As wonderful as the retreat with Gayle was, by the time it was over, I was exhausted. Richard is fond of reminding me that all change is stressful, whether it’s good or bad. No wonder I was exhausted. I’d been to the hospital twice, Roger’s house, the retreat, and Rachel’s house twice. I had also driven over five hundred miles in my almost-two-hundred-thousand-mile-on-the-odometer van.
When I turned on my phone, I found a message from Richard that the rains had been soaking our home for several days. The prediction was for another nine days of rain, so he wanted to make sure that I got home before dark. I called and assured him that would be no problem.
Well, I took a wrong turn not two miles from the retreat center. It wasn’t long before I began to see fuchsia wildflowers that didn’t look familiar, but you know how flowers are: changing daily -- and I’d been on retreat for two days. With my head in the clouds and a smile on my face, remembering the good times with Gayle, I drove on – until I hit a dead end. Oops! I may not make it before dark, after all. The bad news was that I hadn’t a clue where I was. The good news was that I got to pass the beautiful fields of fuchsia flowers a second time. I did, however, focus long enough to get back on the right route.
I drove through light rain in Atlanta, and in and out of showers until I hit Tennessee. My “almost home” spot was enchanted by pockets of fresh-washed, sun-dappled green and gold, alternating with moving mists. It was such a fitting way to re-enter my mountain reality after a week-end of mysticism and shared memories. It was like being gently awakened from a dream.
It seemed surprising to me that all the houses, horses, fields and farms of Coker Creek remained the same. I floated home and found our Great Pyrenees, our tabby cat, and Richard all lined up on the porch. Richard had made salads. I fed the dog. Richard carried in my luggage. We discussed whether Richard had started building an arc and whether I should begin collecting pairs of animals. Richard reminded me that God had promised Noah that there wouldn’t be another world- wide flood. I was home!
The next day was a perfect pajama day – Rain, rain, rain. Most of the day, I sat in my writer’s room (also called the guest bedroom and playroom, depending on whose here). I read, wrote, and relaxed while it rained, rained, rained. Rachel called in the afternoon to tell me that it’s a good thing we moved to the mountains because parts of Atlanta were flooding.
We slept well that night, in our mountain home, to the sound of continued rain on the trees. It’s easier to sleep when you have flood insurance. You should have heard the insurance salesperson laughing when I insisted on flood insurance for our mountain place. I’ll bet the folks in Atlanta aren’t laughing.
I awakened to bright sunlight the following morning. While drinking my coffee, I turned on the news. Oh my God! There were photos of parts of Rachel’s suburbs under eight feet of water. I called Rachel for assurance that her family and friends are okay. They are.
Rachel reminded me that unlike on the coast, there aren’t boats in every Atlanta driveway to do rescue work. And as Roger pointed out, Atlanta people don’t know that if you have to climb to your attic to escape the floodwaters, you should bring an ax for breaking out if the waters keep rising. I began calling other Atlanta friends. Thankfully, all are okay as long as the locusts don’t start swarming.
My niece’s husband has an Atlanta cousin with children that lost her home. We’ve offered them help, and we’re now putting out pleas for help for others who are displaced. We think we know something about how they feel.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
That Wild and Crazy Cook
Richard has been doing a lot of cooking. He has always been interested in cooking. When I met him he would create elaborate meals for friends, using the cookbooks of Julia Child. He’s always loved the Julia cookbooks because they have step-by-step photos and give so much detail. Julia Child actually gives twelve steps for boiling an egg. That much detail drives me crazy, but is right in Richard’s comfort zone.
Richard is a scientist and a process person. He’s never in a hurry to get to the end of a project or a journey. We get there when we get there, and enjoy the trip along the way. This is often good, but sometimes gets him in a bit of trouble. Like when he’d choose a complete Julia Child menu and think he could prepare all five courses by himself in one day.
I know that a twenty-four hour day is just a method for keeping track of time, but Richard lives on a continuum of eternal time that doesn’t necessarily synch with the rest of the world. This served him well when he was on hospital call for three or four days in a row, but not so much when having guests for dinner.
The first time he had me over for dinner, I arrived at 7:00p.m. to find him still vacuuming his house. He offered me a drink, told me to make myself at home and disappeared with his vacuum cleaner. I wandered into the kitchen to find Julia Child and Company cookbook open to a paella recipe and all the ingredients laid out on the counter – raw. I had nothing better to do, so I began preparing the paella. Julia Child recipes are not things you can whip up in a half hour. By the time we had dinner, it was 11:00 p.m.
Fast forward to the first time we had a dinner party together. It was important to Richard that he prepare the meal. He pulled out his Julia Child cookbooks, and came up with a menu and grocery list. Since early in our relationship, Richard has minimized our power struggles by insisting that in every shared project, we first decide who is officer and who is enlisted. For this meal, I was enlisted.
As Richard sliced and diced, my job was to stir and sauté. It didn’t take long for me to realize that our meal wouldn’t make it to the table until well after our guests were passed out from hunger (or, quite possibly, from inebriation). Behind Richard’s back, I began to cut corners to save time. We did get the meal done in time, and then agreed that we’d use no more than two Julia recipes per meal.
Since I travel so much, Richard often attends the bluegrass sessions at Charlie and Deborah’s without me. Other attendees look forward to discovering what’s in our chafing dish, and being exposed to something out of the ordinary. Richard’s most recent creation was Paprika Chicken, a rustic stew with carrots, potatoes, onions, red and green bell peppers, and a bunch of spices including caraway seeds and paprika. To feed the crowd, plus leave some for our host and hostess, plus give some to Mamie and some to Jack, Richard had to make a vat of vittles.
