Coker Creek Creations

Richard and I have long dreamed of him producing for sale copies of the best toy we ever had, which was made by Richard. The original was taken by the mermaids when our house was washed into Lake Pontchartrain in Hurricane Katrina. We have the beginnings of a new set that was saved by virtue of being in the attic waiting for finishing when Katrina came through. Our Christmas decorations and this box of sticks were all that remained of our home. Perhaps we’ll make this dream come true – finish the box of sticks, make more sets, and hit the road with a craft caravan. Richard could demonstrate his wonderful toy while I chat up the customers and make the sales.

I’ve worked trade fares, but this is my first craft fare. I named my publishing company “Coker Creek Creations” with the idea that I could eventually branch out to representing various Coker Creek craftspeople. I toyed with the idea of selling some of my kitchen crafts, like spiced pecans, at this year’s festival, but with all the bereavement work the prospect became daunting. I decided to do this first foray into festivals on the KISS principle. In this case, keeping it simple means focusing on Jack’s book.

Jack and I are excited, not only about selling his books at the Autumn Gold Festival this week-end, but The Monroe County Buzz has offered us a spot in their fourth annual Buzz Fest next week-end. This was precipitated by Adam asking me about the bridge, and me contacting Mark Boring, Jack’s friend with The Buzz. More blog blessings…

My blog following nephew, Albert, has suggested that I sell my wares online. He’s a really smart guy -- in high school and college simultaneously. He’s also doing apprenticeships in computer work. Maybe he can take on designing and maintaining my business website as a student project. And his big brother, who has experience in craft fairs, could set us up with some of the better fairs in places we’d like to visit – or, at least, advise us on what to do and what to avoid on the gypsy vendor circuit. And maybe my best literary friends could continue to edit the books that we publish. And maybe we’ll make enough money to fix our RV, build a new kitchen, and buy a new van – but probably not all this week-end.

Oh, yeah! I said I’d keep it simple.

The first day of the festival, we had rain, followed by fog, followed by mud -- Not an auspicious start to our craft fair careers. We were blessed by a good spot at the front of the fairgrounds (Coker Creek Village Retreat Center), and the offer to share the Ruritan’s tent. With three umbrellas and a couple of towels, we were able to keep our books dry, but we were afraid that no one other than fellow vendors would brave this wet weather.

The Ruritan’s reputation for putting on a good festival saved the day. After forty years of putting on this celebration, they’re like the Postal Service motto – “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor dark of night”…will keep the festival from raising funds for community outreach programs. Ralph Murphy and Ken Dalton have been festival organizers since its first year when they actually had snow and ice during festival week-end. They didn’t miss a beat this year, beginning with a beautiful tribute to Frank complete with Ralph's wife Wanda Murphy’s fabulous voice soaring to the heavens with the Star Spangled Banner to open the festivities.

I believe Frank was proud. May he rest in the knowledge that his good works live on.

Blessings from Blogging

A nephew from whom I’ve heard little over the years, his big brother, and a niece from whom I rarely hear have begun commenting on my blogs. This is great fun for me. I would never have guessed that people my children’s ages would be any more interested in what I had to say than my own children seem to be. Of course my own children have probably already heard everything I have to say.

When they used to stop me in the middle of a “mama meltdown” with comments that I had already given them that lecture, I’d tell them that once they could repeat the lectures verbatim, I’d stop giving that lecture. I threatened to write down and number all my rants so they could memorize them by number. Then I could save my breath and their ears by just yelling their names and a number. Maybe my blog is like that, but thankfully some people who haven’t been privy to my rants seem to be reading the entries.

I got a call about my latest blog entry from our local cop friend, Adam. First, he gave me a bit of good advice. Adam asked if I had a navigation system for finding my way to and back from all my adventures. I assured him that I’d never get back to the holler if I didn’t, so he told me the dangers of having the actual directions to your front door saved as “home” on your GPS. I had one of those “Duh!” moments after he brought it up.

How many times have I given my car over to a valet (not in Coker Creek, mind you), being very careful not to hand over any key other than the key to the ignition. I knew from a bad experience many years ago that miscreants can cross reference your license plate number to your name and address. I sure didn’t want strangers making copies of my house keys and using them to break into my house -- that they'd found thanks to my license plate. And here I’ve been leaving my GPS with my address and complete instructions for finding our holler. It won’t get you to our front door, but close. Even GPS has limits when dealing with finding things in the forest.

Adam programs a random address near his home into his navigation system. He figures that he can find his house without help from there. And since nobody with an ounce of sense would try to drive these roads drunk, this would probably work for most of us.

