Mostly Manly Men on the Town in Eyepatches

The Unnamed Ones are on parade tonight...The Eldest wearing his grandfather's favorite tweed jacket and the Youngest in his Goodwill funky suitcoat and vest. Ah, they cut the dashing figures, they do.



The eye patch belonged to my mother. She left it behind one time when she was visiting and it has made several appearances this fall. The Youngest Unnamed One came to me the night before School Picture Day and said, "What do you think would happen if I wore Gammaw's eyepatch to have my picture taken tomorrow?"

I said what all "good" mothers say. "Don't you dare!"

"But what do you think would happen?"

"You'd never get away with it," I answered.

Kiss of death.



He has never smiled like this in any school photo ever taken. It is the smile of the Glorious Victor. The Undefeated.



Wonder where it'll turn up next...

Homesick Halloween...

Halloween is a holiday. I realize this now.
It is a holiday with traditions. And my family is big on tradition.

We have birthday dinners in the dining room with crepe paper streamers and balloons. The cake comes on a red plate with white lettering that reads "You are Special Today!" We have silly Bert and Ernie napkins and plates- even though the Eldest Unnamed One is turning 19. We do this because "It is tradition."

Somehow I thought the Eldest Unnamed One would leave for college shaking off our traditions like toilet paper stuck to his feet in a men's room stall, unwanted and unnecessary. I thought he would be too "cool" for traditions.

As usual, I was wrong.

The silly, sometimes serious, little things we do on each holiday really matter.

I found this out when a little bird told me he was having a bad day yesterday. Something about a test grade not living up to his expectations...I listened to his words but there was more behind them. And then I realized...It's Halloween.

On Halloween we string orange and purple lights everywhere, eyeballs flash from behind branches, pumpkins glow with garish smiles. We plant the fog machine behind the pumpkin and the Youngest Unnamed One blasts billows of smoke out across the brick walkway just as the tricker treaters are within range.

Bags of candy are given out, costumes and ages critiqued, pleasant mischief is afoot...and the Eldest Unnamed One was in Chapel Hill and for the first time in his life- not a part of it all.

"Are you homesick?" I asked finally.

"I guess," he said.

And then, I was too. Homesick for my baby. Homesick for my entire family all piled up together, laughing and hugging, teasing and fighting.

It seems if one of us is homesick, we all are homesick.

This weekend the Eldest Unnamed One turns 19. He'll be back from Chapel Hill and we will drag out every sappy, tacky birthday decoration and I will bake a chocolate cake with thick gooey chocolate icing and we will serve it on the red plate in the dining room and this weekend no one will be homesick.




We will recharge, like worn batteries needing a lift. We'll do this with laughing and teasing and hugging and good food and remembering...But even more importantly, we will be weaving the invisible, unbreakable strings that tie us one to another forever.

Holy Ghost?

The other day, driving home from the cabin, I saw something and thought...Nah, couldn't be. I did not just see a manger decorated for Halloween. The Virgin Mary was not draped to appear like a friendly ghost...I did not see a...Holy Ghost.

I almost turned around and went back to see. Almost. But the other week I mistook a roll of insulation for a dead body wrapped in a silver reflecting blanket and abandoned by the side of the road.

It took 15 minutes to convince myself I'd really seen a dead body, and pursuade myself I would be letting down mankind if I didn't do my civic duty by investigating. Then turn around and drive all the way back to the exact spot where I'd seen said corpse. And what did I find? It had only been silver-sided insulation with pink fiberglass stuffing. But really, at the time the stuffing had looked exactly like a pair of dirty,human feet when I passed it the first time.

So when I saw the Holy Ghost, I knew better than to stop. I kept right on driving.

Then today I had to go back up to the mountains. The gas logs were scheduled for installation, giving me a good reason to drive slowly past the house with the manger scene. I took a camera, just in case.

As I rounded the corner, I was barely doing 5 mph. There it was...



Now...did you see that?



Okay, so it wasn't the Blessed Virgin but, trust me, that is a manger and it will contain the Baby Jesus in another month or so.

In the meantime...Life is lovely in Franklin County.











And Mike Martin and Butch at Martin's PGS are the best gas log installers in Franklin County. Neat. Professional. Sweethearts.