When I arrived at home the day after bluegrass, Richard regaled me with stories of his kitchen conquests. He was so proud of his method for efficiently deboning all that chicken, and how well he utilized so much of our fresh-from-Mamie’s-garden produce. He was positively poetic in his praise of our potatoes; they were so firm, so flavorful, so fantastic. And the ease with which he deseeded the peppers; I should have seen him at work…
Everyone loved the dish, and he had saved a generous portion for me. I agreed that it was, as Richard would say, “A keeper”.
The only complaint Richard had was that the directions in the cookbook were faulty. I pointed out that I found this hard to believe based on the results of Richard’s efforts. In his very precise manner, Richard explained to me that the instructions had said to cube the bell peppers. He was horrified! How could this be? If he cubed the peppers, they would be only five sixteenths of an inch cubes, and this was a rustic dish. He had to make an executive decision. Did I tell you that Richard likes rules? Was he to disobey the rules?
Richard decided to cut the peppers into half inch squares, throwing all caution to the wind. I told him I think he’s about to graduate from cook to chef.
Richard is a scientist and a process person. He’s never in a hurry to get to the end of a project or a journey. We get there when we get there, and enjoy the trip along the way. This is often good, but sometimes gets him in a bit of trouble. Like when he’d choose a complete Julia Child menu and think he could prepare all five courses by himself in one day.
I know that a twenty-four hour day is just a method for keeping track of time, but Richard lives on a continuum of eternal time that doesn’t necessarily synch with the rest of the world. This served him well when he was on hospital call for three or four days in a row, but not so much when having guests for dinner.
The first time he had me over for dinner, I arrived at 7:00p.m. to find him still vacuuming his house. He offered me a drink, told me to make myself at home and disappeared with his vacuum cleaner. I wandered into the kitchen to find Julia Child and Company cookbook open to a paella recipe and all the ingredients laid out on the counter – raw. I had nothing better to do, so I began preparing the paella. Julia Child recipes are not things you can whip up in a half hour. By the time we had dinner, it was 11:00 p.m.
Fast forward to the first time we had a dinner party together. It was important to Richard that he prepare the meal. He pulled out his Julia Child cookbooks, and came up with a menu and grocery list. Since early in our relationship, Richard has minimized our power struggles by insisting that in every shared project, we first decide who is officer and who is enlisted. For this meal, I was enlisted.
As Richard sliced and diced, my job was to stir and sauté. It didn’t take long for me to realize that our meal wouldn’t make it to the table until well after our guests were passed out from hunger (or, quite possibly, from inebriation). Behind Richard’s back, I began to cut corners to save time. We did get the meal done in time, and then agreed that we’d use no more than two Julia recipes per meal.
Since I travel so much, Richard often attends the bluegrass sessions at Charlie and Deborah’s without me. Other attendees look forward to discovering what’s in our chafing dish, and being exposed to something out of the ordinary. Richard’s most recent creation was Paprika Chicken, a rustic stew with carrots, potatoes, onions, red and green bell peppers, and a bunch of spices including caraway seeds and paprika. To feed the crowd, plus leave some for our host and hostess, plus give some to Mamie and some to Jack, Richard had to make a vat of vittles.
When I arrived at home the day after bluegrass, Richard regaled me with stories of his kitchen conquests. He was so proud of his method for efficiently deboning all that chicken, and how well he utilized so much of our fresh-from-Mamie’s-garden produce. He was positively poetic in his praise of our potatoes; they were so firm, so flavorful, so fantastic. And the ease with which he deseeded the peppers; I should have seen him at work…
Everyone loved the dish, and he had saved a generous portion for me. I agreed that it was, as Richard would say, “A keeper”.
The only complaint Richard had was that the directions in the cookbook were faulty. I pointed out that I found this hard to believe based on the results of Richard’s efforts. In his very precise manner, Richard explained to me that the instructions had said to cube the bell peppers. He was horrified! How could this be? If he cubed the peppers, they would be only five sixteenths of an inch cubes, and this was a rustic dish. He had to make an executive decision. Did I tell you that Richard likes rules? Was he to disobey the rules?
Richard decided to cut the peppers into half inch squares, throwing all caution to the wind. I told him I think he’s about to graduate from cook to chef.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Jumping Jack and Happy Hens
I’m heading to Georgia to be with Holly and Don while Don has surgery for liver cancer, and then on to visit another dear friend from my ten years living in Atlanta, Roger. Then it’s off to Columbus, Georgia to attend a retreat with my new-mother-days neighbor, Gayle. So, I made the rounds to collect veggies and deliver cooked samples before my departure. We hadn’t picked Jack’s okra or peppers for several days, and I didn’t want Jack’s labors to go to waste. I really am a sucker for fresh okra.
I arrived at Jack’s house to find a solar collector aimed at the morning sun in front of his porch. Jack’s marine battery, that powered his television before the digital conversion made it impossible for a lot of mountain folk to receive anything other than satellite television, was hooked up to the solar collector. He had borrowed Cotton’s solar collection panel to give it a try running an electric light bulb. He likes the extra light so much that he and his cousin are considering buying their own solar set-up. What’s next -- a word processor to replace his manual typewriter? I think we’re in danger of Jack jumping over the twentieth century into the twenty-first.
