Now the Nation Knows Our Secret

Transylvania County is home to  miles and miles of biking trails.  Bicyclists come from across the country to ride on our mountain roads or to ride off-road on our many trails.  Pisgah National Forest and DuPont State Forest together have more than 600 miles of trails designated for bicycles.  Add the winding mountain roads, and back roads, the miles seem never ending.  Most of the mountain trails rise quickly with spectacular descents.  Bikers can ride on rocky mountain trails interspersed with sand and slickrock to make for a challenging ride.  While most of the bikers are very experienced, novice bikers can find some easier trails to ride.

[LATE ENTRY:  The original wording paraphrased from a news release indicated that there are "bicycle-only" trails.  A wise reader (thanks Randy) indicated the trails were actually multi-use.  My husband who does volunteer trail work in Pisgah confirms that there are no trails specifically for bicycles.  Bikes are allowed on many of the trails, along with hikers and occasionally horses.]

One of our "Land of the Waterfalls" brochures features bikers with the promise that

"The only pressure out here is in your tires."

Yesterday the January/February issue of Bike Magazine went on sale.  This highly-read issue includes their "bible of bike tests."  Last October Brevard hosted the staff of Bike Magazine as they spent most of the month testing gears and bikes on our roads and mountain biking trails.  The January/February issue features Brevard and surrounding county and proclaims on the cover "Transylvania County: America's best kept secret."

The cover from The Asheville Citizens-Times

Every business in town is eagerly awaiting the result of the spreading knowledge about our bicycle culture.  It certainly will stir interest in those bikers who have never heard of our county and town.  While Brevard citizens are already accustomed to seeing competitive cyclists in our town we are likely to see even more of them this spring.

I have only one little concern about the bikers.  Most of them want to ride the trails in Pisgah National Forest and DuPont State Forest.  What's my concern?  The road from Pisgah to Dupont goes straight up the nine-miles of steep mountain curves from downtown Brevard to my house.  So when I'm going twenty miles/hour behind a bevy of bikers, I simply remind myself that I'm retired and should not be in any hurry.  Going downhill is not usually much of a problem since the really experienced bikers will descend as fast as a car.

As the county business owners prepare for the increase in cyclists, I will prepare as well.  I will try not to have to go downtown on weekends.  I will take my special freezer packs to the grocery store so the foods will stay fresh on my longer drive back up the mountain.  I will try to experience the beauty of the surrounding mountains while I drive at a much-reduced speed.  And I will be part of the culture that welcomes these bikers.  For the most part, the bikers are quite courteous, they do not litter, they respect the land and the trails, they ride single file on the highways.  So I say a big "welcome" to bikers who come to enjoy our mountains.

[NOTE:  The welcome does not extend to those who ride those super-fast and noisy high-speed motocycles, commonly known around here as "crotch rockets."  They take the curves at dangerous speeds often leaning into the oncoming lane.  They pass cars in an unsafe manner, make so much noise they disturb the quiet and drive so fast they never appreciate the beauty around them.  We can do without them, thank you very much.]

Fridays are Golden

We've had a great week around here.  The weather has been quite variable, as it often is in late autumn in the mountains.  We have had some sunny days and we always  take advantage of them.  In fact, one of our primary reasons for retiring here had to do with the weather.

Ellie runs free on a recent outing.

 Our Lucy is a very "needy" dog.  She will often lie on the wood floor and thwock her tail for attention.  And yes, she wants you to come to her rather than for her to get up and come to you.  If the tail thwock does not get results, she comes over to my husband's chair and puts her sweet head on the arm of the chair.  That works every time.

It's pretty hard to ignore that pleading face.

Lucy prefers to play on her own terms.  She often signals that by picking up an old rubber tug the girls love so much.  She brings the tug to you and quickly runs away when you reach out your hand.  She thinks that is a great game.

Come on, Dad.  Try to catch me!

 When Lucy tires of the game she takes the tug with her, usually to her bed.

If I don't bring this with me they might just throw it again.

Time is flying, isn't it?  Thanksgiving is next week.  After that the Christmas season will really ramp up.  I love Christmas in a big city.  So exciting, so much fun, and so many things to enjoy.  But I have to admit, I now prefer Christmas in a small town.

Regular readers know how much I love our small town newspaper.  We eagerly wait for the publication on Mondays and Thursdays.  The paper does not have comics, but our "Letters to the Editor" section rivals any comic pages for giving me a laugh.  The sports pages cover only the local college, high school and elementary school sports.  (For instance you would never know that the Green Bay Packers are still undefeated if you relied on our local paper.)

Small towns in the North Carolina mountains still have Christmas parades.  They are not Holiday parades.  Only the larger towns have Holiday Parades.  Nearby Asheville has a Holiday Tree.  A photograph in their newspaper today gives the caption that the man is stringing the Christmas lights on the Holiday Tree.  You figure.

Our neighoring town of Rosman (smaller even than Brevard) had a newspaper article about their upcoming parade.  I found it amusing.  Here it is:

The Rosman Christmas Parade will be held on Sunday, December 4, at 2:00 p.m.  Line-up and registration will begin at 1:15 at Rosman Elementary School.  Parade rules are the same as previous years:

1.)   No ATVs

2.)  No one dressed in a Santa Suit

3.)  Candy must be thrown out of the roadway for the safety of everyone.