Flight Risk Takes Off

There is nothing like finishing the rough draft of a novel. Well, maybe there is...Nine and half months of pregnancy, followed by labor and delivery and a healthy baby- that's a fair comparison.

If writing a novel is like giving birth then revisions are like...trying to drop the 48 pounds that wasn't baby after all.

It's a long, arduous process.

Usually I slough off and rush through it. I'm too ADD to focus on the nit-picky details. I hate revisions!

Until this book.

I finished the draft last week, sat on it and then, couldn't stop myself from taking it back out five days later so I could tinker with it.

I've lost days now tinkering- searching for flaws, correcting little errors, revising the ending so that it is a more appropriate reversal of the book's beginning.

I know, for maybe the first time in my life, what the theme is in this book. I can pick out the unconscious symbolism.

And today, for the first time, I closed the lid on the laptop and thought "I like this book. I really like it."

Usually I don't even want to look at something I've written. It embarrasses me. But Eddie and Marion...(for now temporarily titled "Flight Risk,") I like it. I like reading it. What a concept.

Eddie and Marion- the kid and the groupie- have been haunting me since March. They wouldn't let go until I'd written down their stories. This book doesn't even have a home. No contract. No deadline. No promise of money. There are lots of details to be attended to...but for now...I have a new baby and I love her.

Maybe I'll post the beginning tomorrow.

In the meantime...IT'S RAINING!!!! Even up at the cabin where the spring ran dry, it is raining!! Yippee! Life is good and I have not been a pussy. Not once.

Emma

Her daughter is worried. Mom is 93. She's been on her own for all but the last month and now, she's not taking well to the nursing home.

"She has a Master's degree," her daughter says. "She was so with it...until the Vicodin incident. Now all she does is cry."

My new patient has no cartilidge left in her hip. The Vicodin was prescribed to help with the pain but, as drugs frequently do, especially pain meds and anesthesia drugs, it made this elderly woman psychotic, paranoid and confused.

Now she lives in the nursing home. And cries.

When I find Emma, she is sitting in the dayroom. A huge screen TV is showing a soap opera. Emma has been wheeled to sit in front of the television, surrounded by other demented patients who cannot move on their own. It is, I think, for my Emma, like being sentenced to Dante's Inferno. A living hell.

"My mother isn't being intellectually stimulated," her daughter told me. "They have bingo. Well, Mom did that with her students. She doesn't want to play it herself. The only other thing is church." The daughter smiles ruefully. "She's Episcopalian. That's not what they have here."

I think of the screaming lay preachers who hop up and down in front of the patients, exhorting them to repent before they burn in hell. No, that's not the Episcopalian way. I'm Episcopalian. I know. Hell, to us, is such a tacky concept. We don't "do" hell.

I approach Emma gently, stoop down beside her wheelchair and smile at her. She is crying. Her face is red and contorted with angst as she sobs into her hand and rubs her bloodshot eyes.

For Emma, a lifetime of memories swirl in a rapid-fire slideshow before her eyes. For a moment she is worried about her son. He's only 13 and he's late for supper. She doesn't know where he is. She shakes her head, impatient with the mind that betrays her. "No he's not. He's 36!" She thinks we're in church. She apologizes for the way they've let things go, but the money for repairs simply isn't there.

I tell her I know her mind feels foggy, that she is having trouble thinking. "I know this is terribly hard for you," I say.

"It's hard for all of us," Emma says. "I feel so sorry for them. They need help too."

I tell her I am trying to help as many as I can.

"We're all in the same boat," she moans. "I never thought it would come to this. I just didn't."

And then she remembers her mother has died. It is as if I've just broken the news to her. A wall of grief hits her and she sobs.

I slip my arm around her thin shoulders and hold her. I think of the Youngest Unnamed One, my son, who has learned about MRSA and nursing homes. "You've got to quit," he told me. "Right now! I don't want you to die!"

I tried to reassure him, but he would have none of it. "You don't touch anybody do you?"

Of course not.

I work with Emma for a good thirty minutes, telling her that I believe we can help her get some of her thinking back. She doesn't believe me, but she smiles bravely, as if what I say helps.

I ask what she thinks would help. She says something that doesn't make sense but her facial expression makes me think she'd like me to offer to help her kill herself.

"I can help, but it may not be exactly what you're thinking I can do."