We sat in the cool autumn breeze on his porch and talked about the trip Richard and I took with Charlie and Deborah to Oak Ridge. This led to a discussion of our hopes for the future of solar and wind power. Jack allowed that he’s not averse to accepting modern-day technologies; he simply wants the benefits to outweigh the costs – to the environment and to his way of life. We then walked to the garden up the road.
After collecting okra, we walked back down the road to his kitchen garden on the side of his house. As we collected the peppers, and a couple of ears of Silver Queen corn, Jack told me how he keeps his garden soil healthy by composting all his organic waste. I was intrigued by his telling of how some old-time farmers used to allow their brush piles to decompose on their fields, mowing around them as they rotted. I wonder if this is where the custom of raking leaves originated.
After lunch, Richard and I went to Mamie’s to help her clean her hen house. Both Jack and Mamie use a small amount of commercial fertilizer because they don’t create enough animal and yard waste to substitute for it. Jack has only one horse to clean up after, and Mamie’s several dozen chickens aren’t exactly a commercial egg-laying operation. But they do poop, so Richard and I decided to collect their offerings and transfer them to our garden plot for feeding next year’s crops.
Richard’s lack of immune system because of his heart transplant dictates that he’s not allowed to breathe in a chicken house. Not breathing could seriously inhibit his ability to shovel shit. (Excuse my being crude, but sometimes there is no substitute for the perfect word.) For this type of task, we purchased a super-high-efficiency face mask. With Richard looking and sounding like a cheap knock-off of Darth Vader and me in my honest-to-goodness cowboy boots, we entered the laying house.
Mamie and I were the bucket brigade. Mamie positioned empty buckets for Richard to fill, while I transported the full containers to Richard’s trailer. Richard positioned the trailer near the garden and took empty buckets from me while he, quite literally, took a breather. I walked over all of the played-out parts of our garden, sifting the poop over the soil. I also found out why cowboy boots are called shit-kickers; the pointy toe is a great way to break up clods of you-know-what. Next time Mamie’s son Junior tills (or is it plowing?), the manure will be incorporated into the dirt. We finished the yearly hen house cleaning in less than two hours. I think a farm family originated the saying, “Many hands make light work.”
Who knew that cleaning a chicken house would be another “homecoming” for Richard? He says that, when he was a kid, his family egg layer breeding operations supplied six hundred trucks – that’s about three thousand tons – of chicken poop to North Brookfield, Massachusetts farmers per year. He waxed ecstatic about how nice and dry and easy to handle Mamie’s chicken poop was compared to the poop he shoveled as a child. And he looked like a proud papa that had just finished painting the nursery as he surveyed the chickens fluffing the newly laid straw litter in the newly cleaned hen house.
Mamie insisted on paying us for our labors. I tried declining payment on the basis that I had read in Budget Travel about farms charging one thousand dollars a week to teach “campers” how to farm by using them as hired help. When that didn’t work, I explained that if she taught at an agricultural college, they’d pay her probably fifty thousand dollars a year-- And we weren’t paying her anything for her knowledge. Mamie laughed and started our payment with four dozen of her good, brown yard eggs.
I arrived at Jack’s house to find a solar collector aimed at the morning sun in front of his porch. Jack’s marine battery, that powered his television before the digital conversion made it impossible for a lot of mountain folk to receive anything other than satellite television, was hooked up to the solar collector. He had borrowed Cotton’s solar collection panel to give it a try running an electric light bulb. He likes the extra light so much that he and his cousin are considering buying their own solar set-up. What’s next -- a word processor to replace his manual typewriter? I think we’re in danger of Jack jumping over the twentieth century into the twenty-first.
We sat in the cool autumn breeze on his porch and talked about the trip Richard and I took with Charlie and Deborah to Oak Ridge. This led to a discussion of our hopes for the future of solar and wind power. Jack allowed that he’s not averse to accepting modern-day technologies; he simply wants the benefits to outweigh the costs – to the environment and to his way of life. We then walked to the garden up the road.
After collecting okra, we walked back down the road to his kitchen garden on the side of his house. As we collected the peppers, and a couple of ears of Silver Queen corn, Jack told me how he keeps his garden soil healthy by composting all his organic waste. I was intrigued by his telling of how some old-time farmers used to allow their brush piles to decompose on their fields, mowing around them as they rotted. I wonder if this is where the custom of raking leaves originated.
After lunch, Richard and I went to Mamie’s to help her clean her hen house. Both Jack and Mamie use a small amount of commercial fertilizer because they don’t create enough animal and yard waste to substitute for it. Jack has only one horse to clean up after, and Mamie’s several dozen chickens aren’t exactly a commercial egg-laying operation. But they do poop, so Richard and I decided to collect their offerings and transfer them to our garden plot for feeding next year’s crops.
Richard’s lack of immune system because of his heart transplant dictates that he’s not allowed to breathe in a chicken house. Not breathing could seriously inhibit his ability to shovel shit. (Excuse my being crude, but sometimes there is no substitute for the perfect word.) For this type of task, we purchased a super-high-efficiency face mask. With Richard looking and sounding like a cheap knock-off of Darth Vader and me in my honest-to-goodness cowboy boots, we entered the laying house.
Mamie and I were the bucket brigade. Mamie positioned empty buckets for Richard to fill, while I transported the full containers to Richard’s trailer. Richard positioned the trailer near the garden and took empty buckets from me while he, quite literally, took a breather. I walked over all of the played-out parts of our garden, sifting the poop over the soil. I also found out why cowboy boots are called shit-kickers; the pointy toe is a great way to break up clods of you-know-what. Next time Mamie’s son Junior tills (or is it plowing?), the manure will be incorporated into the dirt. We finished the yearly hen house cleaning in less than two hours. I think a farm family originated the saying, “Many hands make light work.”