Before handing the phone to his wife, Adam questioned me about the information I had posted on my blog about Jack’s bridge. Several years ago, an effort had been underway to take a large portion of Jack’s land to build a million dollar plus bridge at the same location. Since only thirteen cars cross that bridge on a given day and there are alternate routes to everywhere the bridge connects, the locals protested enough to squelch the pork barrel project – they thought. I guess the elected officials in the area have a new chunk of stimulus change to spend and decided this was a good way to create local jobs.

An owner of a local paper, The Monroe County Buzz, who had championed Jack’s first bridge battle subsequently became a fan of Jack’s stories. I told Adam I’d contact The Buzz. Then he gave the phone to “Mrs. Mott” who swears that Adam doesn’t know her first name since he alternately calls her “Rabbit” and “Mrs. Mott.”

Josie is another of Coker Creek’s multi-talented artists. My niece, Nikki, is the proud owner of a sock monkey quilt created by her. Josie is also an avid nature photographer interested in publishing her work. We spoke a bit about Jack’s sweet potatoes, his way of life, and the publication of his book -- which led her to offer to introduce me to the owner of a bookstore about an hour’s drive from here.

People can continue to talk about the power of the press. I’m excited about the blessings I’ve received from my blog.

Community Concern

The trees are turning just in time for the Autumn Gold Festival. Jack and I took a walk to his lower garden, and for the first time I saw hazelnuts still in their flowers. What beautiful little bouquets they are! Pale green eyelet frills, edged in dusty rust, enfold the nuts containing the precious edible morsels of nutmeat. Unfortunately, the squirrels get to most of them before we even know the nuts are there.

Jack planted corn three different times this year. Because we haven’t had our first frost, we’re still eating fresh-roasted corn. Jack mostly eats it raw, unless we cook it and bring it to him. Jack eats all his vegetables raw because he has things he’d rather do with him time than cook. I think all of his preferred activities, with the exception of writing, occur outdoors, and he’d have to be inside to cook.

Jack says that Coker Creek (the hamlet, not the creek)used to be awash in corn. He even wrote a story about how important corn was in Coker Creek back when it was the main source of food for livestock and bread, and families lived off their land. This story is where I learned about grated bread (similar to corn pudding).

Unfortunately, Jack’s corn growing and our nature walks will be severely curtailed next year because the department of transportation is going to tear out the bridge over Coker Creek that separates Jack’s home and kitchen garden from the lower garden he works with his brother Charles. By the time the bridge is replaced, I’m afraid Jack will have lost a good source of his income. The lower garden is where he raises his coveted sweet potatoes. People travel from all over the county to purchase Jack’s potatoes. I guess I’ll have to get better at marketing Jack’s book to replace his loss.

We’re going to have a reading corner at the Autumn Gold Festival where Jack will read from, autograph, and sell his book. The one time Jack went to a school and read from his work, the children were enthralled. Jack, who tends to be extremely shy, surprised himself with how much he enjoyed the endeavor. The Ruritans will receive a portion of the sales price for each book in Frank’s memory, just as the school received a donation for each book we sold there. We’re hoping the Autumn Gold Festival will become an annual marketing tool for us.

Coker Creek Village is a fabulous retreat center on the banks of Coker Creek, and is the site of the Gold Festival. Sadly, the funeral for a daughter of the owner of the facility is being held on the eve of this year’s festival. The community is banding together to provide food for the bereaved mother to serve her relations visiting from out-of-town. I’m honored to be bringing turnip greens from Mamie’s garden and maque chou made with corn and banana peppers grown by Jack and tomatoes grown by Mamie and Richard.

That’s what I call community concern.

Riverside Ramble

Mamie was invited to be interviewed in Chattanooga by Marcia Kling of Newschannel9 for a mid-day television program geared to the over-fifty crowd. The topic was to be Mamie’s life in Coker Creek and the Autumn Gold Festival, organized for forty years by Mamie’s son, Frank. When Mamie’s back went out, I lined up Frank’s cousin’s wife, Wanda, as an alternate. When Frank died, we were down to the wire on Marcia finalizing her program, and Wanda felt that she just couldn’t go through with the interview. The Ruritans asked me to represent them on Marcia’s show. Talk about life (and death) happening while we’re making other plans...

I hated to miss the opportunity to publicize Frank’s pet project. So, being the “wing it” queen, and quite a show-off, of course I agreed. I costumed myself in my denim skirt and fall festival vest, put on my cowboy boots, and headed to Chattanooga.