Emma smiles. "Oh, so you got that one, eh? You're smarter than I gave you credit for," she says.

Then, as if I've passed the test, Emma confides in me. "They told me I was scheduled to die on Friday, but I'm still here."

When Emma is alone, I learn, she hears voices, receives visitors no one else can see, and it terrifies her. "I don't know what to pay attention to."

I tell her I will not let her be killed, that we don't do this, that she shouldn't listen to those voices...But Emma is crying.

When she is calmer I tell her I will return to check on her.

She smiles and thanks me, like a proper old lady remembering her manners.

Then she says, "Take care of yourself, honey. Don't work too hard."

I say I won't.

Emma has one last piece of advice for me.

"And honey?" she murmurs.

"Yes?"

"Just don't be a pussy like I am!"

I rock back on my heels, wide-eyed. Did I hear her right? Did she just use the P word?

Emma grins.

"Don't you worry," I say, wondering if she knows just how badly I need to be reminded of this. "I'll be on the case and Emma, I won't be a pussy!"

Emma chuckles.

A moment later I look out at her from the desk in the nurses' station.

Emma is crying.

Fall Comes to the Cabin

It's fall at the cabin.



I'd been away for almost a month and in that time, the leaves began to turn and fall.



I drove up the lane, holding my breath, looking out at the stream alongside the gravel road and praying the rain had kept things going.





The trees are just beginning to turn. In another 2 weeks it should be truly beautiful.



I reached the cabin first, before Mertis came up to join me. I stepped inside and raced for the potty. I mean, it's an hour and 45 minutes up there...
But the toilet didn't quite flush.

I turned on the tap. Hmmm. Water pressure's down.

I tell myself it's always like this. Okay. Maybe a little slow but things are fine. Really. I unpack, happy to be back in my little utopia.

Then Mertis arrives.

"You know you're out of water?" she asks.

"What?" I look at her like she's nuts. I pretend I don't understand what she's talking about. "No. It's just a little slow."

She walks to the kitchen sink, turns on the tap and as we watch...the water dribbles away to nothing.

"You should turn off the circuit breaker to the pump and the hot water heater." Mertis says this after we stick one of Joe's tepee poles down into the spring box and find only a miserly foot of water left.

I feel as if I'm on a scene in Grey's Anatomy or ER and Dr. Mertis has just turned to me, her face grave and said "Call the time of death, doctor."

It is 6 o'clock on Friday evening, October 19th.

Of course, I have sought second opinions.

I look up spring boxes on the internet. What I read doesn't make me feel better.

A neighbor stopped by and allowed as how this happened one time before. The fire department "loaned" a former owner some water to tide him over until it rained. The neighbor also said that's when the former owner drilled the now-capped well but it was dry or clogged up or something. However, the action of drilling gave the spring box the boost it needed and it revived.

Until now.

"Aww, it's just one of those nasty things," my neighbor says, trying to console me. "It won't break the bank, but it'll take a $5000 chunk out of it."

I think he has a bigger bank than I do.

I walk across the dry crunchy ground and kneel beside the spring box before I leave. I pry the lid away and peer back inside one more time, just in case. But there has been no miracle. The box remains pitifully low. The pump will stay silent.

Global warming has come to the cabin.

Dad's One Year Orbit...

Today marked the one year anniversary of Dad's death. I suppose I've spent a lot of energy thinking about what this day would feel like...an entire year without my best friend and mentor. I've talked with a couple of friends and with The Unnamed Ones about it as well as my brother. We all came up with the same adjective...

Weird.

It feels weird. Not like a year, longer than a year, as if it were yesterday, as if it had been forever ago...but when you get right down to it...it feels weird.

Now, it didn't take Freud or Jung to convince me there are no accidents in life...that many times the things we do "accidentally" are but bubbles bursting forth from our unconscious and rising to the surface, signaling our unresolved issues...

Whatever. I just know that my lunch today was no "accident." It was me, dealing with me.

Originally, I'd planned to spend the day alone, thinking or whatever. But at the last minute, I scheduled myself to go meet with a woman who is hosting a talk I'm supposed to give to a church group a couple of weeks from now.