Who knew that cleaning a chicken house would be another “homecoming” for Richard? He says that, when he was a kid, his family egg layer breeding operations supplied six hundred trucks – that’s about three thousand tons – of chicken poop to North Brookfield, Massachusetts farmers per year. He waxed ecstatic about how nice and dry and easy to handle Mamie’s chicken poop was compared to the poop he shoveled as a child. And he looked like a proud papa that had just finished painting the nursery as he surveyed the chickens fluffing the newly laid straw litter in the newly cleaned hen house.
Mamie insisted on paying us for our labors. I tried declining payment on the basis that I had read in Budget Travel about farms charging one thousand dollars a week to teach “campers” how to farm by using them as hired help. When that didn’t work, I explained that if she taught at an agricultural college, they’d pay her probably fifty thousand dollars a year-- And we weren’t paying her anything for her knowledge. Mamie laughed and started our payment with four dozen of her good, brown yard eggs.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mountain Mama
I’ve always admired the women of the Old Testament. They seemed to be women of substance, who knew how to survive and protect their children no matter what life threw at them. Their attitudes were more “Bring it on.” than “Wait and worry.”
Mamie Murphy is that kind of woman. She was only fourteen years old when Frank took her as his bride. Frank had left Coker Creek looking for work, as did many people during the Great Depression. He hired on at Mamie’s daddy’s Texas farm, and fell in love with the little spitfire named Mamie.
Just like in the Bible, Frank worked for his love’s daddy to earn his bride. Unlike in the Bible, he didn’t have to first marry her sister to get Mamie. Now, Mamie’s daddy didn’t know that Frank planned to take his oldest daughter from him, but Mamie’s mom and sisters saw that he was worthy and helped them elope. It was to be three years before she saw her family again.
Leaving her mother, father and four younger sisters, Mamie traveled more than twelve hundred miles with her new husband. This journey to a new life took her from her familiar surroundings in the flatlands of Texas to the wild wonders of the Cherokee National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. By the time she reached her fifteenth birthday, she had her first child, a daughter she named Jean.
Times were hard everywhere, and Coker Creek was no exception. In 1934, the timber industry was the only viable industry in the area. Frank’s family worked in the lumber industry, and in 1935 opened several businesses to service the industry: a sawmill, a general store and post office. When electricity became available to the area, Mamie traveled the mountains signing people up for electricity. When she had enough customers to make it worth the while of the utility company to run the lines, they added a Laundromat. The family also farmed vegetables and raised chickens for eggs. They even took a stint at raising hogs. Mamie says that families used to trade products from their farms. One family may have a milk cow, and the next may have a crop of potatoes. They would trade for what they needed.
Mamie, with a baby on her hip – and three more in her future -- farmed, clerked, planted, picked and plucked. She also acted as postmistress of Coker Creek for fifty years.
Just about the time Mamie and Frank got their children reared, Frank died. Mamie kept on running her home, farm, store and the post office. When, while a still-young widow, her store burned down with a new shipment of merchandise, she took to her bed for two hours and then got up to do what had to be done to reopen the post office. She says she’s always too busy to get depressed.
Whenever discussing a life-changing event like a death in the family, my Cajun grandma would preface the discussion with a question, “Do you want to laugh or do you want to cry?” We would then frame our stories in terms that would evoke the desired emotion. No matter what we discuss, Mamie manages to spin the story in a positive direction with her ever -present gift of good humor and the constant twinkle in her blue eyes. Mamie clearly prefers to laugh.
Mamie is almost ninety years old now. When we met, she told me that after running the post office for fifty years, she figured that if she was going to do anything else with her life, she better get to it. Mamie is still raising crops and chickens for eggs. She does all her own housework, even though she says it takes her a while to straighten up in the mornings. And she has a revolving door of guests to whom she serves her wonderful home-grown, home-cooked vegetables.
As a matter of fact, she’s looking forward to the second week-end in October, her busiest time of year for entertaining out-of-state guests. Her oldest son Frank, Jr. is very active in the Coker Creek Ruritan Club. The second week-end in October is when they put on their annual fundraiser, the Autumn Gold Festival. Mamie will be putting several families up at her house for the week-end.
Mamie Murphy is that kind of woman. She was only fourteen years old when Frank took her as his bride. Frank had left Coker Creek looking for work, as did many people during the Great Depression. He hired on at Mamie’s daddy’s Texas farm, and fell in love with the little spitfire named Mamie.
Just like in the Bible, Frank worked for his love’s daddy to earn his bride. Unlike in the Bible, he didn’t have to first marry her sister to get Mamie. Now, Mamie’s daddy didn’t know that Frank planned to take his oldest daughter from him, but Mamie’s mom and sisters saw that he was worthy and helped them elope. It was to be three years before she saw her family again.
Leaving her mother, father and four younger sisters, Mamie traveled more than twelve hundred miles with her new husband. This journey to a new life took her from her familiar surroundings in the flatlands of Texas to the wild wonders of the Cherokee National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. By the time she reached her fifteenth birthday, she had her first child, a daughter she named Jean.