One of the most beautiful drives in North America has to be the drive between Coker Creek and Chattanooga. After passing through the tunnel of greens on Tennessee Highway 68, and along the Hiwassee River, Federal Highway 64 takes you past the Ocoee River rapids and through a ribbon of rock on one side and the river on the other. There are hairpin turns all along the route, making the drive into quite an adventure. I did pass a car that had run off the road. No one was hurt, but it was a sobering reminder that it’s very difficult to concentrate on driving when surrounded by such bodacious beauty.

I was reminded of my brother Gregory’s joy in driving our mountain roads, realizing that our automobiles have more of a tendency to stay on the road than run off the edge because we “bank” our highways in the United States. He says that this is not the case in Austria, where he lives. It must be very impressive for Greg to have pointed it out to us.

If you ever want to understand the song “America the Beautiful”, you really have to visit America’s protected natural environments. Here, in the Cherokee National Forest, you have miles and miles of God’s Country with acres of wildflowers clinging to cliffs of slate gray sedimentary rock. The rivers along the way vary from still, rocky mudflats along the lower Hiwassee to class five rapids at the site of the 1996 whitewater events on the Ocoee River.

Richard and I have been very fortunate to have seen many parts of our fabulously beautiful country – many of our travels being when I had the post-Hurricane Katrina fantasy of spending the rest of our rootless lives in an RV. We’ve experienced the “Spacious Skies” of Montana, and “Amber Waves of Grain” in Southern Illinios. I’ll never forget the first time I spied the “Purple-Mountained Majesty” of the Rockies as a six-year-old looking out a train window enroute to my Uncle Edgar’s house in Colorado. Several years later, upon hearing “America the Beautiful” for the first time, it gave me chills to realize that I had seen, first-hand the “purple-mountained majesties” of the song.

Not to belabor the love songs to America theme, but Richard and I spent time in California and I’ve been to the New York Islands. We are still hoping to see the redwood forests, and have loved life in the gulfstream waters. We really believe that “this land is made for you and me” and are so grateful that our country’s leaders have protected so much of it for our recreation, appreciation, and awe.

We’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite place. But living in a holler, in the mountains of Southeastern Tennessee, at the edge of the Cherokee National Forest, is like being rocked in the bosom of Mother Earth.

Blood Brothers

Over fifteen hundred people, from infants-in-arms to the contemporaries of his almost-ninety-year-old mother, stood in the rain for up to three hours to pay our respects to Frank’s family. When you consider that the total population of Coker Creek is estimated to be less than three thousand, it puts these numbers into perspective. People from all over East Tennessee came to say good-bye to Frank and offer love and help to his family.

After we buried Frank, we ate lunch with many of the people we’ve met since moving to Coker Creek. These mountain folk sure can cook. You never saw such an array of locally grown vegetables on one buffet table. Frank sure would have enjoyed it.

When I mentioned to Frank’s cousin, Ralph, that I knew he and Frank were like brothers, he responded, “No, we were brothers.” He then pulled up his sleeve, and displayed a scar on his wrist. When he and Frank were twelve years old, they had become blood brothers by cutting themselves in identical places and mingling their blood. Isn’t it funny that, even though they shared blood as first cousins, they felt it necessary to seal their bond with an observable physical sharing of blood?
My friend Elaine and I shared a similar ritual when we were fourteen years old. Sometimes it’s important to be able to choose the blood that you’ll defend to the death.

Ralph went on to explain that even though he and Frank fought incessantly, an hour after every fight they’d be begging to spend the night at each other’s houses. He recounted the almost disaster that put a stop to the rock throwing part of their fights. It seems that a rock thrown by Ralph ricocheted off a stone on the ground and sailed directly into Frank’s eye. Frank had to wear an eye patch for several weeks, but his sight was saved. Ralph said they never “rocked each other again”. I often marvel that any of our sons make it to manhood.

My baby brother Albert used to fight incessantly with our next door neighbor, Bert. When Albert was about six years old, I asked him who his best friend was. “Bert LeBlanc,” he answered. “How could Bert be your best friend? Y’all fight all the time,” was my reply. “Well, that’s why he’s my best friend. He’s the only one who’ll fight with me.” -- This from a boy who had three older brothers, and four older, and one younger sister. Maybe that is the true test of friendship: Caring enough to help each other build strength through conflict and reconciliation.

Maybe it’s like the old song goes, “You always hurt the one you love.”

Curious About Cobwebs

We’re expecting leaf-peeper company this month, so it’s time for me to dust off the old Webster and catch me some cobwebs. Have you ever asked yourself why cobwebs are called “cobwebs”? What is a cob, and why do they need webs? And why are they so closely associated with fall and Halloween?