She originally contacted me after hearing me read some of my essays about nursing home life. She thought the fact that I was both an author and a psychotherapist would interest her women's group. She thinks I'm entertaining and funny...but after hearing me read about Cookie, she thought I'd be good for her church lady group.

That was months ago. And I haven't felt at all funny in ages. In fact, lately all I've really felt is...you guessed it, weird.

Still, you do what you gotta do. You put one foot in front of the other and hope the disconnected part of yourself returns one day. You act "as if" your missing appendage was indeed, still there and functioning.

So I went to lunch. I year and 30 minutes after Dad died, I slid into my seat, ready to hear what these ladies might be interested in hearing from me.

Donna takes a moment to consider how to describe her group and I, in turn, study her. She is a very chic woman in her 60s with just the right blend of funk and Talbots to be noticed without being thought eccentric. The kind of woman you want to follow around because they have the art of arranging things and themselves effortlessly. A class act and a very quick study.

"Well," she says thoughtfully. "They're kind of into that spiritual journey stuff." And then she hastens to add, "But they drink wine."

I smile and nod my understanding. "You know what they used to say," I remind her. "Behind every four Episcopalians there's a fifth! I can say that," I add. "I'm an Episcopalian minister's kid.

"


Donna stares at me through her terribly hip glasses. "Your father died recently, didn't he? About a year ago?"

I nod. "A year ago today," I answer.

She asks what he had and frowns sympathetically when I say Pulmonary Fibrosis.

"That's such an awful disease." She tells me she has lost 3 dear friends this year and then says. "After watching that, I can tell you, wherever they are now is better than where they were before they died."

This is so true. I tell her how lucky I was to have that year with Dad before he died, how much I learned, how much fun we had...because yes, we did have fun.

It was scary, awful, heart-breaking and just a hell of a lot of fun, all rolled up into a big whopping finale to a huge, incredible life.

I tell Donna about my sister trying to sell Dad on her version of Heaven. "You see," my sister told him. "There are special occasion angels and regular everyday angels. The special occasion ones are bigger and they have nicer clothes."

I tell her about Dad's uncertainty that that sort of Heaven really existed. "Maybe we're all part of some sort of collective unconscious," he'd wondered. Either one was okay with him, but in the end it seemed the Special Occasion angels were winning out.

I tell Donna about telling my father I hadn't learned enough from him yet, that I didn't know the meaning of life and his attempt to answer the question. "Always follow the questions instead of the answers," he'd said. "It's the questions people ask that tell you about their interests and worries, not the answers they give. The answers are the dead limbs of the tree. But the questions, those are the new growth. "

"I learned so much from my Dad that last year," I tell Donna. "Now I find myself wondering what this life of ours is all about."

Donna says, "Me too. I think about that a lot, about who will miss me when I'm gone."

I think this is the theme of our 50s and 60s. Who will remember us and how will they do it? Did we even matter at all?

I tell Donna about Dad saying he saw himself continuing on in me and my kids, saw his own father in himself and said it all made sense to him then...we are on a continuum, a common, shared strand that flows from generation to generation.

"I am realizing it's not what we do in our lives that makes us memorable," I say. "It's who we are to the important people in our lives. I don't miss the things my father did," I say. "I miss his unconditional love, his laugh, his wisdom...just the way he was."

Donna says Pavaroti died last week. "And the next day he was forgotten because somebody else died!"

At the time, the question "Who will remember me?" echoed too loudly for me to hear the answer. But now, as I write this, I am thinking maybe it doesn't matter who will remember me, so much as it does that someone remembers me.

Pavarotti had a huge fan base. Well so did Dad. He had me.*






*In the interest of not being killed by my family...My father had plenty of fans who miss and remember him every day... my sister and my brother and my mom and hordes of others.I'm just saying, you don't need to be loved by legions to be remembered.

It Just Don't Get No Better 'N This...

I spent four days up at the cabin- trying to finish the first draft of my newest novel. One afternoon it finally rained. I watched the storm slowly crawl the lane, advancing across my neighbor's fields like the ghost of a Civil War soldier...



Slinging fat drops sideways across the back porch, its mist brushed my cheeks.

Snippets from the Home...

I slip into the dining room of the nursing home last Thursday afternoon, hoping to catch up on some paperwork and walk in on the "reality awareness enhancement" group. My favorite activity leader, a strong woman with a deep committment to her "family" as she calls the residents, is summing up the point of her lecture.