Times were hard everywhere, and Coker Creek was no exception. In 1934, the timber industry was the only viable industry in the area. Frank’s family worked in the lumber industry, and in 1935 opened several businesses to service the industry: a sawmill, a general store and post office. When electricity became available to the area, Mamie traveled the mountains signing people up for electricity. When she had enough customers to make it worth the while of the utility company to run the lines, they added a Laundromat. The family also farmed vegetables and raised chickens for eggs. They even took a stint at raising hogs. Mamie says that families used to trade products from their farms. One family may have a milk cow, and the next may have a crop of potatoes. They would trade for what they needed.
Mamie, with a baby on her hip – and three more in her future -- farmed, clerked, planted, picked and plucked. She also acted as postmistress of Coker Creek for fifty years.
Just about the time Mamie and Frank got their children reared, Frank died. Mamie kept on running her home, farm, store and the post office. When, while a still-young widow, her store burned down with a new shipment of merchandise, she took to her bed for two hours and then got up to do what had to be done to reopen the post office. She says she’s always too busy to get depressed.
Whenever discussing a life-changing event like a death in the family, my Cajun grandma would preface the discussion with a question, “Do you want to laugh or do you want to cry?” We would then frame our stories in terms that would evoke the desired emotion. No matter what we discuss, Mamie manages to spin the story in a positive direction with her ever -present gift of good humor and the constant twinkle in her blue eyes. Mamie clearly prefers to laugh.
Mamie is almost ninety years old now. When we met, she told me that after running the post office for fifty years, she figured that if she was going to do anything else with her life, she better get to it. Mamie is still raising crops and chickens for eggs. She does all her own housework, even though she says it takes her a while to straighten up in the mornings. And she has a revolving door of guests to whom she serves her wonderful home-grown, home-cooked vegetables.
As a matter of fact, she’s looking forward to the second week-end in October, her busiest time of year for entertaining out-of-state guests. Her oldest son Frank, Jr. is very active in the Coker Creek Ruritan Club. The second week-end in October is when they put on their annual fundraiser, the Autumn Gold Festival. Mamie will be putting several families up at her house for the week-end.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Nuclear Fusion and Finances
Charlie and Deborah treated us to lunch and a visit to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The drive to the museum was beautiful. We thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, but I was distressed to be told upon our arrival at the venue that much of the ground across which we drove had been a dumping ground for radioactive waste.
While we were given the history of the “City Behind a Fence”, as the top-secret nuclear bomb project site was called, I couldn’t help but be distracted by my sadness for the thousand farm families displaced to build the facility -- with some having only two weeks notice to vacate land that their families had farmed for generations. That’s little more notice than we had before being hit by Hurricane Katrina.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I know very little about the history of nuclear energy or the atom bomb. I tune out most things that have to do with violence -- or start imagining myself and my children in the scary situations-- so I miss a lot in history lessons. And if I were a scientist, I’m sure I would be more into natural science, like botany. Not that my “wing-it” approach to life would lend itself to me being a scientist.
I had a hard time enjoying the exhibits, even though they were pointing out all the good things that have come out of nuclear power research and development: x-rays, for example. Maybe if our tour could have started with a talk on all the good things that have been invented using nuclear technology…
This event was organized by the East Tennessee Chapter of the Antique Automobile Club of America, in which Charlie is a judge and automobile restoration grand champion award winner. This group of old car lovers regularly hits the road in their beautifully restored cars of yesteryear and cruises through and to scenic and historic venues. Many of the members of the club are as antique as their cars, as is the case with the membership of a great number of non-profit organizations. The events are good ways to introduce children and grandchildren to the glories of the American automobile’s past.
Charlie has tried to interest Richard in becoming a member of AACA. Richard’s 1989 Bronco II is a classic. It looks pretty good for its age, and it still runs pretty well. Also, Richard has a lot of experience in restoring old things. In fact, if we could get back even half of what we invested in our Nixon-era house and boat in New Orleans and our Clinton-era RV, we could about recoup our Bush-era losses in our retirement portfolio.
We are now in the process of fixing up our Reagan-era house in Coker Creek, and are at a critical decision time. I’d dearly love to remodel the kitchen; although, as you can tell, our outdated kitchen doesn’t stop us from preparing whole cafeteria lines of food. We estimate that, even with Richard doing all the work himself, an optimistic estimate of the cost would be over ten thousand dollars.
Our magic carpet RV will never take us on another adventure without a new diesel engine. Estimated cost is ten thousand dollars. Our second Clinton-era vehicle, my van, has almost two hundred thousand miles on it, so it may be the next thing to go. The cheapest cars cost at least twenty thousand dollars. Add to these realities that travel ain’t cheap, and I can’t go more than three months without seeing Scott’s family in Mississippi without feeling like I’m going to die.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but in a conservative investment portfolio, it takes a million dollars to generate fifty thousand dollars. If you’ve invested in tax-deferred annuities, you have to pay taxes on your money as you take it out of your portfolio. That would leave you with probably less than forty thousand dollars, if you had a million dollars in your portfolio in the first place.
Our experience tells us that the amount of money you can spend on a hobby with an engine is endless. Fixing up a classic car may not be in the cards for a family on a fixed income in today’s economy.
While we were given the history of the “City Behind a Fence”, as the top-secret nuclear bomb project site was called, I couldn’t help but be distracted by my sadness for the thousand farm families displaced to build the facility -- with some having only two weeks notice to vacate land that their families had farmed for generations. That’s little more notice than we had before being hit by Hurricane Katrina.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I know very little about the history of nuclear energy or the atom bomb. I tune out most things that have to do with violence -- or start imagining myself and my children in the scary situations-- so I miss a lot in history lessons. And if I were a scientist, I’m sure I would be more into natural science, like botany. Not that my “wing-it” approach to life would lend itself to me being a scientist.
