.
When my phone battery expired, I smiled.
Fuzzy Gargid consumes the hemlock spur shoots, or so I’m told. Hemlock, the poison parsley of Socrates fate, the same Devil’s porridge is food for other bioorganisms. My grandfather limps into the airport cursing Wooly Adelgid, his sciatic pains, and the ongoing drought. A comforting habit of his is cursing these recurring irritations.
We file a delayed baggage claim with Malcom, a real southern-type with a chaw-stained collar. He's convinced that the young women of
An ongoing debate regarding Swannanoa’s bureaucratic paradigm, or lack thereof, marks the zeitgeist. The need for organized tax structure, law enforcement, and development controls is met by a population thuroughly consigned to anti-government tactics. A crooked bumper sticker on my Grandfathers F-150s advocates “NO TO INCORPORATION.” Change is in the air, and with it as always, stern opposition.
We drive out over the hills of
Awaiting our arrival is Leon Fox, a local hero/mechanic with eleven children. He’s sitting proudly in his tow rig. Gramps asks him to join us for breakfast up at the house. He pauses.
“Let’s go” says Gramps, “Walkin’ ain’t crowded.” With this, we lurch ahead up the hill to a warm kitchen scented with bacon grease. Two pots on the stove are filled with grits and eggs, an authentic breakfast designed for the ambitious lumberjack.