She leans forward, placing the book she's been reading from on her laps, facing the group of elderly patients before her. Mary is one tough cookie. She doesn't take any crap off the residents but manages somehow to baby and cajole them into finding something worth living for in what has become for most of them, a miserable existence.

She doesn't pity. She loves, bullies, rants...and today, she is preaching.

"So you listen to what I'm tellin' you. Ain't nothin' in this world easy. It's work. Life is hard but nothin' worth havin' comes easy."

I survey the crowd, those who are still awake, and spot Sara. She's paying attention but she's frowning. Her hands are twisted together in her lap as she peers over her glasses at Mary. Trouble is brewing. Delicious, lively, spirited trouble...an uprising from within the ranks.

I love uprisings- especially old people uprisings.

Mary hasn't noticed the murmurings of her loyal pack. But there are definate rumblings. They want Bingo, not reminders of how hard life is.

"Think about it," Mary says. "Who were the first people who taught us about living?"

"Our parents?" Someone answers tentatively. I am sure this is just what Mary's looking for, but oh no.

Mary frowns. "No. The first people to teach us anything about surviving in this world was the frontiers. They taught us how to plant crops and hunt. And it was hard. Remember what I told you. Nothin' good comes without that hard, hard work!"

And that is all it takes.

Sara slaps her hands down on either side of her wheelchair. "Yeah, and where did all that hard work get them Indians? Uh-huh! What they got to show for it now, huh? Taught them pioneers everything they knew and look what happened!"

If I had been carrying pom-poms, I would've been up doing the Break-Out cheer. Old People- 1, Nursing Home Staff- Zero.

"Okay, okay," Mary says, nonplussed. "Them frontiers was hard working people too, just like your parents..."

But it was too late. The revolutionaries were on the move..."I told you we should've been playing bingo," one grumbled. "All this talking, talking, talking," another one grumbled. "I'm going to go get me a nap."

And away they rolled.

But they're a forgiving bunch. They'll be right back in that dining room next Thursday at 2:30, and so will I.

Moving On...

We are in the apartment of the Eldest Unnamed One. It is the big, final Move In Day and the time has come to say goodbye. He sits in the swivel armchair he’s spent the morning assembling while I lean against the doorframe beside him.

“You know,” he says. “It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own.”

My heart snaps right in two. I can’t help myself. I reach over and pretend to flick a piece of dust from a lock of his hair. I won’t make this any harder than I know it already is- for both of us. After all, this is the brave boy who finally burst into tears on his fifth birthday after I’d said for the millionth time that day, “Now you’re Mama’s Big Boy.”

“I don’t want to be your Big Boy!” he’d sobbed. I want to be who I am!



I realize now it was my adjustment to make- my baby was no longer a toddler. It was time to let go of that phase and begin the next one. I was the one who had to remind myself of that, over and over again, until I could find some peace with losing my treasured baby to a more independent child- the child who marched up the steps of the Kindergarten bus and never once looked back.

I know now how hard that must have been for him, what inner strength my child uses to make those big transitions seem easy. Funny how we learn so much, often in retrospect, from our precious children.

Lately, more so than ever, I try and think what my own father would do- or did do- when faced with one of these life-altering situations. I summon up memory and try to respond as I imagine he would. This one is easy. We had so many goodbyes, so many times, and always he made the parting easy on me.

Once, after I’d moved 800 miles away to live in the South, I asked him how he stood the long times between our visits because I was so homesick.

“Oh,” he said. “I create my Nancy in my head and even when you’re not here, when I miss you, I just summon her up and there’s “my” Nancy. I store up our times together and play them back and it’s like you’re right here.”

I believed him then. I felt much less guilty about having chosen to run off to the far away south. I had more strength to live my new life.

Every single leave-taking was the same, even his dying. He always smiled but he always walked us out to our cars then stood watching until we were out of sight. The last image we would have in our rearview mirrors was always that of him standing there, smiling and waving goodbye.

Later, when the boys were teenagers and I knew how much our visits meant, I would drive around the bend in the road, stop and cry because it was always so hard to leave him.

He would always be sure, at some point in our visits to tell me how proud he was of us, how great it was to watch us becoming the people we were. Dad packed us full of confidence and unconditional love- the sent us back out into our worlds without one string attached.