I had a hard time enjoying the exhibits, even though they were pointing out all the good things that have come out of nuclear power research and development: x-rays, for example. Maybe if our tour could have started with a talk on all the good things that have been invented using nuclear technology…
This event was organized by the East Tennessee Chapter of the Antique Automobile Club of America, in which Charlie is a judge and automobile restoration grand champion award winner. This group of old car lovers regularly hits the road in their beautifully restored cars of yesteryear and cruises through and to scenic and historic venues. Many of the members of the club are as antique as their cars, as is the case with the membership of a great number of non-profit organizations. The events are good ways to introduce children and grandchildren to the glories of the American automobile’s past.
Charlie has tried to interest Richard in becoming a member of AACA. Richard’s 1989 Bronco II is a classic. It looks pretty good for its age, and it still runs pretty well. Also, Richard has a lot of experience in restoring old things. In fact, if we could get back even half of what we invested in our Nixon-era house and boat in New Orleans and our Clinton-era RV, we could about recoup our Bush-era losses in our retirement portfolio.
We are now in the process of fixing up our Reagan-era house in Coker Creek, and are at a critical decision time. I’d dearly love to remodel the kitchen; although, as you can tell, our outdated kitchen doesn’t stop us from preparing whole cafeteria lines of food. We estimate that, even with Richard doing all the work himself, an optimistic estimate of the cost would be over ten thousand dollars.
Our magic carpet RV will never take us on another adventure without a new diesel engine. Estimated cost is ten thousand dollars. Our second Clinton-era vehicle, my van, has almost two hundred thousand miles on it, so it may be the next thing to go. The cheapest cars cost at least twenty thousand dollars. Add to these realities that travel ain’t cheap, and I can’t go more than three months without seeing Scott’s family in Mississippi without feeling like I’m going to die.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but in a conservative investment portfolio, it takes a million dollars to generate fifty thousand dollars. If you’ve invested in tax-deferred annuities, you have to pay taxes on your money as you take it out of your portfolio. That would leave you with probably less than forty thousand dollars, if you had a million dollars in your portfolio in the first place.
Our experience tells us that the amount of money you can spend on a hobby with an engine is endless. Fixing up a classic car may not be in the cards for a family on a fixed income in today’s economy.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Seeking Serenity
Upon our return to the holler after twenty-four hours in Atlanta, I immediately headed over to touch base with very stable Mamie and her ever-changing garden. I needed to ground myself. (I don’t know if that pun was intended.)
I’ve never been one to embrace sameness, so it may seem impossible that I’ll ever feel like I belong in slow-moving Coker Creek. You’ve heard of the “slow food” movement created in response to the fast food culture. Coker Creek could be a poster child for a “slow life” movement.
This year, I’m coming to grips with the need to celebrate the moment by fully embracing each process that the moment offers. I’m attempting to heed the admonition of my friend Dot, “Take it easy, Greasy. You have a long way to slide.”
I married at eighteen. My honeymoon was in a primitive fishing camp in the middle of a south Louisiana bayou. We had no electricity, no plumbing, and no other people for miles around. I, who had always insisted to my grandma that I could never live close to her on the bayou because it would be too boring, cried all the way back to civilization. My very stable new husband insisted that we had to live in the city for him to make a living.
When my very stable mother-in-law died at age fifty-six, I became convinced that I’d be long dead by age sixty. I was only nineteen years old when I added this to my long line of magical thoughts. My husband and I were also expecting our first child.
I tried to settle into the life of a young wife and mother in a tiny brick house in the suburbs without even one tree in the back yard. Every day was the same: Change the baby’s diaper; make my husband’s lunch; do the laundry; clean the house; make supper; watch the news; go to bed. Wake up and repeat.
The best times were with my neighbors, but my husband didn’t particularly like their husbands. And then, my seemingly stable neighbors started dropping like flies.
Peggy moved back to her bayou home and family. Merline took to her bed with a major depression when her husband had to leave the state to find stone mason work. Gayle had a meltdown after she had her third child. The only stability seemed to be at my house, but the solitude and sameness were killing my soul.
Sybil, a single labor and delivery nurse and the only faithful visitor at my dying mother-in-law’s bedside, had worked many years with my mother-in-law. She became my daughter’s godmother, and took me and Rachel under her wing. Sybil could see that I needed a hobby. She began introducing me and my infant daughter to the finer man-made things in life.
We took Rachel in her stroller to Antoine’s and Brennan’s, and all the better New Orleans restaurants. Sybil encouraged me to learn gourmet cooking, buying me my first gourmet cookbook, The New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook, and teaching me cooking techniques in her tiny French Quarter apartment kitchen. Sybil would attend our many parties, bearing fine wine and Waterford crystal goblets for me and my husband, and hand-smocked Polly Flinders party dresses and Madame Alexander dolls for our little princess. She was our very own fairy godmother.
After my second child, Scott, was born, I was no longer ever-laughing and fun. Sybil insisted that I go to her therapist because she thought I was depressed. Her therapist was incompetent. Sybil got married, and I got divorced. I was on my own without a compass.
Oh boy, what a wild ride ensued to “find myself”. I began living in overdrive. Life became one big adventure, and I became “hell bent” to experience all the adventure I could without doing myself or others bodily harm.
I tried different New Orleans neighborhoods, and different Atlanta neighborhoods -- even moving to a couple of Tennessee cities for a short time. I worked at different jobs, and opened several businesses. I began and ended many relationships. I still hadn’t located me.