I love the simplicity of the parade rules.  Why add all the political rhetoric?  Just keep it simple and easy to understand.  I think we all should look at our own lives and try to simplify things this holiday season.  As someone said, "In a hundred years it won't matter.  It hardly matters now."

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND, EVERYONE!

You Just Never Know...

I lived in the country for the first nine years of my life. It was not a farm, but we had a cow and chickens and a huge vegetable garden. Summer days were spent working and playing outside all day. We made playhouses in the woods, carpeting the rooms with moss we gathered. We made buildings from empty cardboard boxes. We built a cemetery and looked for little dead things to bury there. We made elaborate little coffins from matchboxes and conducted funerals with great ceremony. Winter days were spent attending a small rural public school.

My father was a carpenter and also manager of a North Carolina State Fish Hatchery. The students at the small school we attended were pretty much all alike. There were no rich kids and few children of professionals. (Those students went to the "better" school in town.) Our little school was for the "country folks." I thought everyone was just like me.

When I was ten, we moved to Boone, North Carolina. At that time Boone was a sleepy little college town. We no longer lived in the country with a garden, cow, and chickens, but lived in town. Many of my classmates in school were children of college professors, dentists, physicians and other professionals. As I struggled to fit into this new society, I learned that most of my new classmates thought "country music" was somehow not "cool." Country music was the object of jokes. So, at the tender age of ten, I learned to present a different view of myself in order to fit into current society. I pretended I didn't like country music either.

In truth, I adored country music. Late at night my radio would pick up stations far away and I would listen until I fell asleep. (WCKY...Cincinnati ONE, Ohio was one of my favorites.) I loved watching the country music shows on television.

My mother also loved country music. Not as much as she loved the old hymns, but enough. She had a woman (I'll call her Janie) who helped Mom with heavy housecleaning. Janie and Mom became good friends. Almost every week during the summer, Mom and I would drive out to Janie's house in the country and visit in the evening. Janie played the guitar and on most of our visits, her front porch would be filled with neighbors who played instruments. They played and sang country music and folk music and bluegrass for hours on end.

Oh, how I loved those evenings. The music made it worth every mosquito bite I scratched later. One musician fascinated me. He was blind and I loved his music. He wasn't always at the gatherings, but when he was, I sat and watched him all evening.

Never in my wildest imagination would I have guessed that this blind musician would become a legend in my own lifetime. Yes, the blind musician is Doc Watson. And as a child I heard him play with Janie and the others on the porch.

So many years have past. And here in Brevard, the star attraction at the Mountain Song Festival is none other than Doc Watson. A winner of seven Grammy awards, and awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton, Doc Watson still performs, although much less often than in the past. The Mountain Song Festival was held this past weekend and Steve Martin (yes, THAT Steve Martin) made a surprise appearance, playing the banjo with the Steep Canyon Rangers. But the person everyone talked about was Doc Watson.


(Courtesy photograph from The Transylvania Times.)

Doc Watson does not know my name. He does not know how much his music means to me. I'm certain he remembers the evening songfests at Janie's house. And maybe he even remembers a little girl who so enthusiastically sang along and clapped to his music on Janie's porch all those years ago. You just never know...

Summer Dancing in the Streets

Since its completion in 1881, the Transylvania County Courthouse has stood guard over Main Street in the center of Brevard. It has seen quite a lot of sights during those 128 years.

Every Tuesday night during July and August, the Courthouse enjoys standing guard over the "Old Time Street Dances." One of the great joys of life in a small town is that we will close off a street for a party at the drop of a hat. So every Tuesday in July and August, Main Street is closed right smack dab in the middle of town.
[Late note: My eagle-eyed bird watching daughter clicked on the photograph and determined the black spots over the Courthouse to be swifts! That woman doesn't miss a thing! She didn't miss anything as a child, either.]

The street closes around 6:15 when "rush hour" is over. People bring lawn chairs and use the street benches to get ready for the dancing to start at 6:30.

Typically the children are the first to venture out. Here they "wind up that ball of twine."

Soon the older generation pairs up and the fun really begins.

The band is playing in the gazebo near the Courthouse. Various bands are featured throughout the summer and all of them are really good. The "callers" are excellent, and volunteer staff are ready to help anyone learn the square dance moves. Here the adults are "winding up that ball of twine." [NOTE: The picture is straight. In the mountains even the downtown streets are hilly.]

This little girl was not so sure how she felt about the music. Tuesday dancing-in-the-street is a family affair and lots of young couples bring their children and grandparents bring their grandchildren.

Even in public places, I never take a picture of a child without the parent's permission. When I asked if I could photograph this little cutie with her ice cream cone, she look at me defiantly and stomped her little foot, yelling, "NO!" Her parents said otherwise, so I walked around and later caught her unawares. (I didn't want her to think I would invade her privacy.)

Dusk appears over the gazebo with its white squirrel weathervane. The dancing continues until 9:30. The last street dance in August signals the end of summer. The children will return to school and Main Street will be open on Tuesday evenings...well, until the next festival.

The joyous and uninhibited street dancing brings to mind one of my favorite sayings. I searched for the author, but I found so many people credited, I'm going to call it "Author unknown."

Work like you don't need the money,

Love like you've never been hurt,

And dance like no one is watching.