And we always came back home.

“It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own,” he said.

“I know,” I answered. “It’s gotta feel a little strange but cool, huh? I mean, your first apartment. College. Wow! I am so proud of you. You guys are gonna be fine.”

“I know.”

“Besides,” I can’t help but add. “We’re only an hour away and you know how us moms are, always looking to feed you or maybe even pop in now and then, just to maybe bring you a casserole or something. It’s not like you can get rid of us so easily.”

The Wench Beloved, having just been through all of this with her mom, studies the screen of her laptop with fierce intensity, pretending not to be a part of this conversation but I know her by now. I see the quick blink of her eyes and feel the emotion that sits just on the edge of spilling over.



I stand up; look at the Youngest Unnamed One and Mertis and say, “Well, we’d better get on the road and let these two get settled in.”

“I’ll walk you out,” the Eldest said. There is so much of his grandfather in this child. I love him so very much.

We walk out to the parking lot and he watches us from the top of the fire escape. I remember suddenly all the times he’d ride off to school with his father and I would come running out at the last minute in my bunny slippers and bathrobe, my hair sticking out at all angles and cry, “Bye-bye, Honeycakes!”

“Wait!” I instruct. “Don’t move! I need a picture!” A picture just like every other first day of school, a picture to remember the passing of yet another year. A picture that doesn’t need to be taken because the memories are etched forever in my heart.

Cabin Life- The Search for History

Yesterday I took the day off from the nursing homes to come up to the cabin. I wanted to be present for the passing on of my great walnut tree.

Actually, I didn’t want to be present. I just felt I should be, since I’m the one who’s responsible for giving the order.

Well, the tree guys didn’t come. Turns out they said they thought I couldn’t take off work Tuesday, so they decided to start on Wednesday and “finish the week out” at my house. This was per Mertis who had to call them as my cell doesn’t work at the cabin.

Later Marti reminded me my last words to the tree guys were, “I’ll see you Tuesday!”

Ahem.

Anyway.

I used the time “wisely” by heading off to research the cabin. I hit the Blue Ridge Institute first where the very nice director gave me the number of a local historian and told me to call her.

On the phone. You know how I am about phone calls!

So instead I went to the Franklin County Historical Society. “You should’ve called Edith,” they told me. “She really knows that area. That’s where you should start.”

“Well, I didn’t want to appear completely stupid, so I thought I’d find out as much as I could from y’all first,” I lied.

This completely threw them. “Well,” the sweet, gray-haired, volunteer said. “Linda’s in the basement. I hope she comes back up. If she does, she’ll be able to help you.”

And if she doesn’t? What happens in the historical society basement that decides whether Linda gets to come back up or not? I never did find out. Had I been a really good investigative reporter and been rude enough to ask, I might’ve found the real story. As it was, I gleaned enough to make me think perhaps she was doing her own research as she is on a book deadline. When I’m on a deadline, I look for whatever quiet space I can find and the basement of the historical society sounds perfect.

Linda did re-emerge and she was as sweet and delightful as the volunteer. And very helpful. Linda said, “You really should call Edith. She hasn’t been in good health and she is getting older…”

I know I should call Edith.

“She’s very nice and she’d love to talk to you,” Linda added, perhaps knowing the look of phone phobia when she sees it. “But you can also go to the courthouse and search through the records. Go back as far as you can. Once you have a family name, we can help more. Just go to the Clerk’s office and act dumb- they’ll help you. They’re really very nice and they love to help but if you act like you know what you’re doing, they won’t help you a bit.”

“Oh, it won’t be an act. I really am dumb about all this.”

So I drove to the little courthouse and prepared to throw myself on the mercy of the Clerk.

The Historical Society ladies were totally right. A stern-faced, gray-headed, woman named Mary turned out to be amazingly helpful. She reminded me of my junior high school librarian and intimidated the heck out of me with her no-nonsense insistence that I “Get closer so you can watch how I do this.”

The great thing about Mary is that she does not suffer fools gladly and assumes you will be watching so you can then complete the search on your own. She is a natural born teacher. When people do things for you, it’s almost a vote of no confidence- it’s an unconscious message that they feel you’re too dumb to do it yourself. So Mary gave me a great gift.