It seems that the only thing that soothed me was immersion in nature. Nature never bores me because, if you watch very closely, nothing in nature is in straight lines or perfect circles. And constant changes, large and small, are nature’s norm. Every chance I got, I’d pack a bag and take the kids to the woods or the water.
After another failed stab at stability, I finally moved back to New Orleans . Through grace, I managed to marry Richard in time to have my first grandchild. We lived in a brick house in a suburb named Tall Timbers. At least we had trees in our yard. Then Richard became a candidate for a heart transplant.
When Richard’s near-death disabled him, I insisted that we run to the arms of nature. I had found the setting to sooth my savage soul a marsh on Lake Pontchartrain in south Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina gave Louisiana a nervous breakdown, our earthly Eden was erased.
We were seriously downsized. Time to hit the open road, footloose and family- free. We traveled the southern United States in an RV for nine months. Every evening a different natural-setting campground welcomed us home. We had no neighbors, but kept in frequent communication with our family and friends. We also spent weeks at a time in the New Orleans area, assisting our loved ones left digging through the lost cities of Louisiana.
I vowed never to try settling down again. But Richard, who had grown up in a rural agricultural environment, had different ideas. He wanted a home above sea level. We bought eight and a half acres at sixteen hundred feet elevation, with a house and two creeks, in a cradle of trees, in the Cherokee National Forest.
I’m now trying to acclimate to the rhythms of nature in the mountains and the pace of the people of the land. There’s a song with the lyrics “I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.” I have been to me, but I kept trying to add more and more to me. I now think that paradise is where we find it. I’ve decided to savor the moment and get comfortable with me – whoever I may be.
Very stable Coker Creek seems to be a good place to begin.
I’ve never been one to embrace sameness, so it may seem impossible that I’ll ever feel like I belong in slow-moving Coker Creek. You’ve heard of the “slow food” movement created in response to the fast food culture. Coker Creek could be a poster child for a “slow life” movement.
This year, I’m coming to grips with the need to celebrate the moment by fully embracing each process that the moment offers. I’m attempting to heed the admonition of my friend Dot, “Take it easy, Greasy. You have a long way to slide.”
I married at eighteen. My honeymoon was in a primitive fishing camp in the middle of a south Louisiana bayou. We had no electricity, no plumbing, and no other people for miles around. I, who had always insisted to my grandma that I could never live close to her on the bayou because it would be too boring, cried all the way back to civilization. My very stable new husband insisted that we had to live in the city for him to make a living.
When my very stable mother-in-law died at age fifty-six, I became convinced that I’d be long dead by age sixty. I was only nineteen years old when I added this to my long line of magical thoughts. My husband and I were also expecting our first child.
I tried to settle into the life of a young wife and mother in a tiny brick house in the suburbs without even one tree in the back yard. Every day was the same: Change the baby’s diaper; make my husband’s lunch; do the laundry; clean the house; make supper; watch the news; go to bed. Wake up and repeat.
The best times were with my neighbors, but my husband didn’t particularly like their husbands. And then, my seemingly stable neighbors started dropping like flies.
Peggy moved back to her bayou home and family. Merline took to her bed with a major depression when her husband had to leave the state to find stone mason work. Gayle had a meltdown after she had her third child. The only stability seemed to be at my house, but the solitude and sameness were killing my soul.
Sybil, a single labor and delivery nurse and the only faithful visitor at my dying mother-in-law’s bedside, had worked many years with my mother-in-law. She became my daughter’s godmother, and took me and Rachel under her wing. Sybil could see that I needed a hobby. She began introducing me and my infant daughter to the finer man-made things in life.
We took Rachel in her stroller to Antoine’s and Brennan’s, and all the better New Orleans restaurants. Sybil encouraged me to learn gourmet cooking, buying me my first gourmet cookbook, The New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook, and teaching me cooking techniques in her tiny French Quarter apartment kitchen. Sybil would attend our many parties, bearing fine wine and Waterford crystal goblets for me and my husband, and hand-smocked Polly Flinders party dresses and Madame Alexander dolls for our little princess. She was our very own fairy godmother.
After my second child, Scott, was born, I was no longer ever-laughing and fun. Sybil insisted that I go to her therapist because she thought I was depressed. Her therapist was incompetent. Sybil got married, and I got divorced. I was on my own without a compass.
Oh boy, what a wild ride ensued to “find myself”. I began living in overdrive. Life became one big adventure, and I became “hell bent” to experience all the adventure I could without doing myself or others bodily harm.
I tried different New Orleans neighborhoods, and different Atlanta neighborhoods -- even moving to a couple of Tennessee cities for a short time. I worked at different jobs, and opened several businesses. I began and ended many relationships. I still hadn’t located me.
It seems that the only thing that soothed me was immersion in nature. Nature never bores me because, if you watch very closely, nothing in nature is in straight lines or perfect circles. And constant changes, large and small, are nature’s norm. Every chance I got, I’d pack a bag and take the kids to the woods or the water.
After another failed stab at stability, I finally moved back to New Orleans . Through grace, I managed to marry Richard in time to have my first grandchild. We lived in a brick house in a suburb named Tall Timbers. At least we had trees in our yard. Then Richard became a candidate for a heart transplant.
When Richard’s near-death disabled him, I insisted that we run to the arms of nature. I had found the setting to sooth my savage soul a marsh on Lake Pontchartrain in south Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina gave Louisiana a nervous breakdown, our earthly Eden was erased.