Our whole house has sprouted cobwebs. We also are bombarded all night with black walnuts going bump in the night. Add the howling of woodland wildlife in our surrounding forest, and we could open up as Haunted House in the Holler.

I looked up the word “cobweb” and found that it comes from the short form of Old English atorcoppe (spider) plus web. As for why we associate them with fall, I have a couple of theories: First, after a full month of doing nothing but harvesting, cooking, and canning, the prospect of catching up on neglected housework is pretty horrifying.

My second theory is that fall was a time of fear when there were no antibiotics for treating pneumonia, tuberculosis, flu, and other potentially deadly wet winter diseases. And the nasty snakebites that were a worry in the warmer months were now replaced by fear of your children being bitten by eensy weensy (and some not so eensy weensy) spiders. There was also the ever-present danger that the foods preserved in summer would either explode or freeze, or wouldn’t last until the first harvest in the spring. Additionally, uncontrollable house fires and rats had a nasty way of depleting resources. Not to mention that being cooped up with your husband indoors all winter could very likely lead to more mouths to feed nine months hence. What was a mother to do?

She could whip out her worry (or rosary) beads and pray. She could go on a wild rat watch and killing spree. She could make more quilts so as not to have to burn a fire while her family slept. She could get into a frenzy of cleaning, trying to keep ahead of the “cobs” and their killing grounds. And she could send her husband into the woods to hunt bear and boar, and out to the woodshed to cut firewood. These things were necessary to feed her family, and kept husband from being under foot and too much with her. I’ve heard a lot of retired women say that they married their husbands for better or worse, but not for lunch. This is probably also from the Old English.

It’s no wonder women got tired of homeschooling their young. Who had time and energy for teaching all those survival skills while trying to entertain a houseful of housebound children all winter, at the same time as fighting disease? It must have been a dad that invented Halloween to make light of all the fears that his household held in fall. And you know how dads like to get the youngsters all riled up just when your whack-a-mole game of calming them seems to be winnable. Telling ghost stories and making scary noises was so much more fun than being given a broom to clean those nasty cobwebs.

Legends, Laughter, and Love

The day after Frank died, the sky was a gray pall over Coker Creek. It drizzled most of the day. It seemed that Coker Creek was crying.

Frank was everywhere in his beloved home town. He was a charter member of the Ruritans, and seemed to spearhead every event in which Ruritans participated: Monroe County Food Bank, Monroe County Senior Citizens, Monroe County Rescue Squad, Monroe County Beautiful, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Tellico High Senior Scholarship Fund, Coker Creek Elementary School, and Coker Creek Volunteer Fire Department, to name a few.

He was landlord for the strip center that was truly the center of Coker Creek, and that is locally referred to as “Murphy Corner”. Any day would find him chatting with his tenants and loading the various soda machines outside of the businesses. Frank must have had a sixth sense about his mama. More times than not, when Richard or I would be in Mamie’s garden, Frank would show up to check on things and offer a bit of teasing or advice.

Everybody who moved to Coker Creek was warmly welcomed by Frank. He helped people feel at home by helping them find in Coker Creek whatever interested them. If you were into community service work, he’d introduce you to Ruritans. If you loved cruising the mountains on your motorcycle, he’d lead you on his bike to the best scenery and around the best curves. If you were a US military veteran, he'd make sure that you were invited to the Veterans Day breakfast at Tellico High School. When Richard and I wanted Frank’s mama, Mamie, to teach us gardening, Frank plowed and tilled the garden plots for us. I wanted to write about Coker Creek; Frank set up interviews for me.

Frank did have some non-traditional solutions to everyday problems. He and his wife, Greta, had several pear trees in their front yard which produced more pears than any one family could possibly use. Frank had little patience for tedious tasks. So, when Greta gave him the job of peeling pears, his solution was to rev up his lathe. He loved laughing at himself recounting the mess this made of his workshop.

Frank, I think, lived by the biblical command to leave ten percent of your fields to be harvested by the needy. Once he and Greta canned all the pears for their family’s use, anyone was welcome to the surplus. He wouldn’t pick the pears for you, but you could harvest all you wanted. And pick them we did.

Frank had a huge appetite for all the good in life. When asked about the details of any of the many meetings he attended, he’d always begin with descriptions of the food served. His insulin-dependent diabetes didn’t diminish his appetite or his sweet tooth. He loved the jellies, jams, chutneys, pies, and carrot cakes that Greta, Mamie and I shared with him -- Probably loving them all the more because he appreciated the work that went into the growing, harvesting, and preparing of these delicacies.

We’ll all miss Frank’s legends, laughter, and love.