Three hours later, when I was still hard at work but totally into it, Mary walked by, munching on a cracker left over from her break. “You’re having fun, aren’t you?” she said.

I didn’t even need to look up to hear the complete change in Mary’s voice. She was smiling and happy. Apparently, I’d passed muster.

“I love this,” I told her.

“Just wait until you get to the books on the top row,” she said, indicating the earliest deed records. “You’ll really love that.”

And I did, and I do. It was the greatest fun in the world. I was reading about people I’d researched, looking at their signatures, or in most cases, X’s and feeling as if I could almost reach out and touch the past. It is an awesome feeling- to see history coming to life before you.

Attorney’s researching cases swirled around me, busily accumulating information for upcoming cases or real estate ventures. The paralegal from my closing came in and settled her papers on the long wooden stand next to where I was working.

“Well, how are you?” she asked. She wanted to know all about what I was doing there, maybe worried some glitch had turned up in the property.

When I told her, she nodded wisely. “You really should call Edith,” she said. “She knows a lot about that side of the county.”

“I know,” I answered. “I’m just doing the groundwork first.”

So when I do finally call Edith I will ask her all about the Wade family- from Posey Wade on back to Royal Wade. I will ask about Thomas Jones who bought land on the branches of Turners and Nicholas Creeks in the late 1700s. But while I know the “facts” of my property and some of the lore, I don’t have a true feel for what is true and what is fiction.




Is a Confederate soldier buried here? Are those the remains of stills in the woods? Are there really photographs of my cabin from long ago? What gives this place such a special and warm feeling? It’s more than the cozy style of the cabin. It is the place itself, the land that gives off such an inexplicable aura.

Trouble in Paradise

It's beautiful, this walnut tree.



It sits beside the cabin, its limbs shading the ruins of an older, smaller cabin- perhaps the blacksmith shop.

A huge limb hangs over the cabin.



I love that...the graceful way the tree seems to caress the house, wrapping its protective "arm" around us.

But my tree is very sick.





This rot eats almost all the way through the trunk and even Joe, the man who knows just about everything and owned the cabin before me, regretfully agrees the tree has to go before it falls on the house.

So, I called a tree service and they're coming Tuesday. They came out Friday to give me an estimate- Mike and Eddie.

Eddie's a little guy maybe in his late 50s, wearing an NRA ball cap. He stepped out of the truck, eyes wide. "How did you find this place?" he asked.

I told him all about it- right down to the rumor of the Confederate soldier buried somewhere on the property in an unmarked grave.

By this time Eddie was digging through the remains of the little cabin, crowing over the bits of old harnesses and tools he found, and caressing the handmade chain we'd recovered earlier.

"You know," he said, straightening up and looking at the old Walnut. "In the old days when they didn't have a grave marker, they planted a tree." He studies the tree with an appraising eye.

"Mike, you think this tree's old enough? I think it's mighty old. I bet...Hey look at this hump of ground here...Do you think?"



Mike, a tall skinny man with dark hair and bright blue eyes, shakes his head dismissively. "Nah. Probably not."

"Still..." Eddie murmurs, ignoring Mike's answer. "It just could be." He looks up into the overhanging limbs and sighs. "You know, I always thought I lived in another time, you know?" He says, checking to see if I'm open to this sort of musing. Well, you know me...of course I am!

"Yeah," I say. "Me, too. I feel so drawn to this place."

This is all Eddie needs. He tells me about finding finger bones in the yard of an old cottage he restored once. "It belonged to a doctor and in those days they didn't dispose of..." He breaks off, uncertain how to phrase what he wants to say in an inoffensive manner. "Well, they just didn't," he finishes.

He slowly walks around the perimeter of the cabin, eyes fixed on the ground. "What you need here is a metal detector."

"I know," I say. "I wish I had..."

"Well I've got one at home," Marti says.

This is a fact I didn't know about Marti and I about jump her to borrow it ASAP.

Eddie's eyes light up.

"I bet Mike won't just show up and cut the tree down straight away," I say to Eddie. "Maybe we can dig around in the old cabin a little bit before he drops it."

Eddie is all over this idea. His eyes light up as he studies the ruined cabin site. "You should hang some of this stuff over the mantle of your fireplace," he says. "But you need to have balance. Symmetry. It's very important."