We were seriously downsized. Time to hit the open road, footloose and family- free. We traveled the southern United States in an RV for nine months. Every evening a different natural-setting campground welcomed us home. We had no neighbors, but kept in frequent communication with our family and friends. We also spent weeks at a time in the New Orleans area, assisting our loved ones left digging through the lost cities of Louisiana.
I vowed never to try settling down again. But Richard, who had grown up in a rural agricultural environment, had different ideas. He wanted a home above sea level. We bought eight and a half acres at sixteen hundred feet elevation, with a house and two creeks, in a cradle of trees, in the Cherokee National Forest.
I’m now trying to acclimate to the rhythms of nature in the mountains and the pace of the people of the land. There’s a song with the lyrics “I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.” I have been to me, but I kept trying to add more and more to me. I now think that paradise is where we find it. I’ve decided to savor the moment and get comfortable with me – whoever I may be.
Very stable Coker Creek seems to be a good place to begin.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Back to the Big City
While we do dearly love many things about living in Coker Creek, we’re mighty glad that we’re within two hours of three major metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Knoxville and Chattanooga. In these parts, tastes in food and faith tend toward the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. Ethnic foods are at least an hour’s drive from us, whether at a grocery store or a restaurant. Access to emergency medical services is reliant on personal transportation for a considerable distance, ambulances, and helicopter air lift. Controversy is discouraged, as is attention-getting behavior. How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve lived in New Orleans?
With the choice of three cities from which to choose our extension of hometown, it was a no-brainer for us to choose Atlanta. I had lived for ten years in the greater Atlanta area, and still have several very good friends there. My daughter and her family live, work, and go to school in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta. And Atlanta is a multi-cultural city with many choices for music, theatre, grocery stores, and restaurants.
Richard gets his post-transplant care from Emory and his medications from the V.A., within a couple of miles of each other in the Atlanta area. We enjoy combining these visits for medical care with socializing. This week, we went to dinner and a play with Holly and Don. The dinner was very tasty at Simpatico on the Marietta Square, and the play The Savannah Disputation was worth a trip in itself.
Coming from very Roman Catholic New Orleans, and living now in the heart of the Bible Belt, I’ve struggled mightily with how to come to peace with the disconnect between my upbringing and my surroundings. The play was a humorous look at how little sense, and how much damage so much of the religious controversy makes. It was a good way to reframe my discomfort.
I have to be honest; Coker Creek is pretty progressive about their Christianity. There are eleven churches in this little hamlet of less than one thousand people. All but one of the pastors is a part-time preacher, with some preaching at more than one church to more than one denomination on a given Sunday. When I asked Mamie about this, she replied, “Well, it’s all one Bible.”
After about twenty-four hours in the city, we were ready to head home. You know you’re not in Atlanta anymore when you get to Pickens County, Georgia whose claim to fame is that it’s the “Marble Capital of Georgia”. Next, you’ll hit Gilmer County, the Apple Capital. We see a lot of chicken trucks coming out of Ellijay, but I think Gainesville, Georgia is the official chicken capital.
Also on the way back from Georgia, you pass Priest Recycling – What do they turn priests into? And don’t miss Wildseed Stone Casting where you can procure you very own life-sized concrete (or is it cement?) hog. It’s after we exit the many lane highways onto two-lane roads in Tennessee that we really see the best sights, the flowers and the forest. Even though only two days have passed since my last trip from Atlanta, the predominant bloom had changed from thistle to goldenrod.
With the choice of three cities from which to choose our extension of hometown, it was a no-brainer for us to choose Atlanta. I had lived for ten years in the greater Atlanta area, and still have several very good friends there. My daughter and her family live, work, and go to school in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta. And Atlanta is a multi-cultural city with many choices for music, theatre, grocery stores, and restaurants.
Richard gets his post-transplant care from Emory and his medications from the V.A., within a couple of miles of each other in the Atlanta area. We enjoy combining these visits for medical care with socializing. This week, we went to dinner and a play with Holly and Don. The dinner was very tasty at Simpatico on the Marietta Square, and the play The Savannah Disputation was worth a trip in itself.
Coming from very Roman Catholic New Orleans, and living now in the heart of the Bible Belt, I’ve struggled mightily with how to come to peace with the disconnect between my upbringing and my surroundings. The play was a humorous look at how little sense, and how much damage so much of the religious controversy makes. It was a good way to reframe my discomfort.
I have to be honest; Coker Creek is pretty progressive about their Christianity. There are eleven churches in this little hamlet of less than one thousand people. All but one of the pastors is a part-time preacher, with some preaching at more than one church to more than one denomination on a given Sunday. When I asked Mamie about this, she replied, “Well, it’s all one Bible.”
After about twenty-four hours in the city, we were ready to head home. You know you’re not in Atlanta anymore when you get to Pickens County, Georgia whose claim to fame is that it’s the “Marble Capital of Georgia”. Next, you’ll hit Gilmer County, the Apple Capital. We see a lot of chicken trucks coming out of Ellijay, but I think Gainesville, Georgia is the official chicken capital.
Also on the way back from Georgia, you pass Priest Recycling – What do they turn priests into? And don’t miss Wildseed Stone Casting where you can procure you very own life-sized concrete (or is it cement?) hog. It’s after we exit the many lane highways onto two-lane roads in Tennessee that we really see the best sights, the flowers and the forest. Even though only two days have passed since my last trip from Atlanta, the predominant bloom had changed from thistle to goldenrod.
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