I nod. Balance. Yep, I could use a little bit of that.

When Joe comes over later he promises me he'll be there when they come Tuesday. He offers without my asking and I am so grateful to have someone who feels like I do there to witness the passing of this brave tree.

Joe thinks he can use some of the wood from the tree and Mertis suggests maybe my kitchen table can be made from some of the wood. This way the old tree would live on as part of the cottage.

This, I think, would be a fitting tribute to an outstanding tree.

Cabins, Caves and Confederates

Okay, so I'm having a love affair with my little cabin. In fact, I'm so besotted I'm trying to find out everything I can about it. Thus far, my neighbors have been as helpful as they possibly can be...but they can't quite remember everything they've heard about the area and this house in particular.



But that doesn't stop me. The other week I learned my cabin may have been a cobbler's shop. I already knew my lane was once a main thoroughfare during the Civil War but this weekend I learned my little house might've been part of a small community called Shoat's Gap or Choate's Gap. And then my new neighbor, Margie, dropped the bomb.

"You know," she said. "I think there's a Confederate soldier buried on your property."

She said this just like you might say "You know, I think that's a lilac bush in your backyard."

My eyes widened and I thought, "I knew it! I knew there was something about this place!" But I said, "Where? Where is he buried?"

Margie shrugged. "I don't know but there's lots of books written about the area. There's a cave on the top ridge of your property, I think that's where it is, and there used to be a cave there. That's where the Confederate soldiers hid."

She could see my interest piquing and added "And bears. There's lots of bears up there too."

I also learned that if I'm ever riding in the hills and I come across moonshiners, I'm to nod, look away and ride on. No problem...other than I'm so curious I'd love to stop and learn all about it!

As soon as I got back to town, I started searching the internet for information and quickly found out that my area is chock full of stories of caves and Confederates, moonshiners and revenuers.

I read or listened to accounts until my eyes hurt and my brain has, of course, managed to mangle everything I've gleaned into a stew of facts and legend- but it's absolutely fascinating.

I seriously doubt Franklin County's ready for this much enthusiasm from a newcomer- otherwise I'd be running down the street of Ferrum yelling "Hey everybody, I'm here! Now- tell me everything and don't spare the details! Which one of you guys has the closest still to my place?"

Oh, yeah...that'd get me run out of town on a rail real fast.

So, I'll just keep on reading my internet accounts and try not to ask too many questions of mysterious strangers I meet in the woods...that is, until they come to realize I'm quite harmless and terribly gullible.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Four days in a tiny mountain cabin with teenagers...

I thought they would be bored. After all, this is my "get away" cabin...away from T.V, the Internet, video games and even phones. I figured I'd better have a list of activities of all types to keep them occupied, to keep the techno withdrawal from becoming so painful it sent them screaming back to Greensboro post haste.

To complicate matters...It rained...A constant gentle summer rain that made outdoor activities impossible for 2 of the scheduled 3 days.

They wound up staying four days.

Apparently the novelty of the simple, country life so enthralled them, it made computers and TVs seem mundane and...perhaps even a little boring.




We played cards and board games. We tromped through the woods. We looked for bear and found deer. The Guinea hens next door screeched like the hinges on squeaky screen doors. And then, on the last day there was a run-in with a huge cotton mouth.

But it was the beautiful yellow lab, Shannon, who charmed them most of all. She played fetch endlessly, followed them everywhere and best of all, displayed none of the annoying, yappy habits of the little dogs back home. And no one had to worry about taking care of Shannon- letting her in, letting her out, making sure she'd been fed and had water- because Shannon belongs to Joe, the cabin's former owner.

The kids were as enamored of Joe as they were of Shannon. Joe was pronounced "so knowledgeable and about everything too!" I think they thought he was even better than their current hero, Bear Grills, on "Man Versus Wild."



We had nightly bonfires with popcorn and s'mores...One night there were even roasted potato chunks and onions buried in the coals for late night munching.







Fresh wildflowers in colorful cans sat out on the big picnic table. We drank fresh lemonade and iced tea out of quart-sized jelly jars. There were big country breakfasts, fresh vegetables with dinner, barbecued ribs and chicken...It was slow, easy living at its very finest.



All in all I would have to say it was a big success.